Barnstable Sells on the East End

TOWER SITE CALENDAR 2011 - IT'S HERE!

The production process was a little more complex than usual for Tower Site Calendar 2011, but at long last we're shipping the tenth installment in what's become an annual radio tradition.

The new calendar is now back from the printer, complete with more than a dozen exciting new images including that nifty cover shot of Mount Beacon, N.Y.

And if you order now, you'll have the 2010 calendar in your hands long before the holiday rush!

But wait - there's more! We now have a small supply of the new FM Atlas, 21st edition, as well as a limited supply of Tower Site Calendar 2010 as well - plus the signed, limited-edition version of the 2011 calendar and much more in the fybush.com store!

We've got special discounts for bulk orders, too - they make great gifts for your business colleagues or friends...

We are offering "calendar bouquets" of our old editions. It's a great way to buy a bunch of beautiful tower pinups at once! For just $16, you can get the 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2009 calendars! (Special packaging available on request.)

And for three days only (now through Wednesday, October 20 at 11:59 p.m. PDT) we have a Cookies and Calendars special! Buy a box of cookies with your calendar and get $1 off your next Fybush.com purchase! For more details, please e-mail Mrs. NERW at lisa@fybush.com.

Order now at the fybush.com Store!

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Yup, we've been doing this a long time now, and so we're digging back into the vaults for a look at what NERW was covering one, five, ten and - where available - fifteen years ago this week, or thereabouts. Note that the column appeared on an erratic schedule in its earliest years as "New England Radio Watch," and didn't go to a regular weekly schedule until 1997.

October 19, 2009 -

• *Univision Radio relaunched its NEW YORK FM presence Thursday morning, adopting new call letters and a new slogan to go with its $33.5 million move from its former FM home, "La Kalle" WCAA (105.9 Newark), to the more powerful signal on 96.3 that was long home to WQXR. As we told you last week, the WCAA calls made a temporary move down the dial to 96.3 on the night of October 8, when WQXR moved up to 105.9 under the ownership of public broadcaster WNYC. But the "La Kalle" slogan vanished in the move, and Univision's frequent on-air exhortations to "mark your calendar with an X on October 15 at 6 AM" made it clear that something different was coming to the 96.3 frequency.
• And as NERW first reported last week, that "something different" includes the calls WXNY - and a new slogan, "X96.3, La Mezcla de New York." That translates roughly as "The Mix of New York," and it comes with a format that's not far different from the old "La Kalle" on 105.9. We're not experts on the nuances of Spanish-language radio, but it seems to be described best as some mixture of "Spanish Tropical" and "rhythmic AC," with some English-language dance tracks in there as part of the playlist, and with DJ banter that's largely, but not entirely, in Spanish. So far, the new "X96.3" appears to be running jockless, except for the station's star personality, the Luis Jimenez morning show.
• Up north, St. Lawrence University's North Country Public Radio has been granted a construction permit for a full-power signal in Lake Placid, winning out over competing applications from Albany's WAMC and the Northeast Gospel Network. (As we reported back in December 2007, WAMC had agreed to drop its Lake Placid application in favor of NCPR.) The new 91.7 signal will replace NCPR's present translator in Lake Placid, W219AK, which will apply to move to a new frequency and relay WAMC. And NCPR has signed on another new signal: WXLS (88.3 Tupper Lake) replaces a translator on 91.7 in that mountain community.
• Here in Rochester, we're mourning the loss of one of the original program hosts from the earliest days of WXXI-FM (91.5). Richard Gladwell was a part of the station almost from its start in late 1974, and his weekend choral music show, "With Heart and Voice," continues to be offered to public radio stations nationwide. Gladwell had been diagnosed with brain cancer in June, and he died peacefully with family at his side at his Rochester home on Thursday, just short of his 89th birthday.
• In MASSACHUSETTS, the deal to transfer classical WCRB-FM (99.5 Lowell) from Nassau to the WGBH Educational Foundation is moving forward. The contract for the $14 million sale is now at the FCC awaiting approval, and we noted a couple of unusual items as we read through it: it obligates WGBH to buy $100,000 of advertising on WCRB or other Nassau stations during the period before closing - and it includes a clause we'd never seen in a sale contract before, obligating Nassau to transfer WCRB's Facebook and Twitter accounts to WGBH. (That clause, presumably, will soon become a standard feature of sale contracts.)
• It's been a bad year for broadcast history in CONNECTICUT, where two venerable TV studio buildings have fallen to the wrecking ball in the space of just a few months. The latest demolition is in West Hartford, at the 1953-vintage studios of NBC's WVIT (Channel 30). The station is now settled in at its modern new home just behind the old studios off I-84 and New Britain Avenue, and last week its old digs were reduced to rubble.
• One of the most enduring faces of TV news in VERMONT retired from the anchor desk last week. Marselis Parsons handed off his news director duties at WCAX-TV (Channel 3) to Anson Tebbetts in May, and on Thursday he signed off WCAX's 6 PM newscast for the last time, inviting viewers to watch his successor, Darren Perron. Parsons started at Channel 3 as a reporter in 1967, and had been news director and evening anchor since 1984 - and we suspect both of those are, and will probably forever be, all-time longevity records in the region. In his retirement, Parsons will continue to file occasional stories from around Vermont for WCAX - and in the meantime, the station has put up a web page featuring all the video tributes it's been offering for the longtime face of its news department.

October 17, 2005 -

• One of RHODE ISLAND's most experienced and talented TV reporters died unexpectedly early Wednesday morning (Oct. 12) at his Cape Cod home. Jack White's journalism career began at the Newport Daily News in 1969 and soon took him to the Providence Journal, where he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1974 for his reporting that discovered President Nixon had cheated on his taxes. (It was that story, published in October 1973, that led Nixon to make his "I am not a crook" speech.)
• White moved to television in 1979, working on the "I-Team" at Boston's WBZ-TV (Channel 4). He returned to newspapers at the Cape Cod Times two years later, then joined WPRI (Channel 12) in 1985 as the station's chief investigative reporter, a position he would hold for two decades. White's tenure at WPRI included two Emmys, one for a 1992 report on fugitive banker Joseph Mollicone and one just this year for his reporting on Providence city officials who violated the city's residency requirement. White is survived by his wife, Beth, three sons, a daughter and five grandchildren. He was 63. WPRI will broadcast a special tribute, "Remembering Jack White," Monday night at 7.
• Meanwhile in the Ocean State, the heavy rains late last week silenced at least one radio station. WDDZ (550 Pawtucket) had enough water at its site in the floodplain of the Blackstone River to knock the Radio Disney station off the air Friday. As we go to press Sunday night, chief engineer Craig Healy reports that the water level is still above the base insulators of the towers, which means the station will remain off at least into Monday morning.
• WRIB (1220 Providence) is getting a new owner, as Carter Broadcasting sells the religious/Spanish outlet to Faith Christian Center, Inc. for $1.9 million. The deal will leave Carter with WROL (730 Chicopee) and WCRN (830 Worcester) in Massachusetts.
• It's farewell time for one of NEW HAMPSHIRE's best-known broadcasters. After a decade and a half transforming New Hampshire Public Radio from a sleepy, small-town station into a nationally respected statewide network, Mark Handley has departed his post at the helm of the network. Sometime in the next few days, Mark and his wife Judy will head out of Boston Harbor in their 42-foot sailboat, "Windbird," to spend the next two years circumnavigating the globe.
• There's change afoot on the religious radio dial in central MAINE, as WMDR (1340 Augusta) prepares to move its "Kids Radio" programming to the new WMDR-FM (88.9 Oakland), which will take on a more teen-focused, music-heavy approach when it signs on as "Zap 88.9" soon. The AM signal will flip to a combination of southern gospel and country as "God's Country AM 1340."
• In New York City, the story was all about Clear Channel's latest payola problems, which apparently led to the abrupt ouster of two of the company's PDs last week - one of them Michael Saunders of WWPR (105.1). Clear Channel's VP/Urban Programming Doc Wynter is handling PD chores at Power 105 for now, and of course the company's keeping as quiet as it can about it all.
• "They took the crosstown bus." Confused by that? So were radio listeners across the state, who heard that cryptic message one afternoon last week during an Amber Alert EAS activation from the state's emergency management office. The message was apparently part of a test that was transmitted by mistake, and it aired on numerous stations across the state.
• Heading up to the Hudson Valley, Sunrise Broadcasting is one step closer - perhaps - to its goal of getting back on the air at 1200 on the AM dial. You might recall that Sunrise's WGNY in Newburgh spent a few years operating at 1200 a decade or so ago, but the station lost its bid to make the move permanent and was forced back to its original, lower-powered facility at 1220, where it remains today. In the meantime, Sunrise obtained a construction permit for 1200 in Kingston, which would have shared the site of WGHQ (920) there, using the calls WJGK. That CP was never built, and Sunrise then applied instead for 1200 in Highland, near Poughkeepsie and closer to the population center of the mid-Hudson region. That CP was granted last week, and one of the conditions was the surrender of the never-built Kingston CP. So WJGK Kingston gets added to the "never-were" pile of unbuilt New York AMs, and now Sunrise gets to try to build five towers along Route 9W in Highland. If it gets built, the new 1200 would run 4700 watts day, 1000 watts night, with most of its power getting directed northeast towards Poughkeepsie. (2010 update: It never got built.)
• There's a format change on the way this week in central NEW JERSEY, where the oldies simulcast of WMTR (1250 Morristown) will disappear from Greater Media's WWTR (1170 Bridgewater) in favor of EBC Radio's Indian/South Asian programming. EBC had been leasing Multicultural Broadcasting's WTTM (1680 Princeton) for its broadcasts, but the WWTR signal will put it a little closer to the base of South Asian listeners in the Edison area. WTTM, meanwhile, will flip back to ESPN Radio sports programming, or so we hear.
• The big story out of PENNSYLVANIA this week is Nassau's sale of its Lehigh Valley/Poconos cluster to the growing Access.1 group. The stations in the group include some of Nassau's earliest acquisitions - in the Poconos, oldies duo WVPO (840 Stroudsburg)/WPLY (960 Mount Pocono) and classic hits WSBG (93.5 Stroudsburg), and in the Lehigh Valley, sports duo WEEX (1230 Easton)/WTKZ (1320 Allentown), classic hits "Hawk" WODE (99.9 Easton) and soft AC "Lite 107" WWYY (107.1 Belvidere NJ). No purchase price has been announced for the deal, which will put the stations under common ownership with WWRL (1600 New York) and Access.1's cluster of stations in the Atlantic City area.

October 16, 2000 -

• Radio in the Upper Valley area of NEW HAMPSHIRE has seen plenty of new clusters in the last few years. But the big national groups haven't made the trek up I-93...until now. Clear Channel is paying Bob and Cheryl Frisch $11 million for their four-station group, based in Lebanon. Heritage news-talker WTSL (1400 Hanover) is the oldest station in the group, accompanied by hot AC WGXL (92.3 Hanover), classic rock WVRR (101.7 Newport), and ratings-leading country "Kix," WXXK (100.5 Lebanon). The usual "no staff or format changes are planned" line accompanies the sale, but rumors are already flying about the possibility of Clear Channel's news-talk WGIR Manchester and rocker WGIR-FM Manchester providing programming to WTSL and WVRR an hour away. Stay tuned...
• Just across the river in VERMONT, Family Broadcasting is selling WGLV (104.3 Hartford), as first rumored here months ago (NERW, 5/19/2000). The buyer? "Great Northern Radio," aka the Vox group, which already operates in the market with sports combo WNHV (910 White River Junction) and WTSV (1230 Claremont), soft AC WWSH (95.3 White River Junction), and rocker WHDQ (106.1 Claremont). We hear WGLV will simulcast WNHV/WTSV for six weeks or so, followed by a "new format" under the WWOD calls. (Hmm..."O-D" -- whatever could THAT be?)
• Vox launched another "new" station in the Green Mountain State this week, moving WWFY (100.9) from a little class A in Middlebury to a big signal licensed to Berlin. Now known as "Froggy 100.9, Jumpin' Country," WWFY is targeting the Barre-Montpelier area. Jim Severance is the PD (and afternoon guy), with Steve Boswell from Waterbury's WDEV doing mornings as "J.D. Green," Michelle Drury middays as "Mickey Hopper," the syndicated Lia show in evenings, and Tim Martin overnight as "Tad Pole." Cute...real cute.
• The big news from MASSACHUSETTS was the $47.5 million sale of Worcester's Univision affiliate, WUNI (Channel 27). The station becomes the 18th Univision affiliate owned by Entravision, and the company's first in New England. NERW wonders if Entravision might try to expand its growing Spanish-language radio group our way as well...
• The "Score" sports simulcast in central MAINE has lost two of its many stations, as Cumulus flips WCME (96.7 Boothbay Harbor) to a simulcast of oldies WABK (104.3 Gardiner)..and our ears up there are hearing WHQO (107.9 Skowhegan) running a 15-minute loop of, of all things, hip-hop music.
• Just last week, we told you that Aurora Broadcasting wouldn't be selling its cluster in Connecticut and NEW YORK to Nassau after all. This week, Aurora showed just how much it's changing gears, agreeing to pay $55 million for Rob Dyson's Crystal group in the Hudson Valley.
• Aurora's already strong in the southern part of the valley, with nine stations stretching from Bridgeport into Westchester County. The Crystal purchase adds nine more signals in the northern part of the valley, from Middletown and Poughkeepsie up to Kingston. They are:
• * Oldies WCZX (97.7 Hyde Park) and WZAD (97.3 Wurtsboro)
  * Sports WEOK (1390 Poughkeepsie) and WALL (1340 Middletown)
  * Modern AC WRRV (92.7 Middletown) and WRRB (96.9 Arlington)
  * Rocker WPDH (101.5 Poughkeepsie) and WPDA (106.1 Jeffersonville)
  * Full-service WKNY (1490 Kingston)
• This sale, combined with Clear Channel's purchases in the valley earlier in the year (NERW 5/6/2000), mean that just about every major signal between Westchester and Albany will end the year under new ownership.
• One bit of news from CANADA, and it comes to us through North Country correspondent Mike Roach: CJET (630) in Smiths Falls, Ontario has turned on its new FM signal at 92.3. Mike reports that "Country 92" began running a test loop of country music Saturday morning (10/14), which means the AM should be dark within a few months. (NERW's suddenly very glad that we made it up to Smiths Falls over the summer, and not just for the Hershey Canada factory tour!)

New England Radio Watch, October 14 & 19, 1995

• Boston is getting its first FM triopoly, as soon as Congress approves the rule change to allow it (apparently at this point it's "when" and not "if," alas). Fresh from its purchase
  of Pyramid Broadcasting (locally, CHurban WJMN-94.5, CHR WXKS-107.9, and satellite-standards WXKS-1430), Evergreen has signed a deal to buy country WKLB-105.7 from Fairbanks Broadcasting. WKLB was the last stand-alone class B FM left available for purchase in the Boston area. CBS's WODS-103.3 is a stand-alone for now, but will be paired with Westinghouse's WBZ-1030 when that deal closes. And Charles River Broadcasting's classical WCRB-102.5 is a stand-alone class B, but is not legally available for purchase.
• So what does it all mean? WKLB has been locked in a brutal format war with Greater Media's WBCS 96.9 since April, 1993. Perhaps Evergreen will withdraw WKLB from the country wars and go after someone else, though just about every known
  format is covered in the market already.
• Not included in the (reportedly $30 million) deal is Fairbanks' talker, WKOX 1200 Framingham. The hot rumor around town has WKOX joining the American Radio Systems lineup (talker WRKO-680, sports WEEI-850, 70s WEGQ-93.7, and hot AC WBMX-98.5) as soon as triopoly is approved. In terms of major players, here's how Boston now breaks down, in order by Summer '95 12+ market share:
• ARS - 680 WRKO, 850 WEEI, 93.7 WEGQ, 98.5 WBMX
  Evergreen (including WKLB) - 1430 WXKS, 94.5 WJMN, 105.7 WKLB, 107.9
  WXKS
  Infinity - classic rock 100.7 WZLX, modern rock 104.1 WBCN
  Westinghouse/CBS - news/talk 1030 WBZ, oldies 103.3 WODS
  Greater Media - ethnic 1150 WMEX, country 96.9 WBCS, AC 106.7 WMJX
  Granum - AAA 92.9 WBOS, soft AC 99.5 WSSH
• And right there you have EVERY commercial class B FM in town, except for the special case of WCRB, and a few minor rimshotters from 30 or more miles out of town. I wouldn't bet much money on Greater Media or Granum staying independent for long, either.
• The DJ Shuffle Goes On: Ken Shelton, late of WZLX, and before that a veteran of years as midday guy on WBCN, has landed on his feet after being fired from WZLX. Shelton will start as WBOS's morning man November 1, the day his non-compete clause from WZLX expires. And JR, the former morning jock on WJMN, is returning
  to Boston from a brief exile to Texas. He's starting soon on 70s WEGQ "Eagle 93.7."
• A follow-up on Albany's 1540: WPTR is silent tonight. The word from the National Radio Club and "DX News" is that the station will return as religious WDCD on Sunday October 15.
• From the Radio With Pictures world: WMFP-TV 62 Lawrence-Boston (which transmits from downtown Boston and puts almost no signal at all over its city of license) has a new owner. Parent company Shop-At-Home has been sold to home-shopping magnate Lowell Paxson. No programming changes are expected, alas. And WSBK-TV 38, seen on cable throughout New England and parts of
  Canada, has launched its new 10pm newscast, produced by New England Cable News.
• The demolition crews go to work Thursday morning, October 19, on what remains of the old rhombic antenna system of the late WBOS shortwave. WBOS was the shortwave outlet of WBZ, and operated from WBZ's transmitter site at Hull, Massachusetts from about 1940 until shortly after World War Two. The actual antenna wires are long gone, but the telephone poles that supported the antenna
  have been sitting undisturbed in the swamp next to the WBZ towers for half a century. But...all things must pass, and it seems the town of Hull got nervous about these towers falling and hurting someone. So after much political pressure, the poles are being
  removed.