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August 15, 2011

RI Public Radio Rearranges

Stay tuned to our Twitter and Facebook feeds for breaking-news updates as they happen!

*The low end of the FM dial in RHODE ISLAND has been going through a big transition this summer: first came Bryant University's deal with Boston's WGBH to put classical programming on the upgraded signal of WJMF (88.7 Smithfield), then the recent news that the Wheeler School had abruptly terminated its longtime lease of the evening hours on WELH (88.1 Providence) to Brown Student Radio. That move, we were told, was meant to clear the way for a new full-time tenant on WELH, which itself recently upgraded its signal - and now we know how all those pieces come together.

In a filing last week with the FCC, Rhode Island Public Radio revealed that it will soon become the new full-time occupant of Wheeler's WELH, whch will become the new flagship signal for RIPR. The new RIPR will consist (at least initially) of three FM signals: WELH itself, covering Providence, Pawtucket and vicinity with its new 4 kW/135' DA signal from a site in Seekonk, Mass.; RIPR's existing southern Rhode Island FM voice, WRNI-FM (102.7 Narragansett Pier); and to fill some of the gap between those two signals, WCVY (91.5 Coventry), where RIPR recently struck a deal to fill most of the airtime when high school students aren't operating the station. WCVY is also on the upgrade path: it's just filed an application to boost its power from 200 watts, non-directional, to 6 kW DA, with most of that power going west and southwest over rural central Rhode Island.

So what becomes of RIPR's existing flagship signal, WRNI (1290 Providence)? According to RIPR's application, the 10 kW AM signal is going Spanish, providing a full-time home for the Cranston-based Latino Public Radio programming that's been heard during the day on WELH. (The FCC filing last week requested a new main-studio waiver for the WRNI-FM signal in Narragansett Pier; it had been operating as a satellite of WRNI 1290, but will now instead be carrying programming from WELH, which remains licensed to the Wheeler School.)

The net effect of all the summertime changes is probably a positive for most public radio fans in the Ocean State: after decades of tuning to out-of-state signals from Boston and Connecticut and then 13 years of tuning to WRNI on an AM signal, listeners in much of Rhode Island will soon have FM signals carrying both WRNI's news-talk and WGBH's classical service (which used to be audible in Providence until WGBH split its formats in 2009, moving classical from the big WGBH-FM 89.7 signal to WCRB 99.5 north of Boston).

And it's great news for Rhode Island's Hispanic community, which will get a new fulltime outlet on 1290 with a signal potent enough to reach most of the state's Spanish-speaking listeners. When that AM signal leaves the main WRNI service, it may temporarily leave some RIPR listeners without a clear FM choice, but RIPR is working to resolve that issue: it has a 100-watt FM construction permit in Newport, and we'd expect to see translators going in to fill other signal holes (especially in the Woonsocket area) in the months to come.

For fans of college radio, the news is even less positive: Bryant's student-produced WJMF programming, off the air for the summer, will return to the airwaves this fall on WJMF's HD2 channel and on streaming audio, while Brown Student Radio is online-only after being ousted from WELH.

*It's almost anticlimactic after all the buildup it's been getting for the last few months, but "FM News 101.9" is finally a reality in NEW YORK, where Merlin Media's WEMP (101.9) launched its new format on Friday morning after a four-hour test run in the midst of the "FM New" hot AC format that's been running on an interim basis.

At least one of the on-air personalities from "FM New" makes the transition to "FM News": Jerry Barmash at FishbowlNY.com reports that Paul Cavalconte, who's survived previous format changes on 101.9 from smooth jazz WQCD to rock WRXP, stays on the frequency once again as an anchor at "FM News."

Like its sister station in Chicago (WWWN 101.1) that launched two weeks earlier, the initial reviews for "FM News 101.9" have been decidedly mixed: there were frequent moments of on-air technical blunders and anchors sounding unprepared - or so we hear. As with its Chicago sister, there's no streaming (or, indeed, any significant online presence at all) for WEMP, leaving those outside the market to wonder just what Merlin honcho Randy Michaels and programmer Walt Sabo are up to.

(Your NERW editor is on his annual summer sojourn to the midwest, which included some weekend listening to the Chicago version of "FM News," and we didn't find it to be very impressive at first listen: while there were no serious technical glitches, there wasn't much news, either - lots of readers, not much presence from field reporters, and a preponderance of fluff stories that had made the social-media rounds days earlier.)

In Chicago, WWWN competes on the FM dial with CBS Radio's WCFS (105.9), which just started simulcasting venerable all-news WBBM (780); in New York, CBS appears to be content to stick with its existing pair of AM all-news outlets, WCBS (880) and WINS (1010), and the entire radio industrry will be watching closely to see how that battle plays out.

*Two radio groups are changing hands upstate, most notably along the I-88 corridor between Binghamton and Albany where Double O Radio assembled a cluster that eventually included most of the commercial signals in and around Oneonta. Now those 11 stations, as well as 15 others in Texas and Missouri, are going to Townsquare Media in an $11 million deal.

Townsquare, of course, is the former Regent Communications, and the Oneonta-area signals become part of a group that includes clusters in Albany and Utica, as well as down the Thruway in Buffalo.

In Oneonta, the cluster includes classic hits WZOZ (103.1), hot AC WSRK (103.9) and classic country WDOS (730); in Norwich, it's big-signalled AC WKXZ (93.9), country WBKT (95.3) and standards WCHN (970); in Walton, standards WDLA (1270) and country WDLA-FM (92.1); in Delhi, adult hits WTBD (97.5) and oldies WDHI (100.3), which simulcasts on WIYN (94.7 Deposit).

The second transaction is in western New York, where Mark and Julie Miller's Miller Media is selling Dansville's WDNY (1400) and WDNY-FM (93.9) to Brian Patrick McGlynn's Genesee Media Corporation. McGlynn doesn't own any other stations, but he launched a company called Orpanc, which built the online DreamRadio service. Broker Dick Kozacko handled the $350,000 sale.

*Radio (and TV) People on the Move: Adam "the Bull" Gerstenhaber is moving from New York's WFAN, where he's a weekend host and frequent vacation relief, to CBS Radio's new FM sports launch in Cleveland, WKRK (92.3), where he'll hold down afternoons when the station launches two weeks from now. Way upstate, morning weatherman Jim Moore is leaving Plattsburgh's WPTZ-TV (Channel 5)/ After 11 years at the NBC affiliate, he's off to open a new barbeque restaurant in Plattsburgh.

*With NFL preseason football now underway, New York's teams are lining up some new affiliation deals for the fall. The Giants have added WTIC (1080) in Hartford, CONNECTICUT to their roster (the Patriots play there on WCCC-FM 106.9), while the Jets will be heard this year on, of all places, KSPN (710) in Los Angeles, where former USC Trojan star Mark Sanchez is still a fan favorite. And the Buffalo Bills are filling a coverage gap between Syracuse and Utica by adding Ken Roser's WUTQ (1550) and its translator at 95.5.

*Speaking of Utica, the market lost a veteran manager last week: Bill Heiderich spent more than 60 years at WIBX (950), starting in 1947 as a salesman, rising to sales manager and then, in 1986, to general manager. Even after retiring from the station, Heiderich remained involved with WIBX as public relations director. Heiderich died August 6 at age 89.

TOWER SITE CALENDAR 2012...IT'S COMING!

A decade ago, it was just a goofy idea: "Hey, you should put some of those tower pictures into a calendar!"

But when Tower Site Calendar 2002 appeared, it was a hit - and ten years later, the fun still hasn't stopped.

And now it's that moment at least some of you have been waiting for: the grand unveiling of our latest edition, Tower Site Calendar 2012, seen for the very first time right here!

As befits a tenth-anniversary edition, this one's special: in addition to all the great tower photos and historic dates you've come to expect from our calendars, the new 2012 edition is our first-ever themed calendar, paying special homage to the many stations that began broadcasting during radio's first big boom year of 1922.

The 2012 edition brings something else that's new to the Tower Site Calendar: the option of a spiral-bound edition that will hang flatter on your wall.

We're putting the finishing touches on availability and pricing, and starting in just a day or two, we'll have the new calendar ready for pre-ordering at the Fybush.com store.

(We're also on the verge of an exciting new announcement about some big changes to the fybush.com site itself...so stay tuned!)

And in the meantime, we still want to clear out our remaining stock of the 2011 calendars so we can make room for the new 2012 calendar, already in production. Only a small handful of 2011 calendars remain in stock, and you can get what's left of the very limited remaining supply for just $8 postpaid. (That's a $10 discount from the original list price of $18!)

Tower Site Calendar 2011 features more than a dozen great images of radio and TV broadcast facilities all over the country (and even beyond - this year's edition takes us to Mexico!)

Thrill to a night shot of KFI's new tower! Check out the WAEB Allentown array just after it lost a tower - or enjoy the history at venerable sites like those of KID in Idaho Falls, WCAP in Lowell, KTKT in Tucson and Rochester's Pinnacle Hill.

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

Order now at the fybush.com Store!

*Listeners on the north shore of MASSACHUSETTS will soon get a clearer signal from the radio station affiliated with Harvard University. WHRB (95.3 Cambridge) has long suffered from short-spacing with other area signals, including Brown-affiliated WBRU (95.5) down in Providence and co-channel WSKX (95.3) up the coast in York Center, MAINE.

Back in 1990, after the FCC revised spacing standards for class A stations such as WHRB, owner Harvard Radio Broadcasting reached an agreement with the Maine station (then WCQL-FM) that allowed both stations to increase power with the use of directional antennas. At WHRB's end, that allowed the station to move its antenna from Harvard Square to a much higher perch atop downtown Boston's One Financial Center - but at the expense of a directional notch that made the station hard to hear on the North Shore. In Maine, WCQL relocated to Mount Agamenticus in 1993, also using a directional antenna.

Under a proposal approved last week by the FCC, WHRB and WSKX (now owned by Clear Channel) will drop their 1990 interference agreement, instead using the FCC's own short-spacing rules to govern their relationship. Here's how it will play out: in Boston, WHRB will replace its directional antenna with a non-directional antenna atop One Financial Center, dropping its ERP slightly from 1700 to 1450 watts but bringing an additional 79,000 North Shore listeners into its 60 dBu contour. In Maine, WSKX will slightly boost its power and modify its directional pattern to bring several communities to the west, including Rochester and Durham, NEW HAMPSHIRE, within its 60 dBu contour.

*There's another new format on the air in southern Maine: the former WPHX (92.1 Sanford) is now in the hands of Aruba Broadcasting, which has flipped the station from a simulcast of Boston's WFNX to an oldies simulcast with its own WXEX (1540 Exeter NH). New calls WXEX-FM have been requested.

*Returning to MASSACHUSETTS, rumors of an ownership change at Lowell's WCAP (980) have finally proved true: after months of tension that's exploded into legal battles, former partners Sam Poulten and Clark Smidt are splitting up, leaving Poulten in control of the station, replacing Smidt as general manager. Smidt is now off the hook for the station's debts, and he also walks away with $50,000 in immediate cash and another $85,400 in 30 monthly payments.

*It's not just Entercom's WEEI (850 Boston) simulcasting on FM HD subchannels: right on the heels of WEEI's arrival on the HD2 channels of sister stations WAAF (107.3 Westborough) and WKAF (97.7 Brockton), Entercom has started simulcasting talker WRKO (680 Boston) on the HD3 channels of the WAAF/WKAF simulcast. The addition of the 107.3-HD3 channel, in particular, has the potential to give WRKO nighttime reach into the lucrative MetroWest area, where the null in its AM signal makes 680 unlistenable after dark.

*New England Radio People on the Move: Tony McGinty is out as morning co-host/producer at WTHT (107.5 Lewiston/Portland), with no replacement named yet. In Boston, CBS Radio has named Tim Staskiewicz as its new "digital content director" for its music FM stations, WZLX, WODS and WBMX. He'd been in Providence before heading south to Washington in 2008 to do online work for Clear Channel's cluster there. And we remember Mike Ortolano, who worked as a producer at WBCN and then at the syndicated "Open House Party." Ortolano died August 4 after a long illness; he was 52.

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*There's a double format change along the Susquehanna River in central PENNSYLVANIA. Max Media rearranged its Selinsgrove cluster last Monday (Aug. 8), pulling WLGL (92.3 Riverside) out of what had been the three-station "B98.3" country simulcast with WWBE (98.3 Mifflinburg) and WYGL-FM (100.5 Elizabethville).

After spending a weekend stunting as classic rock "Drive," 92.3 relaunched Monday morning at 10 with ESPN sports as WVSL-FM, "The Valley's Sports Leader." The ESPN programming comes over from WYGL (1240 Selinsgrove), which changes calls to WVSL as it simulcasts with the new WVSL-FM.

But wait - there's more! Operations manager RJ Jordan tells NERW that the cluster (including another sister station, WFYY 106.5 Bloomsburg) has also opened a new showcase studio in the Susquehanna Valley Mall. The new studio won't replace the existing Max Media studios and offices in Selinsgrove, but it will be used for remotes by all the stations in the cluster.

*There's a new signal on the air along the Pennsylvania-Maryland border west of Philadelphia. Four Rivers Community Broadcasting's WZXE (88.3 East Nottingham) is the newest outlet of the "Word FM" network.

*From the obituaries: Carolyn Wean, the first woman to serve as a news director and general manager in Pittsburgh TV, has died. Wean was KDKA-TV (Channel 2)'s news director in 1977-78 and later served as station manager and GM at the Westinghouse station. Later, she worked as vice president of special products at WQED. Wean died on Friday, at age 68.

*CANADA's low-profile digital TV transition is coming in just a couple of weeks, but several prominent stations aren't waiting until the August 31 drop-dead date to shut down their analog transmitters.

Public broadcaster TVO will shut down its analog signals in London, Kitchener, Ottawa and Thunder Bay tomorrow, followed Thursday by its analog transmitters in Toronto, Belleville, Chatham-Kent, Cloyne and Windsor. All those transmitters will be flash-cut to digital, as will the Hamilton transmitter of independent CHCH (Channel 11), which makes the flip this morning.

*Radio People on the Move: Scott Fox is headed down the dial from mornings at CIDC (Z103.5) to middays at CKIS (92.5 Toronto) starting in two weeks; he'll be filling in for Taylor Kaye, who's on maternity leave. In Ottawa, former CIWW (Oldies 1310) morning man "Brother Bob" Derro takes over today as morning host at CJWL (98.5) alongside Frances Ebbrell. Following Derro in middays will be the syndicated John Tesh show. In Hamilton, Mike "Wyman" Pongracz has left afternoons at CKLH (102.9 K-Lite) to work on his voiceover career.

*And we close with an obituary from Montreal, where veteran sportscaster Ted Tevan died Friday night. Tevan's broadcast sports career began in 1972 at the old CFOX (1470) and took him to CFCF, CKO, Windsor's CIWW, and then back to Montreal at CFMB, CIQC and most recently CKGM (Team 990), where illness forced him off the air in 2006.

Tevan, known for his sometimes abrasive manner with callers (who'd be abruptly taken off the air with a sharp "you're gone!" and a machine-gun sound effect), was recuperating from surgery for a broken hip when he died of a heart attack. He was 78.

From the NERW Archives

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.

One Year Ago: August 16, 2010 -

  • It's been a very slow week in NERW-land, so in lieu of a full-sized column, we offer just a few headlines from around the region:
  • Elvis Duran, who began his broadcast career in Syracuse, NEW YORK at WJPZ (89.1), the Syracuse University station, is returning to the market beginning today - but only in syndicated form.
  • WWHT (Hot 107.9), Clear Channel's top-40 station, is displacing its own "Marty and Shannon" local morning show to pick up Duran's New York-based "Morning Zoo." The morning staff stays with the station on new shifts: Marty "the One-Man Party" returns to the afternoon shift, while Shannon Wells will be doing middays and "Deaf Geoff" will do weekends and fill-ins. Former afternoon jock "Jus' Mic" will move over to sister station WPHR (106.9), reports CNYRadio.com.
  • Some other morning show shifts around the state: in New York City, D.L. Hughley departed the morning show at WRKS (Kiss 98.7) last week, saying on Monday that it was his last day with the station. No replacement has been named yet for the comedian; WRKS says he's simply away doing a movie, but it doesn't appear he's coming back. Also missing in action is Lilly Hisenaj, who's gone from the website for the Brother Wease morning show at Rochester's WFXF (95.1 the Fox) after under two years at the station.
  • In Buffalo, "Swing 1270" is the new slogan for the standards format Citadel has installed at WHLD (1270 Niagara Falls).
  • Out on Long Island's East End, it will be down to the wire for Peconic Public Broadcasting as it heads toward its August 31 deadline to make a $500,000 payment to Long Island University for the license of WLIU (88.3 Southampton). Peconic is holding a capital drive to put together the money for the station, and the local papers are reporting that it's turning to Hamptons bigwigs such as Alec Baldwin in an effort to step up its fundraising.
  • In MASSACHUSETTS, public station WUMB-FM (91.9 Boston) has more than just call letters for its new license northwest of Boston in Stow: the new WUMG (91.7) signed on last Tuesday, and your editor heard its first afternoon of broadcasts without even realizing it!
  • The new WUMG signal will operate only part-time when school resumes this fall at share-time partner WAVM (91.7 Maynard). The two stations share a common transmitter site, and the signal is a big improvement over WAVM's old low-power signal, covering much of the area between routes 128 and 495 north of the Mass Pike.

Five Years Ago: August 14, 2006 -

  • Smooth jazz fans in southeast PENNSYLVANIA are without a radio station this week, and plenty of other listeners in and around Philadelphia may soon be punching buttons, listening for other changes on the city's dial.
  • The big, immediate news was the long-rumored end to smooth jazz at Clear Channel's WJJZ (106.1 Philadelphia), which ended that format last Thursday (August 10) at noon, signing off with a montage of its artists and with Hall and Oates' "She's Gone" before relaunching with rhythmic AC as "Philly's 106.1," the new home (effective this morning) of the syndicated Whoopi Goldberg morning show. At the same time, the soft AC "Sunny" format on sister station WSNI (104.5 Philadelphia) came to its own end, signing off with Elton John's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" - and launching into a slightly-delayed simulcast of WJJZ.
  • That, however, is only a temporary move - a new format for 104.5 is expected to arrive as soon as today, and we'll update the column accordingly when it launches.
  • Why pull the plug on smooth jazz, a format that had attracted a stable and loyal, if not enormous, audience for Clear Channel in Philadelphia? There's speculation that the format was drawing too many listeners away from the company's powerhouses in the market, urban AC WDAS-FM (105.3) and urban WUSL (98.9). (WUSL, by the way, has a new morning man - Sam Sylk, who started last week, returning to the station from a stint at WGCI in Chicago.) With Clear Channel looking to make some high-profile rollouts of its new Whoopi morning show, the WJJZ flip became all but inevitable. And in a market that's always been friendly to rhythmic formats, the rumor mill was already working overtime about the new "Movin'" rhythmic AC format that debuted earlier this summer at Sandusky Radio's KQMV in Seattle - a format that just happens to target the same female audience that Whoopi's show does.
  • Clear Channel's not the only format-flip player in the market right now, either. There's still the open question of what becomes of Greater Media's new 97.5 signal when it moves in to the market soon. There's ongoing speculation about Greater's long-term committment to adult hits on its WBEN-FM (95.7). There's the Radio One cluster, where Daisy Davis just arrived this week as the new operations manager, and where WPHI (100.3 Media) hasn't been performing up to its potential. (Could smooth jazz land on one of Radio One's signals?)
  • The other big Philadelphia news last week was the death, on his 81st birthday, of Mike Douglas, who moved from his first career as a big-band singer to new fame as a TV talk-show host in the sixties. Douglas' first show was on Westinghouse's KYW-TV in Cleveland - but when Westinghouse reversed its 1956 station swap with NBC in 1965, the KYW-TV calls and most of its staff moved from Cleveland to channel 3 in Philadelphia. The Mike Douglas Show became one of the era's most successful syndicated offerings, and it continued to emanate from Philadelphia until 1978, when Douglas moved the show to Los Angeles.
  • In Scranton, they're mourning Terry McNulty, the longtime morning host on WARM (590) who died Friday (Aug. 11) at 70. McNulty worked briefly at WSCR (1320 Scranton) in the fifties, then came to WARM and stayed, making features like "Pass the Pineapple" fixtures on local radio.
  • McNulty remained at WARM until 1998, when he was let go by Citadel. An age-discrimination lawsuit followed, which was settled in 2004. That's also when McNulty returned to the airwaves, spending a year doing mornings on WNAK (730 Nanticoke) before retiring in 2005.
  • The next piece of the WCRB saga came together late last week, when Charles River Broadcasting confirmed that it's selling its RHODE ISLAND stations - classical WCRI (95.9 Block Island) and CNN Headline News WCNX (1180 Hope Valley) - to Christopher Jones, son of WCRB founder Ted Jones. No format changes are expected at either station, and here's the interesting part: in the press release, Jones said he hoped to also acquire Charles River's remaning MASSACHUSETTS stations, Cape Cod's classical WFCC (107.5 Chatham) and rock WKPE (104.7 Orleans), as well as the World Classical Network service that's being run out of WCRB.
  • There's plenty of AM-to-FM action in southern ONTARIO this week - and a rare AM-to-AM move, too. In Oshawa, Durham Radio's CKDO (1350) pulled the plug on that AM frequency just after the 10 AM news on Sunday, returning to the air later that night on its new frequency of 1580, where it boosts power from 10 kW days/5 kW nights to 10 kW fulltime. CKDO is also heard on an FM relay at 107.7 in Oshawa, and that's where most of the listeners are these days, we suspect.
  • To the east, CHUC (1450 Cobourg) signed on its new FM facility at 1 PM last Friday. The new CHUC-FM (107.9) is known on-air as "107.9 the Breeze" (no connection, we're pretty sure, to the ill-fated fast ferry that briefly connected Toronto to Rochester), and after a 90-day simulcast period, the AM signal on 1450 will go dark for good. There's a connection here to the CKDO move - CHUC was granted a move from 1450 to 1580 a few years ago, but then abandoned that plan in favor of the move to FM, opening the 1580 frequency for use in Oshawa.
  • To the west, CKOT (1510 Tillsonburg) will remain on the air as Canada's only daytimer, but it will soon have a 24/7 FM signal as well. The CRTC last week granted CKOT a license to use 107.3 (with 4.5 kW average ERP and a directional antenna) as a 24-hour signal for its AM country programming. CKOT also has separate soft AC programming on the long-established CKOT-FM (101.3 Tillsonburg).

10 Years Ago: August 20, 2001 -

  • We'll begin our New England report up in MAINE, where there's been plenty of news in our absence. Over at Portland's Saga cluster, Ken McGrail resigned from his PD/afternoon gig at oldies WYNZ (100.9 Westbrook); he's headed for PD/morning drive down the coast at WQEZ (104.7 Kennebunkport). Down the hall, Chris Duggan gives up his PD job at country WPOR (101.9), though he'll stay on the air middays until a replacement is named. Saga's WZAN (970) shuffled its programming lineup, replacing G. Gordon Liddy with Phil Hendrie from 10 AM till noon, and adding Jim Rome in Ed Tyll's old noon to 3 PM slot. WZAN also adds Fox Sports on weekend overnights, and Patriots football (formerly on the WJAE/WJJB network) once the season starts. The "Big Jab," meanwhile, grabs the Portland Pirates AHL rights for the fall from WZAN. The stations have now joined WRED (95.9 Saco) at the WLOB facility on Warren Avenue, leaving the old WJAE/WJBQ quarters a few blocks away on Warren vacant.
  • Bangor's WWBX (97.1) officially entered the Clear Channel family this week, moving over from Gopher Hill Broadcasting on the same day Clear Channel sold WGUY (102.1 Dexter) to Mark Jorgenson's Concord group. (No coincidence there; Clear Channel had to spin something before it could acquire WWBX).
  • A format change on the other side of the Connecticut River: in VERMONT, WZSH (107.1 Bellows Falls) and WSSH (95.3 White River Junction) move from "Lite FM" to hot AC "Star." Programming includes the syndicated Bob and Sheri in mornings, Westwood One hot AC in middays, PD Art Steinberg in the afternoons and Delilah at night.
  • MASSACHUSETTS finally has Opie and Anthony to kick around again. Three years after being booted from WAAF (107.3 Worcester) for that moronic "Mayor Menino is Dead" April Fools' stunt, Infinity finally brought the pair back to Beantown, inserting them (against some internal pressure, we hear) into the WBCN (104.1) lineup. Since their start on 'BCN last week, former afternooner Nik Carter has moved to middays, sending middayer Bill Abbate to evenings. We hear the duo spent their entire first show recounting the WAAF stunt, which must have been absolutely riveting to listeners of their other affiliates around the country...
  • Not much happening in NEW JERSEY, until you get to Cape May. That's where WSAX (102.3) dumped its automated smooth jazz last week and began simulcasting the satellite standards from WMID (1340 Atlantic City).

15 Years Ago: New England Radio Watch, August 19, 1996

  • Two Cape Cod radio stations spent some time off the air this weekend. WWKJ (101.1 Mashpee MA; ex-WFAL, WUNZ) and WJCO (93.5 Harwich Port; ex-WFXR, WUNX) were recently bought by car dealer Ernie Boch, and just last week changed from a modern rock simulcast to classic rock (WWKJ) and soft AC (WJCO). And then, over the weekend, someone cut the cables leading out to the stations' satellite dishes. Wire- service reports claim the damage was sufficiently severe to take both stations off the air, and to keep WJCO off the air through Monday. Boch is offering a $10,000 reward for information about the crime.
  • NERW is considering buying earplugs to block out the roar of rumors concerning the impending demise of one of Greater Media's two Boston country FMs. The best-sourced rumor so far has Greater Media going to a simulcast on WBCS (96.9) and WKLB (105.7) on or about Monday, August 26...and then launching some new format on one of the stations a week or so later.
  • American Radio Systems has been making big headlines by buying stations, but the Boston-based company also sells a station from time to time. The latest ARS sale involves WNEZ (910), until recently their sole AM property in the Hartford CT market. WNEZ has been drawing minimal ratings with a CNN Headline News/sports talk format, but it's been a very minor player in the ARS Connecticut stable, which also includes or is about to include WTIC (1080 Hartford; full-service), WZMX (93.7 Hartford; 70s), WTIC-FM (96.5 Hartford;hot AC), and WRCH (100.5 New Britain; AC). Now ARS is selling WNEZ to Mega Broadcasting for $750,000. Mega plans to take the station Spanish, just as it's doing with its other East Coast acquisition, WURD (900) Philadelphia. WNEZ will join WPRX 1120 Bristol, WRYM 840 New Britain, WLAT 1230 Manchester, and WRDM 1550 Bloomfield in broadcasting all or part of the day in Spanish. WNEZ's signal is adequate in most of the area by day, but at night the New Britain-licensed 5 kW station is hampered by a directional pattern that aims southeast from its Farmington transmitter site, away from Hartford. No word on whether Mega is buying the Birdseye Road transmitter site as well (the building used to house the station's studios back when it was WRCQ).

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NorthEast Radio Watch is made possible by the generous contributions of our regular readers. If you enjoy NERW, please click here to learn how you can help make continued publication possible. NERW is copyright 2011 by Scott Fybush.