So what is this NERW thing, anyway?

History

The origins of NorthEast Radio Watch are lost in the early mists of Internet time. OK, maybe it's just that the earliest issues of NERW are lost. In any case, this much we can say for certain: NERW began sometime in 1992 as "New England Radio Watch," an occasional series of postings to the late Bill Pfeiffer's AIRWAVES/rec.radio.broadcasting newsgroup.

By 1995, NERW had become a regular offering on AIRWAVES, as well as on a dedicated mailing list affiliated with the new Boston Radio Archives. It was around this time that the Archives began saving issues of NERW, a service that has continued to the present day.

In 1997, New England Radio Watch became NorthEast Radio Watch upon the editor's relocation from Waltham, Mass. to Rochester, N.Y. Coverage expanded from the six New England states to include upstate New York and adjoining areas of Canada.

The next big transformation came in November 2000 with the launch of fybush.com, providing NERW to the world every week with additional images and audio to supplement the text of each issue. At the same time, NERW switched from being a free publication supported by the editor's day job to being a full-time endeavor supported by voluntary donations from its readers (that's you) and by advertising (that could be you, too).

NERW Today

What you see above, if you can forgive the freehand rendition of eastern Canada, is NERW-land. From Prince Edward Island in the east to Ashtabula and Windsor in the west, and from North Bay to Wilmington, NorthEast Radio Watch is committed to providing the most accurate and complete report on the radio and television industry in our region.

NERW's editor, Scott Fybush, is a ten-year veteran of the radio and television industry in the Northeast. In addition to his professional experience, he has immersed himself in the history of the region's broadcast scene. Over the past decade, he has traveled to nearly every studio and tower site in the region, visits that are documented each week in fybush.com's inexplicably popular Tower Site of the Week. His collection also includes thousands of airchecks, bumper stickers, newspaper clippings, and assorted other radio ephemera. Scott is also a regular contributor to Radio World, writing about broadcast engineering, business, and history.

Equally important to NERW's content, though, are the hundreds of readers who regularly contribute information to the column. Over nearly a decade, NERW has gathered correspondents in every corner of the region and beyond. Their e-mails, phone calls and letters help provide a depth of content that few other radio sites can match.

Today, NERW is read by more than 5,000 radio and TV people, from group owners to PDs, chief engineers to students.

How to use NERW

The best way to tap into the vein of information that is NERW is simply to bookmark www.fybush.com. Visit each and every Monday for the latest issue, usually posted to the site late Sunday night, then come back on Wednesday for each week's featured tower site. Our NERW Classifieds are updated regularly. If you enjoy what you read in NERW, you're encouraged to make a contribution to help keep the column coming. Visit our Support NERW page to learn more.

Some readers prefer to keep getting NERW on the bostonradio.org mailing list, and we're happy to continue offering that service as well, though we remind mailing list readers that they, too, are now strongly urged to contribute to NERW if they read the column regularly. To join the mailing list, please follow these simple instructions:

Send e-mail to nerw-request@bostonradio.org with SUBSCRIBE
as the body of the message.  Follow the instructions you 
will receive by return e-mail.

Questions about mailing list service or instructions should go to nerw-owner@bostonradio.org. We regret that we are unable to respond to mailing list questions sent to any other address.

NERW is distributed to the mailing list approximately 48 hours after publication on fybush.com -- so remember, you'll always find it first on the Web site.

The NERW Archives are among the many services offered by the Boston Radio Archives. The text of each issue appears in the archives approximately a week after publication. You can use the search function on the Boston Radio Archive front page to search back issues of NERW as well.

The Boston Radio Archives and sister site, the Upstate New York Radio Archives, are also where you'll find complete market lists of radio and TV stations in the region served by NERW (the colors in the map, above, correspond to Archives-designated market areas.)

Contacting NERW

E-mail us at nerw@fybush.com, or refer to our Contacts page for additional ways to reach NERW.

Thanks for reading NERW!