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October 28, 2002
WWJS Returns to Watertown Airwaves
 By SCOTT FYBUSH
*It's been ten months since Christian contemporary
station WWJS (90.1) in Watertown, NEW YORK went silent,
the victim of a nasty spat between owner Charles Savidge and
his father-in-law, Rev. Robert Bryant, who owns the Liberty Christian
Center that was the station's home. And with the FCC's strict
rule about deleting stations that remain dark for a full 12 months,
the deadline was fast approaching for something to happen
with this frequency up there.
And while it looked a little iffy (and sparked a new battle
between Savidge and Bryant), WWJS made it back to the airwaves
last Wednesday (Oct. 23), according to NERW North Country bureau
chief Michael Roach. Actually, WWJS would have been back a few
days earlier - but, Roach reports, Bryant hired workers to go
to the WWJS transmitter site east of town on Champion Hill (also
home to WWNY-TV and WTOJ 103.1) to remove, yes, the transmitter!
But the mess has caught the attention of Watertown's other
broadcasters, and in stepped David Mance, owner of WTOJ (as well
as WBDI/WBDR, WATN and WOTT), who's letting Savidge use one of
his auxiliary transmitters for the moment. Expect another round
(or three or six) of lawsuits, including one in which Bryant
is apparently claiming that he owns the WWJS call letters! (NERW
notes: there's no trademark on "WWJS," and nobody
actually owns call letters, according to established case
law.)
(One more quick note from Watertown: Fox outlet WNYF-LP on
channel 28 has become WNYF-CA as it gains Class A status, and
that means simulcaster W28BC in Massena can now become...WNYF-LP!)
*Elsewhere in the Empire State, Sunrise Broadcasting has moved
another step forward in its attempt to get something back on
the air at 1200 kHz in the Hudson Valley. You may recall that
Sunrise's WGNY in Newburgh occupied that channel under special
temporary authority for most of the 90s, in an attempt to win
a permanent upgrade from its longtime spot at 1220 on the dial.
But the upgrade of New York's WLIB on 1190 doomed a fulltime
1200 signal in Newburgh, and WGNY had to slide back to 1220 a
few years back.
But Sunrise didn't give up, and now its application for a
new station on 1200 in Kingston, some 40 miles north of Newburgh,
has been accepted for filing at the FCC. The new 1200 would run
2000 watts day from two towers and 400 watts night from five
towers, which would require a rebuild of the existing WGHQ (920)
site off Route 9W just south of Kingston.
 Down on Long Island,
the FCC gave official approval to the takeover of WLIW (Channel
21) in Garden City by the Educational Broadcasting Corporation,
parent of New York City PBS outlet WNET (Channel 13, Newark NJ).
WLIW's parent, the Long Island Educational Television Corporation,
had sought the merger to handle the cost of the DTV conversion;
both stations will now be able to better coordinate their programming
schedules, they say. (They're already sharing a common master
control room in Manhattan.)
While we're out Long Island way, we note that WBZO (103.1
Bay Shore) has moved to its new facilities, on the other tower
of what's now the two-tower array of WLIE (540 Islip). WBZO moves
up (from 285 feet to 462 feet), drops power (from 3000 to 1550
watts) and drops the directional antenna that it had been using.
Judy Ellis is moving on from Emmis after an amazing 17-year
run at the company's New York City cluster, most recently as
VP/general manager of WQHT (97.1), WRKS (98.7) and WQCD (101.9).
Ellis was already with WQHT (then on 103.5) when Emmis bought
the station in 1986. Emmis hasn't announced a replacement for
Ellis, who will stay through the end of her contract next February.
 Heading upstate,
it's been 25 years since WSUL (98.3) became Monticello's first
local radio station (though the Catskills community has long
had service from WVOS just up the road in Liberty), and the standalone
FM will be celebrating next weekend with 57 hours of special
retrospective programming, beginning on Friday afternoon, November
1. Congratulations!
There's word from Albany that public radio WAMC (90.3) has
cancelled its locally-produced "Environment Show,"
which was syndicated to a mix of about 150 noncommercial and
commercial stations around the country. NERW hears that host
Greg Dahlman will stay with WAMC as a news reporter, while producer
Bob Barret is out; "Living on Earth" will replace the
show in its WAMC timeslots.
Here in Rochester, jazz institution WGMC (90.1 Greece) has
modified its application for a power boost, in a way that will
bring more signal to the jazz-friendly east side of town. The
station, now running 1050 watts at just 46 feet, already has
a pending application for 15 kW at 138 feet with a directional
antenna; the modification will let out that directional pattern
in a pretty big way, so that down here at NERW Central we'll
hear the equivalent of about 8 kW instead of 1 kW, which should
help cut through all the RF hash from nearby Pinnacle Hill.
A couple of TV notes: we've seen local Fox affiliate WUHF-TV
(Channel 31) taking advantage of some cost-cutting possibilities
from parent Sinclair on weekend nights, using a weather forecast
from the company's new centralized news facility in Maryland
in place of a local forecaster. No mispronunciations, yet, but
we wonder why they couldn't at least use WUHF's own graphics
package instead of something so noticeably different. Down the
dial, local wags have already been ringing the changes on the
new slogan at WHEC-TV (Channel 10). "Digging for answers,
reporting them first" is the official version; we're partial
to "Digging through press releases, rehashing them first"
ourselves...
Finally, we note that the FCC has approved the transfer of
Sabre Communications' properties in New York, Pennsylvania and
Indiana to Backyard Broadcasting; in New York, that includes
the Elmira/Corning cluster (WWLZ 820 Horseheads, WGMF 1490 Watkins
Glen, WPGI 100.9 Horseheads, WNGZ 104.9 Montour Falls, WNKI 106.1
Corning) and Olean's WHDL 1450 and WPIG-FM 95.7.
*On the PENNSYLVANIA side of the line,
Backyard also gets permission to buy the Williamsport cluster
that includes WWPA (1340), WBZD-FM (93.3 Muncy), WZXR (99.3 South
Williamsport), WCXR (103.7 Lewisburg), WILQ (105.1) and WSFT
(107.9 South Williamsport) from Sabre.
Just down the road in Avis, WQBR (99.9) applies to boost its
antenna from 823 feet to 1052 feet, dropping power from 900 watts
to 570 watts and moving to a new tower just a bit northeast of
its current location. Now if we could ever hear them do a legal
ID...
While we're up that way (and can you tell it's been a slow
week in the Keystone State?), we note a new translator for ABC
affiliate WNEP (Channel 16) in Scranton: W40BS in Renovo will
run with 200 watts. Also granted this week was a new TBN LPTV:
W67BZ in Mansfield will be a 2 kW station.
"JC Radio Inc." has been granted a license to cover
for translator W215BG (90.9 Milford).
And our buddy Dave Hughes down at DCRTV.com
reports the death on October 19 of Ed Lincoln, who was a disk
jockey on WSBA (910 York) for some 35 years. WSBA is looking
for a newsperson, too, to replace Steve Fermier, who's headed
south to Baltimore to do news at WBAL (1090).
*Our friends at the NEW JERSEY Radio
Museum have a permanent home: they're signing a 20-year lease
on a building next to the Dover Presbyterian Church to house
their collection of Garden State broadcast memorabilia, and they're
still looking for more. Drop Carl Van Orden a line (carlvanorden@webtv.net)
if you can help out...
*Mega Communications has sold its lone central
MASSACHUSETTS property: WARE (1250 Ware) goes to Marshall
Sanft's "Siccess Signal Broadcasting" (hey, it's radio,
spelling doesn't matter!) for a reported $250,000. If the name
sounds familiar, it's because Sanft used to own WESO (970) in
nearby Southbridge; his father owned WOKW (1410 Brockton, now
WMSX) in days gone by.
 Pete Falconi has
parted ways with Worcester's WXLO (104.5 Fitchburg), where he
was PD and operations manager for the Citadel cluster. We hear
Tuesday (10/29) will be his last day there, with no replacement
yet named.
Now that Mike Elder is settling in as PD at WRKO (680 Boston),
he's bringing in his own crew from his last post at WLS in Chicago:
former WLS producer Rich Carberry is following Elder to Boston
to be executive producer at WRKO.
Where are they now?: Former WODS PD Rick Shockley was back
in the trades this week; he's taking a new gig as PD at Infinity
AC outlet WEAT-FM (104.3) in West Palm Beach, Florida.
And on the TV side, WWLP-DT (Channel 11) in Springfield took
air this week, running 1.95 kW from the WWLP-TV (Channel 22)
tower high atop Provin Mountain.
*It took long enough, but AM 1390 in Burlington,
VERMONT finally made its format change last week, ditching
the WKDR calls and talk/news format to become WVAA, "All
American Country," with a mix of local jocks and Jones'
satellite service. We can't imagine Burlington country giant
WOKO (98.9) being too worried...
More DTV developments: WNNE (Channel 31) in White River Junction
has been at low power for a couple of weeks, and we're told it's
because of DTV installation up at the station's Mount Ascutney
transmitter site. The NBC affiliate should be back to full power
early this week, we're told.
*Still more DTV developments: MAINE Public
Broadcasting has three more DTVs on the air, with WMEB-DT (Channel
9) in Orono, WMEM-DT (Channel 20) in Presque Isle and WMEA-DT
(Channel 45) in Biddeford filling out the statewide network.
The Congressionally-mandated tests of third-adjacent FM interference
will get underway soon in several cities, including Brunswick
(and Avon, Connecticut, too.) WC4XSH will be the call on the
97.3 in Brunswick, which will operate between 10 and 100 watts
to test interference to WCME (96.7 Boothbay Harbor) from potential
third-adjacent LPFMs. According to this week's Radio World,
the tests could last for as little as three days, with listeners
in the market notified through newspaper and radio ads and a
number provided to call in any reports of FM interference.
And Jeff Marks, late of the News 12 Networks in the New York
market, is moving to Portland to head up "NewsInME,"
a service that will provide news inserts and newscasts to stations
in the Pine Tree State.
 *Another
quiet week in CANADA, as the CRTC plows through all the
various new license applications in several big markets. The
Commission did approve the C$432,000 sale of two stations in
St.-Georges-de-Beauce, Quebec, though: Guy Simard is buying CKRB-FM
(103.3) and CHJM-FM (99.7) from Marie Jalbert. (Longtime DXers
in the Northeast will remember the CKRB calls from AM 1460; the
station also took over from the now-defunct CJVL 1360 in Ste.-Marie-de-Beauce
when it moved to FM to serve the area southwest of Quebec City.)
Rex Murphy on TV? That's the promise the CBC is making as
it buys the "Country Canada" digital cable network
from Corus for C$1.2 million. In addition to ratcheting up the
amount of Canadian content on the network to 80%, the CBC says
it will put Murphy's "Cross-Country Checkup" weekend
talk show on TV as part of the channel's offerings.
And in Belleville, Ontario, CJOJ (95.5) has been granted a
move 25 kilometers west of its present site, to a new tower near
Oak Lake. CJOJ will drop power from 50 kW to 42 kW, but will
end up with a better signal over Trenton (not to mention across
the lake to Rochester) when it's all done.
*Stay tuned...we'll have some Thoughts on IBOC Digital coming
later this week in this space!
 *Have you ordered your Tower Site Calendar
2003 yet? (Yes, the very calendar that's even inspired its
own comic strip on
cnyradio.com!)
If you liked last year's edition, you'll love this one: higher-quality
images (including Providence's WHJJ; Mount Mansfield, Vermont;
Buffalo's WBEN; KOMA in Oklahoma City; the legendary WSM, Nashville
and many more), more dates in radio history, a convenient hole
for hanging - and we'll even make sure all the dates fall on
the right days!
This year's calendar will go to press in late October, and
if you order now, you'll have yours in hand by mid-November,
in plenty of time for the holidays. And this year, you can order
with your Visa, MasterCard, Discover or American Express by using
the handy link below!
Better yet, here's an incentive to make your 2003 NERW subscription
pledge a little early: support NERW/fybush.com at the $60 level
or higher, and you'll get this lovely calendar for free!
How can you go wrong? (Click here
to visit our Support page, where you can make your NERW contribution
with a major credit card...)
You can also order by mail; just send a check for $16
per calendar (NYS residents add 8% sales tax), shipping included,
to Scott Fybush, 92 Bonnie Brae Ave., Rochester
NY 14618.
International orders: Calendars are US$18 to Canada,
US$20 to the rest of the world, postage included. Send checks/international
money orders (in US dollars) to the address above, or e-mail
for credit-card ordering information.
*And we're also happy to announce that
our good friends at M Street have released the 11th edition of
the M Street Radio Directory. With the disappearance
of the old Vane Jones log and the declining accuracy of the Broadcasting
Yearbook, the M Street directory is widely regarded as the most
accurate, most comprehensive source of information on the US
and Canadian radio scene - and we're thrilled to be able to offer
it to you at a substantial discount!
The directory includes power, frequency, ownership, key personnel,
formats, ratings and much more information for every radio station
in the U.S. and Canada, and now runs almost 900 pages in an 8.5"
x 11" softcover book. List price is $79 (plus $7 shipping/handling),
but if you order through fybush.com/NorthEast Radio Watch, you
can get this invaluable resource on your shelf for $69 (plus
$7 s/h) - a $10 savings! And your purchase benefits the continued
publication of NERW and Tower Site of the Week, so everybody
wins!
You can order in either of two ways: to order by major credit
card, call 1-800-248-4242, ask for Irene, and tell her
you want the "NorthEast Radio Watch" discount. Or,
send check or money order for $76 ($69 + $7 s/h) to Scott Fybush,
92 Bonnie Brae Ave., Rochester NY 14618. Either way, you'll put
the most trusted, accurate information about the radio industry
in print today on your bookshelf.
*We're back to our regular schedule for a while, now that
we're done with a fantastic visit to Dallas-Fort Worth (thanks
to Wally Wawro, John Callarman, et al!) You'll see some
of those pictures very soon on Tower
Site of the Week...stay tuned and we'll see you back here
next Monday!
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2002 by Scott Fybush. |