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November 25, 2002
Happy Thanksgiving...and now some Christmas tunes!
By SCOTT FYBUSH
*Perhaps it seemed like a strange, post 9/11
aberration around this time last year, when dozens of stations
(mostly AC and oldies) around the country ditched their usual
playlists for an entire month to play nothing but Christmas music.
Well...not so. In your editor's other life as Webmaster of
the 100000watts.com radio directory site, the flips have been
coming fast and furious this year as well. In NERW-land, they
start in PENNSYLVANIA, where Entercom's 80s "Buzz"
(WBZJ 102.3 Pittston/WBZH 103.1 Freeland) in the Scranton market,
Clear Channel's oldies WWSW (94.5) in Pittsburgh and Clear Channel's
AC "Sunny" (WSNI 104.5) in Philadelphia are all ho-ho-ho'ing
already...and now there's word that WSHH (99.7 Pittsburgh) is
also joining the party.
(For the very latest list of flips, look no further than 100000watts.com,
where we're making a list and checking it twice...)
Speaking of Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, the changes keep on coming
at the Citadel cluster there: the hot talk that had been on WEOZ
(95.7 Olyphant) went away last week, as "Z-Talk" gave
way to a simulcast of the top 40 from WBHT (97.1 Mountain Top).
The only remnant of the "Z-Talk" format is Bob &
Tom, who land in mornings on WARM (590).
 In the Philly market,
public radio WHYY (90.9) needs a new antenna, something that's
not uncommon for FM stations whose antennas have been out in
the elements for nearly two decades.
What is unusual is the very public way in which WHYY
is trying to raise the $132,000 needed to replace the antenna:
in addition to a $50,000 federal grant, the station is holding
a special pledge drive to raise the extra $82,000 from listeners
- and there's a whole section of the station's Web site (www.whyy.org/91FM/antenna1.htm)
that documents the sorry state of the current WHYY antenna, high
atop one of the tallest sticks in the Roxborough antenna farm.
Congratulations to Brian Check, PD at the aforementioned WSNI,
who's been promoted to Clear Channel regional VP/programming,
overseeing the clusters in Philadelphia, Allentown, Reading,
Lancaster, Williamsport and Harrisburg!
Heading over to Pittsburgh, the deal to sell public broadcaster
WQEX (Channel 16) to a private group led by former WWSW general
manager Diane Sutter has hit another snag: Sutter's Shooting
Star Broadcasting notified WQEX's parent, WQED (Channel 13),
that it's unable to complete its purchase of the newly-commercial
station. WQED brass say they're still confident they can sell
channel 16, and that a deal with Sutter is still a possibility.
 *Some
very sad news from NEW JERSEY to pass on, as the folks
at "New Jersey 101.5" (WKXW-FM Trenton) mourn the death
of imaging director Erik Van Ness, the brains behind promotions
such as the current "Not New York, Not Philadelphia"
campaign and many more.
Van Ness started at WKXW in 1997, and had been married just
over a year when he died last Tuesday (Nov. 19) after a long
battle with cystic fibrosis. Van Ness was only 28 years old.
New Jersey 101.5 has put up a nice tribute page to Van Ness
on its Web
site; donations in his memory can be made to the Cystic Fibrosis
Foundation, 117 Kinderkamack Road, Suite 104, River Edge, New
Jersey 07661.
*The Christmas music list in NEW YORK
at press time includes WMXW (103.3 Vestal) in the Binghamton
market and WTRY (98.3 Rotterdam) in Albany, both of which will
make the flip right after Thanksgiving (just as WTRY did last
year); by the time you read this, New York's WLTW (106.7) may
have joined them (it's running a "listener's poll"
on its Web site right now asking if it should make the flip...),
and out on Long Island WALK-FM (97.5 Patchogue) will make the
flip the day after Thanksgiving.
Up north, WCLX (102.5 Westport) has filed to make a nice little
move, heading up the dial to 102.9 and jumping from 650 watts
to 6 kW, which should improve its signal across Lake Champlain
into Burlington, VERMONT considerably.
Down the road in Lake Placid, WLPW (105.5) and WIRD (920)
were hit with an $8,000 Notice of Apparent Liability this week
from the FCC, which says the stations didn't have their EAS equipment
working properly, a big "no-no" at inspection time.
The FCC granted three New York LPFM applications this week:
Planet Utica, for 105.9 in Utica; Colonie Educational Resource
Services, for 98.7 in the Albany suburb of Colonie; and Kingston
Outreach Services, for 103.9 in Kingston.
The still-unbuilt channel 52 in Ithaca was granted its last-ditch
application last week, allowing it to build a low-power (26 kW)
facility near Ithaca College to get on the air before its construction
permit expires. Will it make it? Stay tuned...
Meanwhile in Syracuse, the Calvary Church translator for WZXV
(99.7 Palmyra), W278AH (103.5), is applying to increase its power
from the current 2 watts to 10 watts. And Reggie Jordan is heading
for bigger pastures within Citadel, moving from VP/GM of the
Syracuse cluster to the same post in Charleston, S.C.
 First Chris Keyser
gets to hang out with country star Carolyn Dawn Johnson (left);
now the WYRK (106.5 Buffalo) assistant PD is about to take on
a big new job. We hear Keyser is about to become the new PD of
perennial Rochester ratings leader WBEE-FM (92.5), some two months
after the departure of longtime PD Coyote Collins from the Entercom
station.
Speaking of Buffalo, Family Radio's WFBF (89.9) is moving
north; the station's been granted a CP that will move it from
its current site south of Buffalo to a new site a few miles east,
near West Seneca. WFBF will run 16 kW with a directional antenna
90 meters above average terrain at the new site, an improvement
over its current 20 kW at a much lower site. (In the meantime,
Family's CP for translator W211BH in Lockport has been cancelled.)
 And we're sorry
to report the death on Nov. 16 of Rob Stoddard, the longtime
afternoon host on Crawford's religious WDCX (99.5 Buffalo).
Stoddard's Buffalo radio career began in the early eighties,
when he was the newsman for Danny Neaverth's top-rated morning
show on WKBW (1520); he later moved to the FM dial to do morning
news on WJYE (96.1), and then took over the afternoon shift before
switching to WDCX.
*From CONNECTICUT comes word of the
ice storm that wreaked havoc with the Nutmeg State last weekend;
at WTIC, chief engineer Jeff Hugabone reports the station was
on generator power until Wednesday evening, when power crews
finally restored service to the site.
And WHTX-LP (Channel 10) in Hartford has changed hands from
Harvard Broadcasting to Entravision.
*MASSACHUSETTS is in the holiday mood,
too; out on Cape Cod, WTWV (101.1 Mashpee) and WDVT (93.5 Harwich)
have already made the flip to Christmas tunes, as has WSNE-FM
(93.3 Taunton), which of course really serves Providence, RHODE ISLAND. Joining them after Thanksgiving
will be WXKS (1430 Everett) in the Boston market, with more no
doubt on the way.
 WB affiliate WLVI
(Channel 56) is losing one of its "Ten O'Clock News"
anchors; Jeff Barnd joined Karen Marinella on the anchor desk
in 1995 - and what with the shakeups on the VHF side of the dial,
that made the pair the longest-running anchor team on the Boston
airwaves at the moment. No word on what Barnd, whose contract
runs until 2005, will do next...
Steve Solomon has been named the new VP/programming of Superadio
Networks (the "Open House Party" folks); you probably
know him as Steve McVie, director of operations for Cape Cod's
Makkay Broadcasting cluster. He starts his new job on December
2. Speaking of Cape Cod, "Cape Cod Christian Broadcasting"
has been granted an LPFM on 97.7 in East Harwich.
It looks like the sale of WSRO (1470 Marlborough) to Multicultural
will include a call change; the WSRO calls stay with owner Alex
Langer, who plans to move them to what's now WJLT (650 Ashland)
when the deal closes.
And while we're in MetroWest, we note a change in the talk
lineup at "Boston Talk Party" WBPS (890 Dedham), which
adds Sean Hannity to the schedule from 3-6 PM, followed by Rusty
Humphries at 6 and Neal Boortz on tape delay at 8.
NEW HAMPSHIRE's WOTW (900 Nashua)
has been granted night power - a whopping six watts of it. Up
on the Seacoast, WQSO (96.7 Rochester) drops oldies for Christmas
music...
...while in MAINE, Bangor is hearing
holiday tunes on WEZQ (92.9) and WKSQ (94.5 Ellsworth),
with WKCG (101.3 Augusta) playing carols for the mid-coast area.
In the Portland market, "Rick and Jamie" are out
of mornings at WMEK (99.9 Auburn), with "Kaos and Stacie"
replacing them. The new morning team comes from country WYYL
(96.1 Tunica MS) in the Memphis market, we're told.
And the FNX Radio Network's outpost in the Pine Tree State
is in some trouble with the FCC, which handed down a pair of
$17,000 Notices of Apparent Liability to WPHX (1220 Sanford)
and WPHX-FM (92.1 Sanford). Seems the stations were in violation
of the main studio rules and the public inspection file rules,
another big "no-no" at inspection time. NERW expects
an appeal any day now...
And with nothing happening up in CANADA this
week, it's time to dip into the NERW mailbag and see what our
readers had to say about last week's "IBOC
Rant":
The best way to improve radio:
Mandate AMAX technology in every AM radio. Every radio that
has FM stereo must have AM stereo. The AM would operate in wideband
in the stereo mode, and with a gentle rolloff in mono.
If Symphony works (and I think it will), mandate that every
receiver costing $25 or more to have it by 2008.
Mandate RDS for all FM car radios and home tuners costing
$50 or more by 2008.
The problem with IBOC is that it isn't "cool". There
is no public outcry for it (and XM and Sirius are in serious
trouble).
DVD's replaced VCR's because DVD's are EASIER to handle, it's
EASIER to navigate and you get IMPORTANT extras. With IBOC, the
audio quality slightly improves for FM (and degrades for AM)
while you add BS bells and whistles. It's all fluff and no substance
and nothing you COULDN'T do with RDS if you MANDATE IT!
As for AM stereo, that works VERY well (and any engineer who
tells you AM stereo CANNOT work is an engineer who shouldn't
be working because he is clueless). AM stereo did not have an
Ibiquity behind it... owned by major broadcasters with everything
to lose if it doesn't work out.
IBOC will never sound as good as wideband AM on a properly
tuner receiver. Period.
I read with interest that which you wrote about IBOC in the
November 18
issue of NERW and I figured that I'd give you my opinion on the
subject. I
think that, with respect to audio programming itself, IBOC digital
has little
to recommend it over analog broadcast, particularly for AM. As
I'm sure you
are aware, in a general theoretical sense, you can't go from
an "analog"
signal to a "digital" one that fits in the same bandwidth
allocation and
actually realize more bandwidth than you had in the first place.
Of course,
there may be an increase in perceived quality due to the ability
to use
perceptual coding with digital programming, but let's take a
look at
ibiquity's actual standard. In case you haven't seen this yet,
there are
some decent (not content-free) white papers here:
http://www.ibiquity.com/tech_white_papers.html
The ones that are most interesting to us here are entitled
"The
Structure and Generation of Robust Waveforms for AM In-band On-Channel
Digital
Broadcasting" and "The Structure and Generation of
Robust Waveforms for FM
In-Band On-Channel Digital Broadcasting." Anyways, here
are the key points
as far as I am concerned:
1. The bandwidth of a digital audio channel on the AM system
is 20.2kbps +
16.2kbps on a second less reliable channel which is intended
for providing
stereo information and perhaps enhanced resolution. That's a
total of
36.4kbps under optimal circumstances.
2. The bandwidth of a digital audio channel on the FM system
is 98.4kbps.
3. Both the AM and FM systems have a potential to interact
poorly with some
receivers. Overall bandwidth for the "analog" signal
is necessarily reduced.
ibiquity may be correct that the passband of a typical AM receiver
in a car
radio is only 4kHz as measured in some reasonable manner, but
they neglect to
mention that passband sharpness is of critical importance and
that it's quite
likely that with at least some receivers the introduction of
hybrid mode IBOC
will result in objectionable noise. Similar effects will surely
be observed
with some existing FM receivers for hybrid IBOC FM. As an aside,
the use of
PSK to encode part of the digital signal in-band with the analog
signal for
AM will probably give AM stereo receivers fits. Okay, probably
nobody actually
has one any more, but anyways...
If you've ever tried listening to an mp3 encoded at 36kbps,
you'll
know that the results aren't too satisfactory. Now, there are
coding schemes
that work much better than mp3 at low bandwidth and, presumably,
for AM, they
will be using something more akin to what is used for mobile
phones. In any
case, I can believe it can be made to sound quite good at least
for speech,
but I don't think it even has the potential to bring mostly music
formats back
to large major market AM stations. Similarly, I don't think that
IBOC FM will
represent a large increase in audio quality over the very fine
audio quality
that is already possible with analog FM. Most of the quality
limitations in
FM today are in studio equipment, STL, transmitter, and receiver
and not
inherent in FM broadcast itself, and I don't think that much
is likely to
change with IBOC.
To us technophiles, the prospect of all-digital from studio
to receiver is very nifty, but the market is not really driven
by technophiles.
Even if the improvement in audio quality is greater than I think
it will be,
most listeners will still be listening in their cars and won't
really be able
to perceive the benefits. I think that, even if IBOC receivers
were mandated
by law as you suggest, adoption would be comparatively slow and
radio stations
would insist on using hybrid mode certainly for two decades at
least. The
installed base of receivers is just too huge, and IBOC, unlike
DVD versus VHS,
doesn't offer much immediate and clear benefit to the consumer.
To do this,
IBOC would need to have some really good value-add that has nothing
to do with
audio quality, and I don't see it. At least as long as stations
would continue
to operate in hybrid mode, there isn't really even enough bandwidth
for
interesting value-added services and as long as there aren't
interesting
value-added services there won't be enough of an installed base
for stations
to justify switching to digital only mode.
In summary, I think that IBOC faces an even rougher time than
HDTV.
There is no major benefit and some users of the existing analog
signal will
definitely suffer. Maybe somebody will invent a really great
must-have
application for the arbitrary data capabilities, though I think
we'll be
looking back on IBOC 15 years from now as we now look back on
CQAM AM stereo.
I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually see Ibiquity and
would-be adopters lobbying the FCC to permit subscription services
on the extra data channels available for digital only stations.
I would hope that the FCC would never permit such a use, but
who knows.
Instead of IBOC, we should look towards improving receiver
design and cleaning up our act. What we have in place (AM and
FM) is capable of transmitting VERY high quality audio, audio
which is preferred over digital compression by many. We need
to enhance and not destroy. The technology is there, program
the stations correctly, improve the receivers and you'll have
your radio nirvana.
Well I'm hoping it never comes to the smaller stations...but
it seems destined for the Big Apple, so I worry about listening
to 880 WCBS with 890 adjacent, someting I can do almost every
day. And Bloomberg 1130 with the local 1120 in Concord.
Scott... Loved the thoughts on the digital conversions...
Just wanted to clarify something for you...
(And let's not forget that up here, sunset won't come later
than 5 PM again until February, so that knocks out IBOC on PM
drive, too!)
The FCC approved pre-sunrise/post-sunset authority for IBOC.
So, if the station is authorized to be on the air during those
times, they can transmit IBOC.
That's great news for AM broadcasters up this way... Because
that guarantees the ability to broadcast digital from 6A-6P.
Granted they'll be directional, but hey, it's still better
than nothing. 12 hours minimum amount of digital time is much
better than 9, especially in key dayparts.
The biggest problem? Getting all of these companies to fork
over the cash to convert to IBOC. You're worried about getting
receivers, I'm worried that these huge companies haven't even
begun to think on what they're going to do... Sure, the big dogs
are going to upgrade their most lucrative sticks, but how serious
are they about converting the rest of them? That could stop IBOC
in its tracks, long before receivers become an issue.
Food for thought.
Your comments on the rant and IBOC in general are still welcome
here; we'll print more in an upcoming issue!
 *Have
you ordered your Tower Site Calendar 2003 yet? (Yes, the
very calendar that we had the honor of presenting to Paul Harvey
himself during his Rochester visit - and the delightful surprise
of hearing him praise on the air!)
Hear
what Paul Harvey had to say about his visit to Rochester...and
the 2003 Tower Site Calendar! (MP3,
3 min.)
It's no Oreck vacuum, or even Bose Wave radio, but if you
liked last year's calendar, 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;
Harvey's flagship WGN, Chicago 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 just a week or so,
and if you order now, you'll have yours in hand 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.
NorthEast Radio Watch is made possible by the generous
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is copyright
2002 by Scott Fybush. |