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February 24, 2003
Nightclub Blaze Aftermath Affects Broadcast Community
By SCOTT FYBUSH
(The weekend storm across the East Coast cancelled NERW's
travel plans for the week - so we're publishing today after all...)
*The nightclub fire in West Warwick, RHODE
ISLAND that killed nearly 100 people last Thursday night
would certainly have been a big enough story for the area's media
outlets on its own - and will continue to be so for weeks and
months to come. But this tragedy turned out to have an unusual
amount of resonance within the media community, beginning of
course with the club's ownership.
Jeff Derderian is a familiar name and face to TV viewers in
eastern New England. Your editor remembers him from his early-nineties
days behind the scenes at WBZ-TV (Channel 4) in Boston (when
yours truly was toiling, equally behind the scenes, across the
building at WBZ radio); later, he would work for WLNE (Channel
6) in the Providence market and then for five years as a reporter
for Boston's WHDH-TV (Channel 7).
And, as the whole world knows by now, Jeff had just departed
WHDH for a job closer to his Rhode Island home, starting just
weeks ago at WPRI (Channel 12) in Providence. He's been off the
air there since Thursday night (when, ironically, he was working
on a WPRI story about nightclub safety, using his own club as
a source of B-roll video), and we wonder whether he'll ever be
able to work in the region again - assuming, of course, that
he and his brother don't end up facing criminal charges for the
fire. More on this in the next few weeks, we're sure.
 As we go to press
Monday afternoon, meanwhile, among the dozens of people missing
and presumed dead is Michael Gonsalves, the WHJY (94.1 Providence)
overnight jock known on air as "The Doctor."
The Clear Channel rocker was promoting the Great White show
at Derderian's Station nightclub. In addition to Gonsalves, who
introduced the band just minutes before the pyrotechnics went
off, several WHJY promotions staffers were inside the building
but escaped safely.
WHJY simulcast sister station WHJJ (920 Providence)'s news
coverage of the tragedy for much of Friday, then resumed its
own programming with live airshifts all weekend to allow listeners
to call in and share their grief and concern.
Two other concertgoers who were confirmed dead over the weekend
had broadcast ties as well. Dale Latulippe, whose name was among
the first to be announced Saturday, was the son of former WRKO
newsman Don Latulippe. Dale Latulippe was a drummer and a father
of a seven year old; he was 46 years old. Also among the dead
was 21 year old James Gehan of Falmouth, Mass., a DJ at Nichols
College campus station WNRC (95.1 Dudley MA).
TUESDAY UPDATE: WHJY is now reporting that Gonsalves'
body has now been identified as being among the dead; our deepest
condolences go out to his co-workers and family. And we send
our best wishes as well to Don Latulippe, who was hospitalized
after suffering an angina attack early this morning, but hopes
to be out of the hospital in time for his son's funeral on Friday.
*The rest of the week's news: in NEW HAMPSHIRE,
WPKQ (103.7 North Conway) finally made it back on the air last
Friday (Feb. 21), nearly two weeks after the fire atop Mount
Washington that destroyed the power generators and the transmitter
of sister station WHOM (94.9 Mount Washington). NERW hears that
WPKQ is running at about 80% of licensed power while awaiting
a more powerful replacement generator; its studio-transmitter
link was damaged during the fire, so the signal from parent station
WOKQ (97.5 Dover) is going by ISDN to the North Conway studios
and then by analog microwave to the mountaintop. As for WHOM,
we're told the station's main antenna suffered little damage;
a replacement transmitter and STL could make it to the mountaintop
later this week.
*In MAINE, a surprise move from WGUY
(102.1 Dexter); the Bangor rimshotter dropped its smooth jazz
format last week to return to oldies, a little more than a year
after flipping away from oldies the first time.
 *One
of the best-known talkers in MASSACHUSETTS will make
a reappearance next weekend. Jerry Williams, a fixture at WRKO
(680 Boston) for many years, will pinch-hit next Saturday for
Pat Whitley's talk show. Williams lost his full-time shift at
WRKO in early 1997 and was out of the station for good in 1998;
he resurfaced briefly at talker WMEX (1060 Natick, now WBIX)
in early 2000 and more recently at WROL (950 Boston), where he's
been doing one hour of weekday afternoon talk. We're glad to
see any sign of reconciliation between the dean of Boston talk
radio and his former home, and we'll see where this all leads...
At the other end of the dial, WWZN (1510 Boston) ditched the
Mike Adams morning show after just three months; the station
is back to Sporting News Radio in that daypart (pulling Adams
off the air one hour into his show when the news broke in the
Boston Herald last Tuesday) while negotiating with Mike
Andelman (son of Eddie) to take over wakeups there. As for Adams'
planned on-air wedding in April? We'll keep you posted...
On the TV side, the FCC granted a license to cover this week
for WHDN-LP (Channel 26), a new Boston LPTV licensed to one Guenter
Marksteiner of Florida. WHDN-LP was formerly W26CM and before
that W23AM, licensed to Laconia NH. It looks as though WHDN-LP
will be transmitting from a building near the Fleet Center in
the old West End - possibly the roof of the Tip O'Neill Federal
Building - with 8200 watts into a directional antenna.
*One little bit of CONNECTICUT news:
WESU (88.1 Middletown) is changing hands, transferring ownership
from the Wesleyan Broadcasting Association to Wesleyan University
itself.
*NEW YORK City has never been good
territory for syndicated morning shows - just ask Tom Joyner.
His show disappeared from Emmis' WRKS (98.7 New York) this morning,
replaced by a revived "Wakeup Club" with Jeff Foxx
and Shaila, about a year after Joyner was brought in to replace
the Isaac Hayes morning show.
NERW was in New York over the weekend, and we noticed one
station missing from the dial at our usual Rockland County listening
post: W232AL (94.3 Pomona), the Rockland link in the now-defunct
"Jukebox Radio" chain, appears to have gone silent
for now. W276AQ (103.1 Fort Lee NJ) is still simulcasting Cox
oldies outlet WKHL (96.7 Stamford), just as it was doing the
last time we were down that way a month or so ago.
Up in Westchester, Radio and Records is reporting that
Nassau is spinning newly-acquired WYNY (107.1 Briarcliff Manor)
to Pamal, which will use it as a simulcast to extend the reach
of Poughkeepsie CHR WSPK (104.7) to the south. More on this next
week...
Way out on Long Island, one Isabel Sepulveda has asked the
FCC to allocate 103.3 to Water Mill as a class A channel. NERW
notes that this would knock out WSHU translator W277AB in Noyock;
we also note that there are still two unbuilt class A channels
on the East End - 92.9 Southampton, for which AAA has a CP as
WCSO, and 94.9 Montauk, for which the old CP as WVZC expired
a few years back.
Heading upstate, we can put a price on Concord's sale of WBPM
(94.3 Kingston) to Cumulus: $3.5 million was the pricetag for
the oldies outlet.
Rochester's WHAM (1180) shifted its schedule last week, extending
the syndicated Michael Savage show to 11 PM and wiping out Curt
Smith's hour of local talk from 10-11.
Niagara Falls' WJJL (1440) is having a bad week; the station's
parent company, M.J. Phillips Communications, filed for Chapter
11 bankruptcy, citing debts of over $180,000 and assets of just
$67,000.
One other bit of western New York news (we're too buried in
snow here to generate much more!) comes from the Buffalo TV scene,
where little WNGS (Channel 67) in Springville, having already
lost its UPN affiliation, has now had its latest application
for a power boost dismissed. The station held a CP to go from
its present flea power (just enough to get to a receiver south
of Buffalo that feeds area cable systems by fiber) to a full
5 megawatts; that CP expired at the end of 2002. The latest application
would have put WNGS on a directional antenna mounted on the Colden
tower of WKBW-TV (Channel 7).
And we're sorry to report the passing last Monday (Feb. 17)
of Jim Gordon, one of the best-known news voices in New York
City for decades. Gordon was the news director at WINS (1010)
when it switched to an all-news format in 1965 (and the first
voice heard on WINS as an all-news station) and was later the
news director at WNEW (1130) for many years. From 1977 until
1994, Gordon was the radio voice of the New York Giants, just
one of many sports for which he did play-by-play over the years.
Gordon was 76.
 *From NEW
JERSEY, a new simulcast to report: WMID-FM (102.3 Cape May)
pulled the plug on its simulcast of standards WMID (1340 Atlantic
City) after about a year and a half. Under new calls of WAIV,
102.3 is now simulcasting the CHR sounds of sister WAYV (95.1
Atlantic City), which never seemed to have much trouble covering
Cape May County on its own, at least in NERW's experience...
*In PENNSYLVANIA, we can put a price
on Nassau's purchase of Ragan Henry's WYNS (1160 Lehighton);
$375,000 was enough to give Nassau the signal, which will be
a relay of ESPN affiliate WEEX (1230 Easton) to the south.
The FCC approved four new LPFMs in the Keystone State: 102.9
Chambersburg, to "Dack Inc.," 103.5 La Plume, to Keystone
College; 103.7 Indiana, to "Godstock" and 104.9 Shawnee-on-Delaware,
to Shawnee Presbyterian Church.
In Pittsburgh, John Cline is back on the air, but not at WBZZ
(93.7); instead, the longtime B94 morning jock moves down the
hall to do mornings at Infinity hot AC WZPT (100.7 New Kensington).
 Right on the Ohio
state line, WPAO (1470 Farrell) has changed calls to WLOA, the
old call on 1550 in Braddock (today's WURP); we don't know what
other changes might accompany the call shift at the Youngstown-market
outlet.
Speaking of Youngstown, WHKW (1440 Warren) has dropped its
simulcast of sister WHK (1220 Cleveland), switching instead to
a simulcast of another Salem outlet, WCCD (1000 Parma), which
has just flipped to a secular talk format as "the Voice."
*And just one bit of news from CANADA:
CIQB (101.1 Barrie) has been granted a power increase, moving
up from 795 watts to 2600 watts.
That's it for this week; back in seven days with more!
 *Have
you ordered your Tower Site Calendar 2003 yet? That spiffy
image of the WBEN transmitter site on Grand Island is the March
image...and it's accompanied by more than a dozen others (including
Providence's WHJJ; Mount Mansfield, Vermont; KOMA in Oklahoma
City; the legendary WSM, Nashville; 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 is currently shipping! Calendars
are in stock, and orders placed now will ship within 24 hours!
And this year, you can order with your Visa, MasterCard, Discover
or American Express by using the handy link below!
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or higher, and you'll get this lovely calendar for free!
How can you go wrong? (Click here
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You can also order by mail; just send a check for $16
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NY 14618.
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*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!
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