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June 30, 2003
92.9 Signs On in the Hamptons
By SCOTT FYBUSH
*It's been quite a few years in the making,
but NEW YORK's newest radio station finally made it to
the air last week.
WWHL (92.9 Southampton) signed on June 26, with a signal that
blankets the East End of Long Island and is already getting good
reports across Long Island Sound from the coasts of Connecticut
and Rhode Island. The format should sound very familiar to many
of those listeners: AAA Entertainment is simulcasting the AAA
format of WEHM (96.7 East Hampton) on 92.9, and will soon move
WEHM's calls down there as well.
96.7, in turn, will soon switch to Bloomberg's business news
network under new calls.
*In New York City, the big buzz this week concerned the new
hire at "Blink," WNEW (102.7): Lizzie Grubman, the
publicist-turned-hit-and-run-driver-slash-celebrity-of-the-second,
will be providing gossip reports from the Hamptons beginning
next weekend. Down on the AM dial, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has
followed former morning co-host Peter Noel out the door of WWRL
(1600), ending what had been one of the more interesting (or
at least unpredictable) morning shows in recent memory. And WLXE
(1380) is dropping the regional Mexican programming that Mega
had been running there; as Arthur Liu's Multicultural takes over,
so does the usual leased-time ethnic fare that Liu ran on 1380
(as WKDM) the last time he owned the station.
WFUV (90.7) has lost its latest bid for a new permanent tower
site: the Daily News reports that negotiations have
fallen through that would have moved the Fordham University station
from its half-finished tower near the New York Botanical Garden
to an industrial park elsewhere in the Bronx.
 In Albany, Pamal killed off the
pure smooth jazz on "Smooth Jazz 104.9" WZMR (104.9
Altamont), replacing it with a mixture of smooth jazz and R&B
oldies under the new name "104.9 Love FM."
Here in Rochester, Infinity has a new team running the show
at its four-station cluster: Kevin Murphy heads down the Thruway
from his old job running the sales department at Infinity/Buffalo
to become senior VP/market manager for WCMF (96.5), WPXY-FM (97.9),
WRMM-FM (101.3) and WZNE (94.1 Brighton), while WRMM/WCMF OM-PD
John McRae takes over the PD reins at WZNE from Mike Danger,
who continues to program 98PXY. Are there bigger changes in the
works for "The Zone," which dropped longtime morning
team Karlson and McKenzie last week? (Middayer Dem Jones has
been doing mornings in the interim...)
 Rochester's weekly "alternative"
rag, City Newspaper, deigned to mention radio this week,
devoting its cover to a report that public broadcaster WXXI will
soon be partnering with the University of Rochester to improve
the programming on WRUR-FM (88.5), which has fallen on somewhat
hard times in recent years. (It hasn't been uncommon to hear
WRUR sign off for several hours in the middle of the day because
there's nobody around to take the next shift - and this on a
station with one of the best noncommercial signals in town, 3000
watts from the Hyatt Hotel downtown.)
In any case, City confirms what we've been hearing
behind the scenes for a few months: WXXI will upgrade WRUR's
aging studios and supply the station with NPR news and talk programming
in exchange for being able to carry Morning Edition and
All Things Considered on WRUR's FM facility, which
reaches east and west to suburban areas that WXXI's AM 1370 signal
has difficulty reaching when it's on night pattern. WXXI will
also supply additional programming to fill timeslots on WRUR
that have gone unfilled. (City's article also passes
along the falsehood about Clear Channel banning the Dixie Chicks
groupwide; still, we suppose we should be grateful for any mention
of radio in the local print media, which usually ignore the industry
completely unless there's a bit of salacious gossip to pass along
about a prominent talk host...)
 The Buffalo-based
Empire Sports Network, home of the Buffalo Sabres, will lose
a big chunk of its viewership next year when Time Warner Cable
moves the service from its basic tier to a premium digital tier.
Empire's contract with Time Warner (which does not serve Buffalo
itself but covers much of the rest of western and central New
York, including Jamestown, Rochester, the Finger Lakes, Elmira,
Binghamton, Ithaca and Syracuse) was up this year, and that gave
Time Warner the leverage it needed to bump Empire off basic cable
and create a new $4.99/month sports tier on its digital service
- and a new headache for Adelphia, which is widely rumored to
have Empire and its sister radio station, WNSA (107.7 Wethersfield
Township) on the block.
(Will basic rates drop when Time Warner no longer has to pay
Empire's carriage fees for all its customers? We're hardly holding
our collective breath...and that satellite dish is looking better
every day...)
*Where were we? How about NEW JERSEY,
where the FCC gave Ed Seeger's group the go-ahead to move WSNJ-FM
(107.7 Bridgeton) into the Philadelphia market under the guise
of providing "first local service" to Pennsauken. WSNJ's
allocations move, which will transform its class B signal on
107.7 into a class A on 107.9, spells trouble for two high school
stations. WWPH (107.9 Princeton Junction NJ) and WHHS (107.9
Havertown PA) aren't expected to be able to find new spots on
the dial, and as unprotected class D stations, that means they'll
likely have to go dark once WSNJ moves. In WHHS' case, that means
the end of fifty years of student broadcasting, something the
FCC noted in its rulemaking reallocating the Bridgeton facility
- but rules are rules and WSNJ takes priority in the Commission's
eyes.
Ever wonder how much one one of these move-ins is worth? Consider
this: Seeger and his group paid Ed Bold and his family $20 million
for WSNJ AM/FM, and we've heard from a couple of sources in Philly
is that the asking price for the FM once it's moved will be in
the $50 million range.
*Moving across the river into PENNSYLVANIA,
sports talker WIP (610 Philadelphia) has a new midday team,
moving Steve Martorano over from sister WPHT to work with Anthony
Gargano in the slot vacated a few months back by Mike Missanelli.
 Congratulations
to WFRM (600) up in Coudersport, one of the better small-market
operations out there: the station celebrated its 50th anniversary
earlier this month, holding an open house and a daylong celebration
to mark the occasion.
(You can see many more great pictures at WFRM's Web site,
www.wfrm.net.)
And in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre market, Entercom took another
step closer to moving WAMT (103.1 Freeland) into the heart of
the market. The FCC is now taking public comments on the proposal
to reallocate 103.1 to Avoca, right in the middle of the market;
Entercom's WKRZ (98.5) would change its city of license from
Wilkes-Barre to Freeland (without a transmitter move) to preserve
the mythical "first local service" down there.
*In NEW HAMPSHIRE, Nashua's WOTW (900)
is changing hands. Ernie Anastos' Anastos Broadcasting is selling
the station to "Balanced View LLC," an investment consortium
that includes the husband of Governor Jeanne Shaheen. Balanced
View says it plans to hire 12-14 people and replace the satellite
talk now heard on WOTW with local full-service programming. (They're
also talking about changing the call letters, which makes no
sense to us; why ditch - for a second time - calls that have
been recognized in the community for more than half a century?)
No purchase price was announced.
 *In VERMONT,
the FCC paid a call on Tuesday to "Radio Free Brattleboro,"
the unlicensed community station that had been operating very
openly in town for nearly five years, initially on 88.1 and more
recently on 88.9 (to avoid interfering with the new 88.1 Norwich
signal that Vermont Public Radio will soon be signing on) with
a few watts that covered the town quite well.
One of the station's DJs gave the Brattleboro Reformer a
video of the visit, in which an FCC field agent ordered the jock
on duty to turn off the mixing board and transmitter and threatened
penalties if broadcasts were resumed. The shutdown was apparently
prompted by two interference complaints, one from WFCR (88.5
Amherst MA) and the other from a local resident; it doesn't appear
that any of the station's equipment was seized, though the station's
Web site has been down ever since.
*RHODE ISLAND now has DTV on
the air, becoming the very last of the 50 states to get an operating
digital outlet when WPRI-DT (Channel 13) came on the air last
week, with WNAC-DT (Channel 54) soon to follow. (A technicality
here: WPRI's transmitter is in Rehoboth, Mass., so a nitpicker
could argue that there's still no DTV in Rhode Island itself
- but then, neither of the operating DTVs licensed to Delaware
operate from within its state limits, either.)
A small correction to last week's issue: W243AI (96.5 Newport)
is in fact a relay of WCRI (95.9 Block Island), not of WCRI's
Boston parent station WCRB.
*In MASSACHUSETTS, we hear Joel Costa
is dropping the many LPFM applications he'd filed in the name
of various chapters of the "Assembleia de Deus," which
removes at least eight pending applications from the list in
places like Falmouth, Rockport, Springfield and Chicopee.
Down in New Bedford, WFHL (88.1) applies for a license to
cover, so we'd expect that religious programming will soon be
pouring forth from this new station.
Congratulations to WATD (95.9 Marshfield) owner Ed Perry:
he's a frequent recipient of awards, but a national Murrow is
always a big one, and he'll take one home for best small-market
newswriting.
Where are they now? Former WBCN jock Bill Abbate has been
heard doing weekends at WBOS (92.9 Brookline); up in Haverhill,
WXRV (92.5) takes on former WGIR-FM middayer "Meegan"
for weekend and swing duty.
 WBZ-TV (Channel
4) will be in the national spotlight Friday when it produces
the broadcast of the Boston Pops' Fourth of July concert and
fireworks - and it's rolling out a new logo just in time, replacing
the logo that some wag had dubbed "the Circle 4 Ranch,"
which itself replaced the unpopular "News 4 New England"
that replaced the old Westinghouse "4" logo.
*And in CANADA, it's all about the
AM-to-FM moves. In Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, the FM transmitter
is in place and on the air at CJLS, which will run its old 1340
and its new 95.5 in parallel for a few weeks before turning off
the widely-heard AM signal for good. CJLS keeps its existing
rebroadcasters on 93.5 and 96.5 in Digby and Shelburne to supplement
the new FM signal.
 At the other end
of the island, CJFX in Antigonish turns off its AM 580 signal
today after several months of simulcasting on the newly higher-powered
FM 98.9. (CJFX had been operating 98.9 as a low-power relay for
several years before gaining CRTC permission to boost the FM
to 75 kW and shut down its AM signal.)
We hear CJFX held a contest with its listeners to determine
exactly what time to shut off AM 580; we guess "5:80"
isn't a valid choice, is it?
*And that's it for another week. A happy Canada Day to our
readers up north and a happy and safe Independence Day to those
of you on this side of the border - and we'll see you after the
festivities are all over!
 *Have
you ordered your Tower Site Calendar 2003 yet? That spiffy
image of the WBEN transmitter site on Grand Island is just one
of a dozen exciting images...and it's accompanied by many 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!
Better yet, here's an incentive to make your 2003 NERW subscription
pledge: 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.
*The twelfth edition of the M
Street Radio Directory will soon go to the printer,
and we'll have a special offer for NERW readers coming within
a few weeks. Stay tuned!
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2003 by Scott Fybush. |