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July 28, 2003
 London
Calling for "Bob"
By SCOTT FYBUSH
*The news from CANADA this week seems
to be the same as the news from Canada last week, and the week
before...yet another station has dropped a top-40 format to stake
its hopes for higher ratings on the classic hits/hot AC hybrid
variously known as "Jack" (the original, developed
down on Long Island by Bob "Cadillac Jack Garrett"
Perry and friends), "Bob" and "Dave."
 When the CHUM Group
does it in places like Ottawa and Brockville, it's Bob - as listeners
to London's CHST (102.3) discovered Thursday night, when top
40 "Star 102.3" went away and resurfaced as "102.3
Bob FM."
What frontiers still remain for this format? Canada's #1 market
already has it, of course - though there's an interesting rumo(u)r
that CHUM actually contemplated flipping CHUM-FM itself to "104.5
Bob FM" before Rogers beat it to the punch and flipped CISS
(92.5) from "Kiss" to "Jack" - but there's
still Montreal and Windsor to conquer. And we'll be interested
to see whether U.S. broadcasters begin taking note of Jack and
Bob's ratings success north of the border and hop on the Bob-wagon.
(The folks at the original Jack-FM would certainly be happy
to help - reach out to Bob at www.jack.fm...)
Speaking of Toronto, CHIN-1-FM (101.3) is moving spots on
the dial. We hear its new 91.9 signal is already being heard
in the Etobicoke area; 101.3 will go away soon to make room for
the new Canadian Multicultural Rado signal up there. (CHIN-1-FM
simulcasts CHIN's AM 1540 signal, a separate program feed from
the big CHIN-FM 100.7 signal.)
 And a launch date
has been set for Toronto's new TV station. "Toronto One"
will sign on September 19, promising a program lineup that includes
locally-produced entertainment shows, "Monday Night Football,"
the Toronto Raptors and Fox's baseball playoff schedule, the
World Series and all.
Toronto One will appear for broadcast viewers as CKXT-TV (Channel
52), with a low-power relay on channel 45 in Hamilton. On cable,
it'll show up somewhere below channel 14, though a definite position
hasn't been announced yet.
*The newest radio station in PENNSYLVANIA signed
on Friday. WPHD (96.1 South Waverly) is stunting as "Fab
96," playing nothing but Beatles music for a coverage area
that stretches north and east to Elmira, N.Y.; that's the same
stunt that owner Kevin Fitzgerald used to relaunch what's now
"Cozy 104," WCOZ (103.9 Laporte), a few months back.
A new FM allocation in Erie? Dana Puopolo has applied to add
95.9A there, which just barely fits on paper (NERW believes the
recent 95.9/96.1 Youngstown-area engineering shuffle helped make
it possible), but will get brutally battered in real life by
the very strong CFPL-FM (95.9) signal from London, Ontario, which
is usually loud and clear in downtown Erie. (Shades of the 102.1
Albion NY here...)
Over in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Steve Griffin is heading out
of his post as VP/GM of the Citadel cluster there; he's heading
south to Jacksonville to be the GM of the new Salem cluster there.
And in Philadelphia, Dennis Winslow is out as PD of oldies
WOGL (98.1); no replacement has been named yet.
*An interesting note from NEW JERSEY:
WXXY (88.7 Port Republic) has dropped its simulcast of contemporary
Christian WXHL (89.1 Christiana DE) for what appears to be a
non-stunt format of 80s hits. Why? Beats us...
Can you believe it's 20 years this week since WVNJ-FM (100.3
Newark) sailed (very softly) into the sunset? It was August 1,
1983 when Malrite took over that signal and turned it into a
major player in the New York market - and so we wish a very happy
birthday to WHTZ, "Z100," though we hear there won't
be much in the way of on-air celebration of this anniversary.
(Frankly, having just come from a Ringo Starr concert that featured
Colin Hay of Men at Work, Sheila E. and John Waite, we're equally
convinced that the audience that loved those tunes on Z100 in
1983 isn't still listening to the station these days...)
 *On
the other end of the NEW YORK market, it was a very
bad week for struggling talker WLIE (540 Islip), which continued
to shed staff in an attempt to stay afloat.
This time, the cuts included PD John McDermott, who was followed
out the door by afternoon host Mike Siegel (already on vacation,
he won't be returning) and morning traffic guy/co-host Steve
Reggie, whose time at 540 predated the WLIE calls and talk format;
WLIE's morning show producer also left, though voluntarily, we're
told.
Ed Tyll will move from midday to 3-7 PM, with Laura Schlessinger
getting the midday clearance (how much do you want to bet her
syndicators bill it as a "New York" clearance, too?)
and message-board rumors flying of the impending demise of the
entire format. Stay tuned...
While we're out on the Island, some callsign shuffling: WEHM
and WHBE swapped calls, so it's now WEHM on 92.9 Southampton
(will someone update the "96.7 EHM" Web site
already?) and WHBE on 96.7 East Hampton. Meanwhile, the WBON
calls that were recently dropped in Knoxville have landed at
the former WWXY (107.1 Hampton Bays) - but they're expected to
be swapped to sister WDRE (98.5 Westhampton) to give "the
Bone" the WBON calls.
Here's the latest picture from John Lyons' big 4 Times Square
project, with a face you might recognize: that's ERI head honcho
(and Empire State Building tower-climber) Tom Silliman setting
the first face of the new tower in place on the 4 Times Square
rooftop.
Moving upstate, Albany is getting another FM signal (insert
your own "which it needs like an..." analogy here),
as the FCC approves the move of WNYQ (105.7 Queensbury) to Malta,
on the Saratoga/Albany county line. 105.7 will downgrade from
B1 to A as it heads into the Albany market; the mythical "first
local service" to Queensbury will be preserved by changing
WCQL (95.9)'s city of license from Glens Falls to Queensbury,
and there will be a new 105.9A Indian Falls allocation to be
auctioned off someday.
And on the DTV front, WIXT-DT (Channel 17) is on the air at
full power from Syracuse.
*Some staffing changes from Vox VERMONT:
"Big Mike" McFly departs mornings at WWFY (100.9 Berlin)
to take over the PD reins at WBEC (1420/105.5) down in Pittsfield,
Mass., replacing Sharon Steele there. McFly's morning shift at
Froggy will be filled by J.D. Green, who returns to the station
from WMOO (92.1 Derby Line). And "Leapin' Lloyd" takes
over middays at WWFY from "Kickin' Kelly," who hops
out of the station. (Ribbit...)
*A veteran RHODE ISLAND programmer
is heading south. Bill Hess leaves the PD chair at Clear Channel's
WWBB/WSNE/WHJJ to become PD at Clear Channel's AC WASH (97.1)
in Washington DC.
And WALE (990)'s listener can once again find the programming
he enjoyed until the leased-time voice of Burrillville and Greenville
went bankrupt and flipped to Spanish; much of the tinfoil-hat-and-black-helicopters
talk programming that was a WALE trademark has resurfaced, alas,
on WARL (1320 Attleboro MA), replacing the urban programming
that, amazingly, failed to take the market by storm there.
*In MASSACHUSETTS, WBPV (90.1 Charlton)
has breathed its last; the Bay Path Vocational High School station
is now being operated by "Heirwaves, Inc." with new
calls WYCM and the contemporary Christian format (and airstaff)
from Worcester's WNEB (1230). Heirwaves will eventually buy the
license outright from Bay Path.
On the callsign front, WAHL (99.9 Athol) applies to become
WNYN (for "NINEty NINE point NINE," perhaps?), while
Boston's 1150 attempts to seal its record for most callsigns
on a single Boston station, ever, by changing yet again from
WBPS to WYTS. (That's ten, by the way: WCOP, WACQ, WHUE, WSNY
(followed by a return to WHUE), WMEX, WROR, WNFT, WAMG, WBPS
and now WYTS, making 1150 sort of the Ted Williams of Boston
call changes. 1510 is in second place with eight, and Bob Bittner
would have to get very busy with 740, now mired in third place
with six calls, to compete for this particular dubious honor.)
 And a story that's
been simmering all summer: Lowell's WJUL (91.5) will apparently
have some different programming this fall, as the Lowell Sun
takes over 25 hours a week of the UMass/Lowell station's
programming. According to a letter that's been sent out by the
station's current student board to station alumni, the Sun
will program a local news-talk format on the station from 5-10
AM weekdays, operating from a new studio inside Lowell's Tsongas
Arena.
The deal raises all sorts of questions, first and foremost
about how the Sun would make money on a deal with what
is, after all, a noncommercial station - but also about what
the long-term effects of such a deal would be on student control
of WJUL, not to mention the added competition the deal would
create for commercial WCAP (980 Lowell). We'll have much more
on this story in the months to come, no doubt...and we hear this
isn't the only format change on the way in the Merrimack Valley,
either. Stay tuned!
*And in MAINE, fans of the news on
WMTW (Channel 8) will now be able to see it again - and again
and again - on Time Warner Cable, which will be carrying 24-hour
rebroadcasts of WMTW's news on cable channel 9.
*Calendar Update: Tower Site
Calendar 2003 is now sold out for individual purchase!
We're hard at work on Tower Site Calendar 2004, which will be
even brighter and better - but if you absolutely have
to have the 2003 edition, all is not lost. A very small quantity
of calendars are still set aside for subscribers, so if you haven't
subscribed yet, now's the time. Make your 2003 NERW subscription
pledge to 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...)
And keep an eye on this space for 2004 calendar details; we'll
start pre-ordering around Labor Day, which is just over a month
away (yikes!)
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2003 by Scott Fybush. |
