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August 15, 2003
The Night The Lights Went Out in NERW-Land
By SCOTT FYBUSH
It's been an interesting 24 hours or so here at NERW Central,
and while we get our Monday issue together, we can offer this
update on what we've pieced together from across the region in
the wake of the Great Blackout of 2003:
New York City and vicinity: Still recovering from the
damage to its broadcasting infrastructure on 9/11 (see link at
left), New York's broadcast scene - especially the TV stations
- was ill-prepared to handle a huge blackout as well. Of the
major TV stations, only WCBS-TV (Channel 2) stayed on more or
less uninterrupted, again proving the wisdom (however accidental)
of the decision to keep a transmitting facility at the Empire
State Building after most TV moved to the World Trade Center
in the late seventies. Fox's WNYW (Channel 5) and WWOR (Channel
9) were off the air much of the day, while WNBC (Channel 4) and
WABC (Channel 7) apparently transmitted from the old Armstrong
tower at Alpine, N.J. at low power, with WABC making some of
the arrangements for Alpine on the air.
Without power, though, TV wasn't the medium of choice for
those in the midst of the blackout - radio was. And just as it
did in 1965 and 1977, radio came through. The big AM signals
had the fewest problems, with WOR, WCBS and WBBR staying on essentially
nonstop, WABC experiencing a few glitches, and WINS off for the
first hour or so. We learned what it takes to make WCBS dump
the Yankees - with no Mets game at Shea, it was an easy decision
to move the Yankees road game down the dial to WFAN and let WCBS
keep rolling with news. (Later, WFAN would simulcast WCBS overnight
before returning to its own programming at 5:30.) Notably absent
from the dial all night was WQEW (1560); WSNR (620 Jersey City)
came back on the air with Sporting News Radio rather than its
usual leased-time fare.
On FM, the New York dial was much quieter than usual. While
some stations had backup generators at the transmitter site (especially
WSKQ/WPAT-FM, WNYC-FM and the Clear Channel stations at the new
Four Times Square facility), studio power failures still plagued
many stations through the night and into the morning. WNEW didn't
"Blink," but did come back on the air at low power
with a WINS simulcast once WINS itself was back on. The Clear
Channel stations without studio power simulcast WNBC's TV news,
we're told.
Upstate: Without being able to rotate the antenna atop
NERW Central (we've been advised to buy a power inverter to run
the rotor off the car battery next time), we had a hard time
being certain who was on or off outside the Rochester area. Locally,
all our TV stations - and most of the city's FM signals - went
dark when we did, about 4:10 PM. With the AM dial missing the
usual electrical noise, we were able to dial around and get a
sense of who was doing what in Buffalo and Syracuse. WHEN (620)
in Syracuse dumped sports to simulcast news from WSYR (570);
their FM counterparts in the Clear Channel stable appeared to
be off the air for most of the evening. Buffalo's WGR (550) and
WBEN (930) each did their own coverage, with most of the Queen
City's smaller AM signals still on the air as well. Here in Rochester,
the only AM signals on the air were WROC (950), WHAM (1180) and
WXXI (1370), all of them doing live blackout coverage, with Entercom
simulcasting WROC on WBEE-FM (92.5), WBBF (93.3) and even WBZA
(98.9) when it managed to flicker on the air. WHAM kept going
with Bob Lonsberry and company all through the night (at which
point Lonsberry turned around and did his Salt Lake City talk
show and his regular WHAM midday shift); WROC went to network
talk around 10, from what we could tell.
On TV, Buffalo's signals apparently stayed on with generators,
with the exception of several UHF signals (23, 29 and 49); Batavia's
Pax 51 WPXJ stayed on throughout - and, as the only signal easily
seen in Rochester, would have made a wonderful simulcast of LMA
partner WGRZ if anyone had thought of it. Rochester's WHEC was
back on at low power at about 8:45, with WOKR joining it at 1:20
AM (just after we regained power at NERW Central), WUHF (Channel
31) on and off through the night, and WROC (Channel 8) and WXXI
(Channel 21) silent until Friday morning. Utica's WKTV (Channel
2) never lost power at its transmitter site; it managed to get
the studios back up with a generator about 6:30 and was into
live coverage by 7. Syracuse's WSTM, WTVH and WIXT all were seen
here by early evening as well.
And we're told Albany was a patchwork, with some FM signals
on and others off through the evening.
Canada: We're told - but have not yet confirmed - that
the CN Tower transmitting facility lost power, sending most of
the signals there either into darkness (CTV's CFTO, CHIN-FM,
CJRT, CBL-FM) or to low-power auxiliary facilities. On the AM
dial, CHWO (740) was off the air most of the night, though the
problem appeared to be at the studio and not the transmitter,
since CJBC (860) stayed on from the same transmitter. Scattered
off-air stations were reported elsewhere in Ontario, and we caught
the CJBC relay network picking up Syracuse's WTKW and relaying
it in the absence of the Kingston 99.5 signal early in the blackout.
On Friday morning, the transmitters of the TVOntario network
that weren't off the air were carrying a slate apologizing for
the lack of programming because of the power outage.
New Jersey/Pennsylvania: Except for northern New Jersey
and the Erie area, we're told everything is pretty much OK in
the southern reaches of NERW-land, as well as across most of
New England.
Much more over the weekend here at fybush.com; stay tuned
- and send in your blackout notes and observations!
August 11, 2003
Standard Buys Across Border
FRIDAY MORNING BLACKOUT UPDATE: We lost power
at NERW Central from 4:10 Thursday afternoon until about 1:10
Friday morning - but we were busy listening to as much as we
could of the excellent coverage that radio provided of the Big
Blackout.
No Tower Site of the Week this week; we'll get back on schedule
with that next week - but stay tuned to fybush.com later Friday
for a special report on the outage that knocked stations off
the air from Connecticut to Michigan. (And we're very eager to
hear from engineers and other station personnel about their blackout
experiences! Let us know how you survived the outage...)
THIS JUST IN: We're just hearing at press time
that Dale Dorman, dean of Boston's top 40 DJs, is out the door
at Clear Channel's WXKS-FM (107.9 Medford) after 23 years in
afternoons at Kiss 108 - and a long run at WRKO before that.
Much more next week...
*One of CANADA's largest broadcasters
is taking an interest in the radio scene across the border. Standard
Radio, which owns Toronto's CFRB, Montreal's CJAD, CJFM and CHOM
and Ottawa's CKQB, among others, bought a 25% interest (the maximum
allowable to a foreign owner) in Martz Communications last week,
giving it a piece of a broadcaster that's been giving it headaches
in Montreal.
Tim Martz has long specialized in border broadcasting, buying
and selling stations everywhere from Calais, Maine to northern
Minnesota with an eye towards sending his signals across the
border into Canada. At the moment, his station group includes
nine stations in northern New York: top 40 WYUL (94.7 Chateaugay),
oldies WICY (1490 Malone), country WVNV (96.5 Malone), top 40
"Yes FM" WYSX (98.7 Ogdensburg)/WYSI (96.7 Canton),
AC WVLF (96.1 Norwood), oldies WMSA (1340 Massena), rock WRCD
(101.5 Canton) and country WNCQ-FM (102.9 Morristown) -  and of those, the one that's the
biggest concern to Standard is WYUL, which puts a signal into
much of Montreal, yet is unbound by the Canadian regulations
on hit music content, language (unlike the Montreal stations,
it can give traffic reports in French and English)
and Canadian music content.
With Standard's money in the picture, will WYUL ease up on
its attacks on Standard's CJFM ("Mix 96"), including
the taunting Web site URL of www.nixthemix.com?
Or will Standard put its hit-music energy into the cross-border
signal and refocus CJFM in another direction? It should be interesting
to watch...especially for Standard's Montreal competitors.
 While we're in the
Seaway Valley, a surprise format change at Corus: it dumped the
country at CJSS (101.9 Cornwall) on Friday afternoon, replacing
"Blaze" with "Rock 101.9," which looks like
a carbon copy of Corus' very successful CFMI (Rock 101) in Vancouver.
Could this, too, be a reaction to the Standard/Martz moves, especially
so close on the dial to "Fox" 101.5 over in Canton?
In Toronto, the revolving door of talent swept Kelly Cutrara
from Corus' modern rock CFNY (102.1 the Edge) to Standard's ever-hotter
CKFM (Mix 99.9), where she'll do the 1-4 PM shift, while Josie
Dye moves up from weekends to replace her at the Edge. Across
the lake, Ben McVie departs Standard's CHTZ (97.7 St. Catharines)
to join the morning show at the new "Dave", Corus'
CJDV (107.5 Cambridge), while up in Barrie, Jeff Kelly leaves
"Energy" CHAY (93.1) to become "Jeff Sprung"
at London's Energy station, CFHK (103.1). But the big development
at week's end was the return of veteran Toronto programmer Pat
Cardinal to be GM/PD of Rogers' "Jack FM" CISS (92.5)
- he's due back in T.O. from Vancouver, where he was running
the original Canadian Jack for Rogers.
Speaking of St. Catharines, a complaint from a Toronto listener
who happened across the Phil Hendrie show on CKTB (610) landed
the station in some hot water with the Canadian Broadcast Standards
Council. The CBSC admonished the Standard station for carrying
an episode of the US-based syndicated talk show in which Hendrie
used several ethnic slurs against Italians.
On TV, Craig has named the co-anchors of its flagship news
program on the soon-to-launch "Toronto One." Ben Chin
comes over from the CBC to join Sarika Seghal (formerly of CHCH
in Hamilton) at the helm of "Toronto Tonight," which
will launch along with the rest of the station on September 19.
And we can now tell you where the station (CKXT Channel 52 over
the air) will appear on cable: it'll show up on channel 15, displacing
Buffalo's WGRZ to channel 18 in most areas.
(And something else we noticed in tracking this down - with
thanks to Joseph Gallant: after literally decades of Rochester
network affiliates on Ottawa cable, Rogers is switching its Ottawa
system to network feeds from Detroit when its channel shuffles
take place September 9. Rochester's WHEC, in particular, has
long mentioned Ottawa weather in its local newscasts, and it's
not unusual to see Ottawa phone numbers in the occasional local
commercial here, either. NERW wonders if the microwave system
that has delivered Rochester signals to Ottawa from a receive
site on the north side of Lake Ontario was getting too expensive
to maintain. Ottawa will still get PBS from Watertown's WPBS,
at least...)
In Kingston, Greg Hunter will end more than a quarter-century
of wakeup duty this Friday, when he retires from the morning
shift at CFLY (98.3). He'll do specialty shows for the station
this fall, after taking some time to relax.
Montreal's "Team 990," CKGM, is shuffling airstaff:
morning guy Mitch Melnick is moving to afternoons, while Tony
Marinaro moves from afternoons to join Ron Francis in morning
drive.
And in Quebec, there's word that the new Rythme FM outlet,
CJEC (91.9), is testing - and running a contest to guess what
its first "real" song will be when the format signs
on there soon.
 *Just
across the border in upstate NEW YORK, WJJL (1440 Niagara
Falls) is in chapter 9 bankruptcy proceedings - but with a steady
hand to guide it through its recovery. Pittsburgh-based broker/consultant
Ray Rosenblum, a good friend of this column, has been named as
"special consultant" to WJJL's owner M.J. Phillips
Communications by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Carl Bucki. We enjoy
WJJL's unusual and obscure oldies format, and we're hopeful that
Ray can help the station get back on its feet.
Down the road in Buffalo, the FCC slapped Infinity's WBLK
(93.7 Depew) with a $4,000 Notice of Apparent Liability; it seems
night jock Shae Moore called Adelphia Cable and put a customer-service
representative there on the spot about the company's bankruptcy
without telling her she was on the air...
Here in Rochester, we're looking on with dismay at the arrival
of a slew of new travelers' information stations; in addition
to the existing 1610 facility near the Irondequoit Bay Bridge,
we're now hearing a 910 signal testing on the west side of town
- and signs promise another 910 just a couple of miles from NERW
Central. If the 1610 facility is any indication, the signals
will mostly be used for "testing" messages - and anyway,
we don't have traffic around these parts (at least not
in the sense that anyone from Boston or New York would understand
it!)
In Syracuse, Craig Fox wants to move the planned five-tower
night array of the unbuilt WVOA (720 DeWitt); he can't get zoning
clearance to put it at his planned site east of I-81 and south
of Syracuse, so he's now looking at a site right along the west
side of I-81 and south of the Nedrow exit. WVOA will, if built,
run a respectable 2500 watts daytime and critical hours from
the WOLF 1490 site in Syracuse - and a less-than-impressive directional
390 watts at night from that I-81 site.
In the Hudson Valley, Jimi Jamm gets a promotion from Clear
Channel: he's now director of programming for the entire Poughkeepsie-based
cluster there.
It's been a busy week for John Lyons and his crew at New York
City's Four Times Square, as you can see from the latest batch
of pictures he's sent along.
 On the roof of the
Manhattan skyscraper, ironworkers are busy assembling the pieces
of the tower that will eventually rise 1200 feet above Times
Square - but John himself took some time for a trip up to Maine
to check up on the antennas that will soon grace that tower.
Here we see a rare picture of the man himself stepping into
his UHF antenna at the Dielectric test facility; at right, above,
is the high-band VHF antenna that could eventually be an auxiliary
home to channels 7, 9, 11 and 13, also undergoing testing in
Maine.
Meanwhile, back in lower Manhattan, Emmis finally parted ways
with "Star" last week, confirming that the former WQHT
(Hot 97) morning host is no longer with the station. Who'll replace
him? MTV host Sway is apparently a leading candidate.
Out in Brooklyn, the Rev. Yvon Louis is in trouble with the
FCC after agents made repeated visits to his Calvary Tabernacle
on Nostrand Ave. to check on pirate stations that operated from
there on 88.1, 90.1 and 93.7 MHz, in some cases with more than
3,000 times the legal unlicensed power. Rev. Louis tells the
FCC that none of the transmitters they saw on their visits were
operable - but the FCC says he owes them $10,000 for repeated,
willful violations.
On the AM dial, Salem's doing some shuffling, adding the syndicated
Dennis Prager show to WWDJ (970 Hackensack NJ) from 1-3 PM and
bringing Kevin McCullough in from Chicago's WYLL (1160) to host
a new afternoon show. It'll be heard from 3-5 on WWDJ and from
2-4 PM on WMCA (570).
And we were most remiss last week in neglecting to note, amidst
all the Bob Hope hoopla, the death of John Regan McCrary, universally
known as "Tex." While McCrary is best remembered these
days as a master PR practitioner, he's still fondly recalled
by New Yorkers of a certain age as the co-host of WNBC's morning
show in the late forties and early fifties, along with his wife
Jinx Falkenburg. McCrary died July 29 at 92; one wonders whether
the eventual passing of Howard Stern, should he live as long,
will get similarly minimal attention.
*Over in NEW JERSEY, WAWZ (99.1 Zarephath)
is getting a new morning host, as Johnny Stone moves to "Star
99" from Salem's WZFS in Chicago. (Perhaps he can share
a moving van with his colleague Kevin McCullough...) Stone will
start on September 1.
 Down the shore, WJSE
(102.7 Petersburg) has parted ways with both afternoon jock Mike
Gill and evening jock "DC"; no replacements have been
named yet.
*Just one PENNSYLVANIA note this week:
Dave Russell is inbound to the PD chair at "Cat Country"
WCTO (96.1 Easton); he moves south from WEZQ (92.9) up in Bangor,
Maine.
*In CONNECTICUT, Justin Case is headed
to the PD seat at WWYZ (92.5 Waterbury), coming back to the northeast
from WUSN (99.5) in Chicago. Case knows the region well; in addition
to stints at WYRK in Buffalo and WDSY in Pittsburgh, he also
worked at WPKX (97.9 Enfield), just up the road from Hartford.
WILI (1400 Willimantic) carried yesterday's Red Sox-Orioles
game - but not with Joe Castiglione and Jerry Trupiano. Instead,
the station got a rare treat, as the Sox allowed WILI's Wayne
Norman and John Tuite to do their own call of the game from Fenway.
Alas, the Sox lost, 5-3. (But it's not over yet!)
 WQGN (105.5 Groton)
is losing its night guy to a much bigger market. Mike McKenzie
is moving south, leaving "Q105" for "G105,"
WDCG (105.1 Durham NC), where he'll also be doing nights.
Pat Marino, former "Love Songs at Night" host on
Westchester's WFAS-FM, has moved across the state line to WEZN
(99.9 Bridgeport), where he's now doing the love songs thing
on Saturday and Sunday nights for "Star 99.9."
And Connecticut River Educational Radio gets an LPFM; it was
granted 97.1 in Higganum.
*Up in north central MASSACHUSETTS,
WINQ (97.7 Winchendon) broke from its simulcast of news-talk
WKBK (1290 Keene NH) last week; it's now doing country as "Wink
Country," we're told.
On the LPFM front, the Talking Information Center gets 104.3
in Pittsfield, where it'll bring its talking-book service to
the Berkshires from the WBRK-FM (101.7) tower; over in North
Adams, Gospel Train Ministry gets 98.9 for an LPFM.
 And Citadel has handed
off the keys to WAHL (99.9 Athol) and WCAT (700 Orange); the
FCC has signed off on the sale of the stations to Steven Silberberg,
doing business as "County Broadcasting."
*In VERMONT, the first translator
of the flood of applications earlier this year is about to become
reality. Ken Squier's Radio Vermont had its full application
for 96.5 in Barre posted to the FCC's Daily Digest last week;
that triggers a 15-day window for petitions to deny, absent which
the application will be granted. (We'll keep tabs as more of
these translator "singletons" make their way through
the system...)
*In NEW HAMPSHIRE, two new LPFMs were
granted last week: 95.1 Goffstown to School Administrative Unit
#19, and 103.1 Keene (moved from the original application for
94.9) to Keene Foursquare Church, "DBA Harvest Christian
Fellowship." That piqued our interest, since that's the
name Brian Dodge used for his long string of never-quite-legal
operations across northern New England - but a check of the application
shows that if Dodge is involved in this one, he's staying
well behind the scenes.
And a very belated obituary: V. Birney Imes, Jr. died March
12 in Alabama, just three days short of his 89th birthday. Imes
was an important player in Granite State broadcasting, buying
WMUR (Channel 9) in Manchester in 1981 and building it from a
tiny station in an old house on Elm Street into a respected broadcast
operation before selling it to Hearst-Argyle in 2000 for $185
million, a $180 million profit over his purchase price.
*And way down east in MAINE, WCRQ
(102.9 Dennysville) is now in the hands of Bill McVicar - and
that means a new name, "The Border 102.9," and a new
format, sliding towards hot AC from top 40.
That's it for this week - back in seven days with more!
*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 less than a month
away (yikes!)
NorthEast Radio Watch is made possible by the generous
contributions of our regular readers. If you enjoy NERW, please
click here to
learn how you can help make continued publication possible. NERW
is copyright
2003 by Scott Fybush. |
MAINE
