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November 10, 2003
Christmas Keeps Getting Earlier...
*FORT WAYNE, INDIANA - NERW comes
to you (again) this week from the land of the Hoosiers, an area
we're usually accustomed to visiting around Thanksgiving time.
This year, the arrival of baby Ariel brought us to Indiana a
little earlier than usual. You wouldn't know it, though, to tune
across the radio dials. On the way back from two jam-packed days
of radio in Chicago (more on that in Tower Site of the Week soon),
we tuned across WLRX (95.7 Napanee) - and, sure enough, it was
"Jingle Bells" time...on November 7!
 It's not just the
fringes of the South Bend market where AC stations are flipping
to holiday tunes earlier and earlier, though.
Back home in NEW YORK, WLTW (106.7 New York) announced
last week that it will go to all-Christmas music the Monday after
Thanksgiving. That's a move the Clear Channel "Lite"
station hasn't made in years past - but then, this year it has
competition from Infinity's new "Blink" WNEW (102.7),
which was almost certain to try the stunt itself (and still might!)
Right in the heart of NERW-land, Rochester's WBBF (93.3 Fairport)
also made an early jump. The Entercom oldies station already
dropped morning jock Tom George last week; now middayer/PD Dave
Radigan is out as well, heading down the hall to the big gun
in the cluster, country station WBEE-FM (92.5 Rochester), to
do nights.
More Rochester headlines: Infinity's WPXY (97.9) "suspended"
veteran morning man Scott Spezzano on Friday, sending out a press
release claiming he'd been feuding on the air with PD Mike Danger.
NERW smells a publicity stunt - after all, it's just a couple
of weeks before Spezzano's annual Thanksgiving roof-sit at Marketplace
Mall to raise money for charity, and right in the midst of a
ratings book as well. Yet at least three local TV stations (including,
alas, your editor's former news shop) bought the stunt.
(Free advice from the skeptical NERW News Desk - take a close
look at the wording of 'PXY GM Kevin Murphy's statement, as quoted
verbatim by one of those gullible stations: "Effective
Monday morning, Scott Spezzano will be suspended indefinitely."
We'd bet Scottso will be up in a crane, not off the air, as this
issue goes to press...)
Over in Buffalo, WNED (970) has added Mark Leitner to its
news staff. Leitner was a longtime newsman at WBEN (930) before
leaving the business about a year ago.
Call change up north: now that the heritage WPAC calls have
disappeared from 92.7 in Ogdensburg (which is doing top 40 these
days as WBDB), they've been snatched up over in Canton by "Yes
FM" WYSI (96.7).
In Saranac Lake, the applicant for a new TV facility wants
a change of channels. "Channel 61 Associates" is the
result of a partnership among three applicants for one of the
last full-power facilities in the state - and now Floyd Cox,
Donald McHone and Plattsburgh's WWBI want the FCC to move the
allocation there from channel 61- to channel 40+, keeping it
"in core" when the TV dial gets cut back above channel
51 in a few years.
 The owner of two
Northeast TV stations has died. Bob Smith founded the Smith Broadcasting
Group in the eighties, on the heels of a career that already
included a stint as an FCC lawyer and in the Carter White House.
His holdings in the region at one time included Rochester's WROC-TV
and Elmira's WETM; at the time of his death October 28, Smith
Broadcasting owned WKTV (Channel 2) in Utica, WFFF (Channel 44)
in Burlington VT and several stations in Santa Barbara and Alaska.
Smith was just 59; he had been suffering from neuroendocrine
cancer.
New York City TV news: WPIX (Channel 11) has been granted
a permanent auxiliary facility at the Armstrong tower in Alpine,
NEW JERSEY. The backup site will run
24 kW visual ERP at 244 meters above average terrain, which is
pretty much the facility WPIX built at Alpine under special temporary
authority in the weeks after 9/11.
A correction to last week's issue: while WABC-DT (Channel
45) indeed restored ABC digital service to New York when it signed
on, it still left one big hole in the DTV picture there. WNBC-DT
(Channel 28) was silenced on 9/11 and still hasn't returned,
though we're told a low-power transmitter at NBC headquarters
in Rockefeller Center is due to sign on soon.
Arthur Liu's WKDM (1380 New York) wants a power increase:
it's applying to boost night power from 5 kW to 13 kW by adding
another tower to its three-tower site on Paterson Plank Road
in the New Jersey Meadowlands. WKDM would stay at 5 kW days for
now.
And out on Long Island, JoJo moves from afternoons to mornings
at WMJC (94.3 Smithtown), while Rocky comes on board for afternoon
drive.
*In CONNECTICUT, the anchors and reporters
on WFSB (Channel 3) in Hartford were wearing nothing but black
and white last week. It wasn't a tribute to the station's 46th
anniversary, though; it was AFTRA's way of protesting the breakdown
of contract talks with station owner Meredith.
*Just in at press time from MASSACHUSETTS is
word that Vox's radio empire in Berkshire County is growing again.
The owner of WBEC (1420) and WBEC-FM (105.5) in Pittsfield is
getting ready to close next month on its purchase of crosstown
WUHN (1110) and WUPE (95.9) - and now it's moving north and south
on Route 7 with the purchase of Berkshire Broadcasting's WSBS
(860) in Great Barrington and WMNB (100.1)/WNAW (1230) in North
Adams, leaving only WBRK AM-FM in Pittsfield as radio competition.
No word yet on purchase price - and we'll have more details
on this story next week.
 A well-known voice
in Boston radio has been silenced. You might not recognize
Marcia Masters' name (or her married name, Bush), but if you've
listened to the radio in Boston in the last 15 years or so, you've
probably heard her voice. Masters made a name for herself doing
song parodies and humor bits on the WBCN morning show. She also
hosted the morning show on the short-lived "Showbiz Radio"
WRCA (1330 Waltham, a station we'd desperately love to find airchecks
of) and hosted a show on WMRE (1510 Boston, now WWZN), as well
as doing work for WHDH, WRKO and WMBR, not to mention industrial
voice-over work, books on tape and various performing gigs. Masters
died October 30.
Out on Nantucket, public radio WNAN (91.1) has been granted
a power increase from 1400 to 2300 watts.
*In MAINE, we hear Bud Sawyer has
retired at long last. The veteran Portland air personality was
most recently heard in mornings on WLOB (1310), where he's been
replaced by Gary Dixon.
A correction and several updates to the Mountain Wireless
changes up in the Augusta/Waterville market: WCTB (93.5 Fairfield)
was doing classic country under the Clear Channel LMA and continues
to do so under Mountain management. WSKW (1160 Skowhegan) keeps
ESPN sports, while Clear Channel has flipped former simulcasts
WFAU (1280 Augusta) and WIGY (97.5 Madison) to Fox sports. And
WHQO (107.9 Skowhegan) stays talk, losing the Clear Channel local
show it was simulcasting from WCME (96.7 Boothbay Harbor) but
keeping syndicated shows including Dr. Laura and Rush Limbaugh.
 *It
sounded like Christmas over the weekend in PENNSYLVANIA,
too. WSNI (104.5 Philadelphia) was one of the first stations
to go all-Christmas last year, and this year it started even
earlier, running a full weekend of holiday tunes before going
back to "Sunny" soft AC this morning. (It'll start
the Jingle Belling in earnest right after Thanksgiving...)
Former Erie station owner Dr. Jerome Koeppel died November
7. Koeppel and partner Don Kelly founded K&K Broadcasting
in the eighties and purchased WXKC (99.9) and WRIE (1260) in
Erie, as well as WZVU (107.1) in Long Branch, N.J. Koeppel practiced
medicine in Baltimore until his retirement two years ago; he
was an assistant professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University
School of Medicine.
*Just one note from CANADA: Roger
De Brabant is applying for a 50-watt contemporary Christian outlet
on 88.7 in Peterborough, Ontario.
*And that's it for this week's NERW; we'll leave Indiana to
our colleague Blaine Thompson and his Indiana
Radio Watch and head back home to the Northeast in time for
next week's issue. See you then!
 *The 2004
Tower Site Calendar is now available for ordering! Just as
in past years, the calendar features a dozen spiffy 8.5-by-11
inch full-color images of tower sites from across the nation
- everything from Washington's WTEM to New York's WCBS/WFAN to
Los Angeles' KHJ to WCTM in Eaton, Ohio. Unlike last year, this
year's calendar will feaure heavier paper (no more curling!)
and will be shipped shrink-wrapped on a cardboard backing to
make sure it arrives in pristine condition.
We'll be going to press soon, and hope to be shipping calendars
in time for Thanksgiving - but why wait? Order now and help support
NERW and Tower Site of the Week. Better yet, place your subscription
for 2004 at the $60 level by using the handy buttons below, and
you'll get your 2004 Tower Site Calendar absolutely FREE. What
more could you want? (Live overnight jocks, maybe?)
Don't want to order by credit card? You know the drill by
now - make those checks payable to "Scott Fybush,"
be sure to include sales tax for New York state calendar orders,
and send them along to 92 Bonnie Brae Avenue, Rochester NY 14618.
Thanks for your support!
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is copyright
2003 by Scott Fybush. |