|
November 17, 2003
FCC Cites Jarad Antenna Violations
*We're back home at last, and after catching
up on all the mail and such - and enduring a windstorm-related
power outage at NERW Central that meant no new Tower Site of
the Week last Thursday - we're back to normal with NERW. Let's
kick off right back home in NEW YORK state, shall
we?
 Two eastern Long
Island radio stations have some explaining to do to the FCC.
It seems inspectors were checking out the Manorville tower that's
home to WDRE (98.5 Westhampton) and WXXP (105.3 Calverton-Roanoke)
about a month ago, and something didn't quite add up when it
came to the antenna heights for the two stations.
Jarad's classic rock "Bone" WDRE is supposed to
have its antenna 40 meters above the ground, but it was radiating
from 114 meters up; sister dance station "Party 105.3"
is supposed to be at 90 meters but was spotted at 132 meters.
The stations have until Tuesday to explain what happened and
try to avoid an FCC fine over the matter.
 The Christmas music
battle came early to New York City. As of Thursday (Nov. 13)
at noon, the AC version of "Blink" is gone from WNEW
(102.7 New York), replaced by "The New 102.7" and nonstop
holiday music.
It's Infinity's shot across the bow of Clear Channel's dominant
AC, WLTW (106.7), which already announced that it would
go all-Christmas right after Thanksgiving - but the absence of
the "Blink" name from 102.7's holiday imaging is already
prompting more than the usual message-board chatter about what's
next for the battered remnant of a radio station that is WNEW.
(One bit of evidence that the AC Blink may not be back: APD
Craig Schwab is headed out of town, bound for Detroit's WKRK,
where he'll be PD for the same sort of hot-talk format that was
the last real ratings-getter for WNEW.)
Speaking of radio people on the move, Rick Sommers is leaving
WLTW after 12 years of part-time and weekend work - he's headed
for graduate school and hoping to get back into stand-up comedy
as well.
And we're sorry to report the passing of one of the better-known
sports radio callers in New York. Mets fan Doris Bauer was known
as "Doris from Rego Park" during her frequent cough-ridden
calls to WFAN; she died Monday (Nov. 10) of complications from
breast and lung cancer at age 58.
 The big buzz upstate is about
the future of sports WNSA (107.7 Wethersfield), the lone radio
property of the very bankrupt Adelphia. Bids are due any day
now in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the station, whose huge signal
covers the region between Rochester and Buffalo but lacks all-important
downtown penetration in either city; NERW hears the two potential
buyers sniffing around the facility are Entercom and Citadel,
both of which have significant clusters in Buffalo. Entercom,
of course, would dearly love to silence the chief competitor
to its sports outlet, WGR (550 Buffalo), not to mention inherit
Sabres' broadcast rights for WGR; Citadel would love to have
a fourth U.S.-based transmitter in the event the CRTC shuts down
its LMA of "Wild 101" CKEY (101.1 Fort Erie ON).
Stay tuned for more details on the future of WNSA - and of
its sister TV network, Empire Sports, which has lost its basic
cable coverage on Time Warner in Rochester and Syracuse and has
little local programming left beyond Sabres games. (The Sabres,
in an attempt to bolster their Rochester fan base, have arranged
with Time Warner to carry one game a week on its Rochester leased-access
channel; their "home" game in Rochester this past week
was seen on Rochester's WROC-TV, as well as by a packed house
- your editor included - at the Rochester War Memorial.)
Speaking of Citadel, it's looking for a new music director/morning
producer at modern rock WEDG (103.3 Buffalo), which is losing
Ryan Houlihan to a PD gig at KAZR (103.3 Pella IA), Des Moines'
modern rock "Lazer," effective December 1.
 Here in Rochester,
we made it home to find that the local daily (not to mention
most of the TV stations in town) had fallen for the "suspended"
stunt that a certain top 40 station was pulling. As we predicted
in last week's NERW, that station's veteran morning man was indeed
"suspended" - up in a crane, to raise money for charity.
It's interesting to note that not one of the stations that fell
for the (rather obvious, we thought) stunt ran a follow-up story
- how effective a promotion was it, then?
(We wondered the same thing when our new Rochester phone books
landed on the front step this week, complete with an ad pasted
to the cover advertising the oldies format on "93BBF,"
Entercom's WBBF 93.3 Fairport-Rochester, that was ditched in
favor of holiday tunes a week earlier...)
*Speaking of promotions, how about those
two NEW JERSEY classic rock stations - you know, the ones
named after a big bird that rhymes with "Rock" - that
made such a big stink last week over Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson
and his comments about the war in Iraq, President Bush and flag-waving
pickup truck drivers? Sure, the stations in question got some
publicity for their morning show by making a big deal out of
"permanently" banning Tull's music from their playlists...but
we hear their big "protest" at the Tull concert (which
was being presented by a competing rocker) a few days later attracted
almost nobody, and that "Aqualung" is back on the
playlist already.
NERW's opinion, for whatever it's worth: We're not big fans
of music stations playing at politics. Even the country stations
that pulled the Dixie Chicks from their playlists at the height
of the war found their audiences deeply split on the issue -
and that was in a format that prides itself on patriotism and
an act that was topping the charts. It was no surprise to us
that classic rock audiences reacted with a yawn, especially in
a market that happens to be the hometown of one B. Springsteen,
who's spoken out loudly and often against both the war and the
Dixie Chicks affair. We don't suppose those "bird"
stations would ever have thought about pulling "Born to
Run" or "Thunder Road" off their playlists, would
they?
 Meanwhile in North
Jersey, it's finally the end of the road for the stations that
made up Jukebox Radio. As of late last week, W276AQ (103.1 Fort
Lee) and its sister translator over in Rockland County, W232AL
(94.3 Pomona NY), along with their former parent station up in
the Catskills, WJUX (99.7 Monticello), are relaying the religious
programming from new owner Bridgelight's WRDR (89.7 Freehold
Township). W276AQ had been relaying oldies WKHL from Stamford,
Connecticut; W232AL had been silent since the summer; WJUX had
been carrying on with the same automated mixture of music, infomercials
and old ads for businesses 100 miles away in Bergen County.
*One CONNECTICUT note: former WKSS
(95.7 Hartford) jock Michael Maze is back in the Nutmeg State
after a stint at "Blink" in New York. He's now doing
afternoon drive at WKCI (101.3 Hamden) in the New Haven market.
 *It's
not as though MASSACHUSETTS rocker WAAF (107.3) has
had much to do with Worcester for a long time now; its studios
decamped from the Cocaine Realty Building downtown about a decade
ago, moving first to an office park in Westborough and then to
Entercom's new complex in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston
- and it holds a CP to move its transmitter east from Mount Asnebumskit
in Paxton to Stiles Hill in Boylston. But now WAAF can take the
whispered "Worcester" out of its legal ID completely,
with the FCC's approval of its petition to change city of license
to Westborough. NERW suspects that WAAF, once freed of the requirement
to put a city-grade signal over "Wormtown," will eventually
seek to edge its transmitter even closer to Boston. Though WAAF
is already constrained by short-spacings to WERZ (107.1 Exeter
NH) and WFHN (107.1 Fairhaven MA), it's also a pre-1964 allocation,
which could give it some interesting leeway when it comes to
squeezing between third-adjacents WMJX (106.7 Boston) and WXKS-FM
(107.9 Medford).
Over on the AM dial, Little Walter is making a Boston comeback.
The former WODS personality, who's now heard on Cincinnati's
WSAI (1530) and its Clear Channel oldies sister WRLL (1690 Berwyn)
in Chicago, is coming to Clear Channel's WXKS (1430 Medford)
as well, beginning next Saturday (Nov. 22) at 11 AM.
(Speaking of oldies, we hear that the Beatles' "Let it
Be - Naked" album premiere ran on three of Infinity's Boston
stations - in full stereo on classic rock WZLX 100.7, in full
mono on original Beatlecaster WBZ 1030, and right-channel-only
for most of the album on oldies WODS 103.3!)
And as WAZN (1470) begins testing its new facility at the
WTTT (1150 Boston) site in preparation for changing city of license
from Marlborough to Watertown, we finally logged a nice "WAZN
Marlborough" legal ID on tape last week...while we were
in Gary, Indiana, tuned to WLTH (1370). Whoops...
*Forever Broadcasting wants to make some
moves in western PENNSYLVANIA, and they'd go like this,
if the FCC approves:
Classic hits WXMJ (99.5) would move from Mount Union to Centre
Hall, about 25 miles north, requiring WZXR (99.3 South Williamsport)
to move its transmitter a few miles east. To maintain "first
local service" to Mount Union, oldies WWLY (106.3 Huntingdon)
would change city of license to Mount Union. The net result:
WXMJ would move from the sparsely populated and over-radioed
coal country around Huntingdon to the more profitable State College
market.
 Do people in Philadelphia
like Christmas music? That's what the rival AC stations in the
City of Brotherly Love must be hoping. Jerry Lee's WBEB (101.1)
has stayed away from the all-holiday format in past years, but
last Wednesday (Nov. 12) it made a stealth flip at 3 PM, trying
to beat Clear Channel's WSNI (104.5) to the punch. It worked,
for about four hours - and then WSNI, which had already done
an all-Christmas weekend, plugged in the holiday tunes and made
its own flip.
Up in the Lehigh Valley, Northampton County Council member
Ron Angle is back on the air after being fired by WAEB (790 Allentown)
for making allegedly anti-Semitic and racist remarks. Angle's
new radio home is WGPA (1100 Bethlehem), where he'll be heard
Monday-Thursday from 8-10 AM.
Radio People on the Move: Rob Acampora, former WAEB-FM (104.1
Allentown) music director, is the new night guy at WSTW (93.7
Wilmington DE), replacing Vince D'Ambrosio. And former WKST-FM
(96.1 Pittsburgh) PD Jason Kidd has exited Baltimore's WSMJ (104.3)
after just a couple of weeks programming the new smooth jazz
outlet.
*Two quick notes from CANADA: The
CRTC has granted AM-to-FM moves for Radio-Canada's CBGA (1250
Matane QC), which moves to 102.1 with 42.93 kW, and for CKBC
(1360 Bathurst NB), which moves to 104.9 with 20 kW. CKBC will
continue to be allowed to do 9 hours a week in French, over the
objections of Francophone competitor CKLE (92.9 Bathurst).
And we'll close by saying hello to our friends at the International
Radio Report, the long-running "radio about radio"
show heard Sunday mornings at 11:30 on CKUT (90.3 Montreal).
NERW baby Ariel, who's two months old now, appreciated being
mentioned on this past weekend's show - and we appreciated learning
that transmitter work on Mount Royal has led to sporadic overnight
signoffs on the CBC's CBME (88.5 Montreal). (Those of you outside
CKUT's broadcast range can hear a live stream or archived audio
at www.ckut.ca, by the way...)
 *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!
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. |