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December 29, 2003
Click here to read
NERW's comprehensive 2003 Year in Review coverage
Saga Adds in Pioneer Valley
 *Saga
Communications became a player in MASSACHUSETTS' Pioneer
Valley two years ago, when it paid $2.2 million for what was
then WHAI AM/FM (1240/98.3). Now the Michigan-based broadcaster
is cementing its hold on the radio market in and around Greenfield
with the purchase of two more FM stations there, plus a satellite
station in southwest VERMONT.
Saga announced last week that it will buy AAA "River"
WRSI (93.9 Turners Falls) and country WPVQ (95.3 Greenfield)
from Vox, three years after Vox bought 93.9 (then WPVQ) from
Cardwell Broadcasting and more than seven years after Vox predecessor
Dynacom bought 95.3 (then WRSI) from Ed Skutnik.
The purchase will give Saga a near lock on the radio revenues
in that part of the state; its AC WHAI-FM (98.3 Greenfield) is
already dominant there, and its news-talk WHMQ (1240 Greenfield),
which relays WHMP (1400 Northampton), is the only news-talker
in town. With the addition of WRSI and WPVQ to the Saga family,
that leaves Phil Drumheller's oldies WIZZ (1520 Greenfield) as
the only commercial station in Greenfield that won't be part
of the group.
Word is that the FM stations will be programmed out of Saga's
WHMP offices in Northampton, taking the space now occupied by
rocker WLZX (99.3 Northampton), which will in turn move its
studios south to the studios of Saga's Springfield rocker
WAQY (102.1).
The deal also includes one more Vox station: WRSY (101.5 Marlboro
VT), which relays WRSI's programming into the Brattleboro area.
No purchase price was announced for the deal.
*Over in Boston, WBZ-TV (Channel 4) - or should that be just
plain "CBS4" now? - signed a deal to put its digital
TV signal on Comcast cable, just in time for the weekend's NFL
playoff action in HDTV.
Fans of the late Jerry Williams might want to make note of
the new site at www.jerrywilliams.org,
a tribute to Boston's dean of talk radio who died earlier this
year. It looks as though a tribute CD is in the works for Williams,
as well as a $500 per seat fundraising dinner next spring to
help out the Jerry Williams Scholarship Fund.
 *What
brought down the 528-foot WMGX/WYNZ tower in Portland, MAINE?
An initial report says a corroded guy wire anchor was to blame.
Saga has hired ERI to design and build a replacement tower at
the same site and to the same height; this time, they tell the
city, the tower will feature three levels of double guy wires.
(And thanks to Lyle Henry for sending along more photos of
the destruction - that's the WYNZ panel antenna sitting atop
a car and a truck there, and you can see some of the bent WMGX
antenna elements in the snow in the foreground of this picture,
taken not long after the tower fell.)
*As the Christmas music came to an end around
the region, all ears - in NEW YORK, anyway - were on WNEW
(102.7 New York), to see how Infinity's bedraggled FM outlet
would close out a year that began with FM talk, stunted with
top 40, puzzled everyone with the first version of "Blink,"
then two months of AC "Blink," and then six weeks of
Christmas music.
 The answer, as it
turns out, is "Mix" - the latest WNEW format, which
debuted under PD Smokey Rivers at 10:27 Friday morning. Infinity's
being cagey about jock lineups for the format, which features
current AC and a mix of 70s, 80s and 90s tunes; much more on
this next week.
Over at sister station WCBS-FM (101.1), some familiar New
York voices are doing fill-in duty for the holidays, including
Ed Baer and former WTJM afternoon guy "Famous Amos,"
who was heard Christmas Eve and who'll be back New Year's Eve.
Out on Long Island, WLIR (92.7 Garden City) is winding to
a close with a "flashback" weekend featuring the 80s
alternative rock artists who made the station great, once upon
a time. Will the station's modern AC format really reappear elsewhere
on the dial after WLIR changes hands next month to Univision
Radio and goes Spanish? We're hearing it's unlikely, though the
format might carry on for a while on simulcast WBON (107.1 Hampton
Bays) out on Long Island's East End.
In Buffalo, Van Miller is calling his very last Buffalo Bills
game as we type this issue Saturday afternoon. His 37 seasons
and 752 games of Bills play-by-play - nearly the team's entire
history - are by far the NFL record, and with his retirement
the active title goes to the Patriots' Gil Santos and the Eagles'
Merrill Reese, tied at 27 seasons. The team has yet to announce
Miller's replacement, though the sentimental favorite is color
man John Murphy. Miller, 76, is a native of Dunkirk.
Down in Binghamton, Don Giovanni's weekend "Italian House
Party" show changed dial positions last weekend, as he moved
from Citadel's WYOS (1360) to Clear Channel's WINR (680).
There'll be one fewer local talk voice on Syracuse's WSYR
(570) in the new year - word is that the Clear Channel talker
is cancelling Kathy Denman's 9-10 AM talk hour, leaving afternoon
host Jim Reith as the only local talker on WSYR.
And here in Rochester, the Christmas music came to an end
midnight Thursday on WBBF (93.3 Fairport), to be replaced by
a return to the automated oldies the station had been running
before November. WBBF currently has just one DJ, afternoon guy
Tom Noonan, but we hear a new morning jock may be announced just
after the first of the year.
*In PENNSYLVANIA, Philadelphia's WUSL
(98.9) is shuffling its lineup, importing Wendy Williams from
New York's WBLS through the miracle of national syndication (via
Superadio) to handle afternoons. (Philly's also the home of a
very high-powered Spanish-language pirate on 95.3
that's being heard all over the Delaware Valley this holiday
weekend...)
Meanwhile over in Pittsburgh, WKST-FM (96.1) will have a new
morning show next week: the "Kiss FM Freak Show" will
feature Tic Tak, Mikey and Big Bob, who move across the state
from WIOQ in Philadelphia, where they had been doing the "Freak
Show" in afternoons. Tic Tak is also the new assistant PD
at Kiss, while Mikey handles music director duties.
And WKTW in Jeannette now appears to have made the move from
1530 down the dial to 770, where it's being heard with a rather
obscure mix of standards and oldies (probably not the
final format there...)
*A new signal at year's end in NEW JERSEY:
WLOM-LP (92.7 Ocean City) is being heard with Calvary Chapel
programming, tightly squeezed between full-power 92.7 signals
in Toms River and down in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. (And it took
several weeks for even the message board crew down in South Jersey
to notice that WUSS 1490 in Pleasantville has switched from ABC's
classic R&B satellite format to a simulcast of oldies WTKU
98.3 Ocean City...)
*Eastern CANADA could have a slew
of new stations next year, based on the latest round of applications
to the CRTC, released just before the holiday.
31 applicants applied for new stations in the Maritimes, many
of them as part of what would become regional networks if the
CRTC grants them in full. Here's how they shake out:
- Halifax: Rogers applies for urban top 40 on 103.5
(92 kW) and news-talk on 105.1 (92 kW). Astral Radio Atlantic
applies for urban rhythmic "Hot 103.5" (100 kW) and
modern rock "Rock 105" on 105.1 (100 kW). Maritime
Broadcasting System applies for AC on 105.1 (100 kW). Global
applies for easy listening, blended with folk, smooth jazz and
Celtic, on 103.5 (100 kW). East Coast Broadcasting wants 2.975
kW on 89.7 for classic hits, while International Harvesters for
Christ Evangelistic Association wants 5 kW on 93.9 for Christian
music and Halifax JAMZ 95.7 Inc. wants 22.1 kW on 95.7 for "alternative
electronica progressive high energy dance music" and Kaleidoscope
Community Radio Society wants 15.5 watts on 106.9 for a community
station. And CKMW Radio Inc. (Toronto's Z103 and CIAO) wants
105.9 and 78 kW for a "youth contemporary" format.
- Moncton: Rogers wants 91.9 (40.3 kW) for news-talk
and 105.5 (41.6 kW) for urban top 40. Jack McGaw and Robert Stapells
want 19.5 watts on 90.7 for tourist information, while Radio
Beausejour wants 47.2 kW on 90.7 to add a second French-language
community signal to its existing CJSE in Shediac.
- Saint John: Rogers wants 88.9 (79 kW) for news-talk
and 95.9 (82 kW) for urban top 40. Newcap wants 95.9 (50 kW)
for classic hits. La Brise de la Baie Ltee. wants 1.85 kW on
105.7 for a French community station.
- Fredericton: Newcap wants 92.3 (76 kW) for classic
rock - and so does Acadia Broadcasting, with 41 kW. Maritime
Broadcasting System wants 93.1 (100 kW) for country. Jack McGaw
and Robert Stapells want 93.1, too, for a 50 watt tourism information
station. Ross Ingram wants 25 watts on 94.7 for Christian music,
while The Joy FM Network, which already operates CIXN in Fredericton,
wants 104.5 with 25 watts for the same thing. And the University
of New Brunswick's CHSR (97.9) wants to upgrade from 50 watts
to 250 watts.
- St. Stephen: Jack McGaw and Robert Stapells, again
- this time requesting 96.5 and 50 watts for tourist information.
A hearing on the applications will be held March 1 in Halifax;
interventions are due Feb. 5.
Outsude the Maritimes, CKDO (1350 Oshawa ON) is applying to
add an FM rebroadcaster on 107.7 with 250 watts to fill in holes
in the AM signal's night pattern in Oshawa, Ajax and Whitby.
In Montreal, Sheldon Harvey reports (via the NRC AM list)
that a new signal being heard on 1570 is likely a test broadcast
from the new CHRN Laval, "Radio Nostalgie." The station
had originally promised to be on the air by the end of 2003.
And in Toronto, Milkman Unlimited reports Russell James is
heading east from CKLG (Jack FM 96.9) in Vancouver to be the
midday jock at Toronto's "Jack," CISS (92.5), beginning
next week.
*That brings us to the end of another year of NERW...but it
doesn't end here. Click here for
our 2003 Year in Review package - and come back to fybush.com
January 1 for our Year-End Rant!
 *The
2004 Tower Site Calendar is now back from the printer
and shipping out to hundreds of tower fans across the US, Canada,
and even the Netherlands and the U.K. - so don't wait to place
your order!
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
(shown at left) to Los Angeles' KHJ to WCTM in Eaton, Ohio.
Other featured sites include Cedar Hill in Dallas, Lookout
Mountain above Denver, CKLW Windsor, WELI New Haven, WPTF Raleigh
NC, WBT Charlotte NC, WAJR Morgantown WV, WMT Cedar Rapids IA
and the mighty 12 towers of KFXR (the old KLIF 1190) in Dallas.
Unlike last year, this year's calendar features heavier paper
(no more curling!) and will be shipped shrink-wrapped on a cardboard
backing to make sure it arrives in pristine condition.
All orders received by December 26 have now been
shipped, and we've already heard from recipients as far away
as Tacoma, Washington and Kitchener, Ontario, so if you've already
ordered, you should be enjoying your calendar any day now. (Calendars
orders received between Dec. 27 and Jan. 1 will be shipped Jan.
2.)
If you haven't ordered yet, what are you waiting for? It's
too late for Christmas gift-giving - but perhaps you still need
a calendar for 2004...or maybe you didn't find one under the
tree, despite all those hints you dropped.
So 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? (Local
news on the weekends, 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 ($1.32 per calendar) for New York
state calendar orders, and send them along to 92 Bonnie Brae
Avenue, Rochester NY 14618. (Sorry - we can't take orders by
phone.)
Thanks for your support!
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is copyright
2003 by Scott Fybush. |