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January 5, 2004
Click here to read
NERW's comprehensive 2003 Year in Review coverage
New York's "Mix" Picks AM Jocks
 *Welcome
to another new year of NERW - and, at least according to the
Usenet archives at Google, it's our tenth anniversary year! The
first issue of what was then "New England Radio Watcher"
showed up on Bill Pfeiffer's old rec.radio.broadcasting newsgroup
April 12, 1994, "NorthEast Radio Watch" was born in
January 1997 with our move to Rochester, weekly publication followed
in April 1997, we moved to the Web at fybush.com in the fall
of 2000...and what a heck of a decade it's been! (Stay tuned
for some sort of tenth-anniversary special in April.)
In the meantime, the world of Northeast radio and TV kept
moving - slowly - during the holidays last week. Here's what
happened while most of the managers were on vacation...
*In NEW YORK, WNEW (102.7) is slowly firming up its
new identity as "Mix 102.7," including the naming of
a new morning team. At week's end, Gregg Daniels will leave MASSACHUSETTS and WBMX (98.5 Boston),
where he was doing afternoons, and he'll head for the big city
to join former WBMX morning sidekick Lynn Hoffman (now with VH1
Classic) to be the latest occupants of the morning chair at the
latest occupant of the 102.7 frequency. No word yet on what becomes
of Rick Stacy, who'd been doing mornings in the "Blink v.2"
and holiday-music incarnations of 102.7 recently.
 Heading up the Hudson
Valley, Poughkeepsie's WRNQ (92.1) ended the year by changing
its slogan - instead of "Q92," it's "92.1 Lite
FM," a close clone of Clear Channel sister station WLTW
(106.7) down in New York City.
In Syracuse, a new morning show launches today on WFBL (1390),
as former WIXT reporter Bill Colley joins Buckley's talk station
for 5-9 AM duties. In its previous incarnation on 1050, WFBL
had a morning show that consisted of news headlines from Metro
Networks and syndicated features; the addition of a real live
local morning show, along with hourly news updates from Time
Warner's News 10 Now cable network, is a sign that the new WFBL
intends to be real competition for Clear Channel news-talker
WSYR (570).
 Rochester religious
outlet WDCZ (102.7 Webster) said goodbye to those calls after
11 years on the air New Year's Eve, replacing them with WRCI
(and a new Web site at www.wrcifm.com,
too!) The idea, we're told, is to give Rochester listeners easier
call letters to remember when they write to the preachers who
buy time on the station (who track mail based on call letter
mentions, and who were apparently getting WDCZ confused with
Buffalo sister station WDCX...)
Up north, our condolences to the staff at Watertown's WWNY
(Channel 7), who are mourning the death of Bruce Kizzer, the
station's longtime director of buildings and grounds. Anyone
who's ever worked in radio or TV knows that people like Kizzer
are the ones who know everything that's going on
in the building, and (next to the engineers) are the most important
people when it comes to keeping the station on the air. Kizzer
died last week at 49; he's survived by a wife and two children.
(And thanks to North Country bureau chief Mike Roach for passing
that news along to us.)
Way up north, Plattsburgh's WCFE (Channel 57) is back on the
air after bad weather at its Lyon Mountain transmitter site knocked
it out for three days last week.
*In PENNSYLVANIA, Monday marks the
launch of Clear Channel's WPGB (104.7 Pittsburgh), with a talk
lineup that includes Jim Quinn in the morning and Sean Hannity
in the afternoon. A few final additions to the weekday lineup:
Ellis Cannon moves over from WEAE (ESPN Radio 1250) to do sports
talk from 6-8 PM, followed by Michael Savage from 8-11 PM and
George Noory's Coast to Coast AM show (moving over from WPTT
1360) from 11 PM until 5 AM. And in addition to being heard over
in Wheeling, West Virginia on WWVA (1170), Quinn's show will
also air on WHLO (640) in Akron, Ohio.
*In MAINE, WCTB (93.5 Fairfield) ended
its all-Christmas stunting late last week and is now playing
thousands of songs from a variety of formats in alphabetical
order, with a new format expected later this month.
*And in CANADA, all eyes were on Rogers' CKBY (105.3
Ottawa) over the New Year holiday, amidst rumo(u)rs that country
"Y105" was moving (perhaps down the dial to CIOX 101.1
Smiths Falls) or disappearing. And you've got to love the Web
folks up there at Rogers in Ottawa - not only have they been
stoking the message-board fires by registering all sorts of domain
names, but one of them pointed to the lovely montage of "105.3"
logos seen above, including not only some Rogers formats like
"Xfm", "Clear" and "Jack" but also
Corus' "Mojo", Standard's "EZ Rock", CHUM's
(now defunct) "Kool" and the "Frank FM" stunt
that CIOX did last Halloween! What'll really happen to 105.3?
Stay tuned...
Meanwhile in Montreal, CKOO (98.5 Longueuil) relaunched Monday
morning with its new news-talk format.
*That brings us to the end of the start of another year of
NERW...but it doesn't end here. Click
here for our 2003 Year in Review package!
 *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 January 2 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. (And
if you ordered before the end of 2003 and haven't received your
calendar yet, please let us know!)
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!
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. |