NorthEast Radio Watch 8/4/2025: On The Road

In this week’s issue… My takes over Ontario signals – Pubcasters, CBS make job cuts – Bayshore makes its FM move – iHeart shuffles Williamsport – Remembering Boston’s Barnett

By SCOTT FYBUSH

*HOLLYWOOD BEACH, Florida – Yep, we’re on the road again, watching a major ABC affiliate go independent here in the Miami market (more on that later in the column, with an important Boston connection), and then headed to the Texas Association of Broadcasters and Morning Show Boot Camp in the Lone Star State later this week, which means there’s likely to be no August 11 issue barring major breaking news.

This week, while we were around the Sunshine State, the biggest radio news was all happening north of the border, where two Ontario broadcasters were making big moves almost simultaneously on Friday.

We’ll start up in Owen Sound, where Bayshore Broadcasting pulled the trigger Friday morning at 8 on the launch of its new CFOS-FM (89.3), the FM signal that will soon replace the venerable CFOS (560), which has been on the AM dial since 1940.

With a new slogan, “Putting Grey Bruce First,” the new CFOS-FM moves to more of a classic hits sound, freshening up its music mix a bit as it leaves behind its old AM home. The new FM signal covers just Owen Sound instead of the regional reach the 560 signal has enjoyed, but since that’s Bayshore’s core market zone (CFOS joins “Mix 106.5” CIXK and “Country 93” CKYC in the Bayshore FM lineup in town), the hope is that the move to FM will bring some younger listeners to the dial.

The AM signal has 90 days to end its simulcast with the AM, but it’s likely Bayshore will shut it off sooner once it has transitioned listeners over.

*To the south and east, Jon Pole’s My Broadcasting launched three new formats in a row later on Friday as it completed its acquisition of three spinoffs from Rogers.

In Smiths Falls, south of Ottawa, Rogers had kept its “Jack” format on CJET (92.3) while it awaited the sale to My, but on Friday morning at 10 it was reborn as “92.3 Wow FM,” matching the classic hits brand down the road at WLYK (102.7) serving the Kingston market.

Now paired with My’s CHLK (88.1 Perth), the two stations will build new studios in Smiths Falls in the coming months.

A few hours later, My launched two new formats in Tillsonburg, east of London.

The former Rogers AC “Easy 101.3” (CKOT) finally shed the last remnants of its old beautiful music days, picking up the “Giant FM” brand My acquired at Niagara’s CIXL as it went classic rock as “Giant FM 101.3.” Sister station CJDL (107.3) stayed country, but it’s now “Tillsonburg’s New Country 107.3.”

With new studios also coming in Tillsonburg, Giant is stunting by claiming it’s “broadcasting from the shed.”

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*In Williamsport, PENNSYLVANIA, iHeart has lost the lease on the rooftop of the historic Genetti Hotel downtown where it’s been operating translator W235BA (94.9), and as a result it has taken the translator silent and moved the “Rock 94.9” format to a new home.

What was “Rock 94.9,” nominally originating at WRKK (1200 Hughesville), is now “Rock 95.5” on full-power WBYL (95.5 Salladasburg), where it replaces country “Bill 95.” The Bill format continues down the valley at its other signal, WBLJ (95.3 Shamokin), one of the very smallest outposts anywhere in the iHeart universe; it’s not yet clear what will become of the 94.9 translator license or the AM 1200 signal, which went rock a while back after dropping its own longtime simulcast with WRAK (1400) in Williamsport.

*We know more now about what’s coming to VerStandig Broadcasting’s stations in the Chambersburg/Hagerstown MD area once WAYZ (104.7 Hagerstown) goes Christian AC with its sale to Baltimore’s WRBS soon.

It appears that WRBS will take over 104.7 on October 1, touching off a series of moves of VerStandig’s other formats. Starting September 1, sister station “Bob Rocks” will simulcast on its current home (WBHB 101.5 Waynesboro PA) and on WIKG (92.1 Mercersburg PA), leading up to Bob’s move to 92.1 on the 15th. That’s when the WAYZ country format will start simulcasting on both 104.7 and 101.5, with 101.5 becoming the permanent home for WAYZ at the start of October.

The current “Goat” classic rock format heard on WIKG will move to WLIN (1380 Waynesboro) and its 100.9 translator, though VerStandig says the Fox Sports content now heard on 1380/100.9 will also continue as part of “Goat,” somehow.

The moves to some extent restore the status quo ante before VerStandig bought 104.7 two decades ago, when it moved WAYZ to that bigger Maryland signal after years on its original home at 101.5.

*In western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh’s WQED is one of many public broadcasters announcing job cuts as a result of the end of federal funding for public radio and TV. Much more so than many other big public broadcasters, WQED has struggled for years with its finances, including cutting five jobs in May.

This time, it’s 19 staff members being laid off, more than a third of the remaining full-time staff at WQED. As CEO Jason Jedlinski tells Current, “We will continue broadcasting PBS shows, even though the national schedule will inevitably change. We will continue sharing classical music and celebrating this region’s remarkable cultural scene as southwestern Pennsylvania’s Voice of the Arts.”

But with the loss of $1.8 million a year in federal funding, he says the brunt of the cuts have to be in the marketing, membership and production departments, leaving behind a staff that’s going to be painfully small for what was once a major production hub for PBS.

And the pain will continue to be felt across the public media landscape; as Jedlinski and other leaders have noted, the demise of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will put new pressure on many other aspects of the industry, including the need to negotiate new music licensing rights for all of public radio to replace the deals that CPB has long arranged for the stations it funds.

We’ll continue to track the aftermath of the funding cuts as they work their way through the system; it’s certain that it won’t just be WQED affected by them.

*In MASSACHUSETTS, Byron Barnett is being mourned by pretty much anyone who was involved in Boston TV news from the 1980s into the early 2020s.

Barnett came to Boston in 1983 from his native Minneapolis, joining what was then WNEV (Channel 7) as a reporter and as host of the “Urban Update” talk show. Over 38 years with the station, through its rebirth as WHDH-TV in the 1990s, he covered pretty much everyone and everything, winning respect as one of the true good guys in the industry.

Barnett was known especially for his incisive interviews, including a conversation early in his career with Muhammad Ali and later on a grilling of Bill Belichick.

A 2017 inductee into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame, Barnett retired in 2021 to return to Minneapolis, but his retirement was cut short by cancer, alas. While he’d been back in Boston as recently as early June, his illness advanced quickly, and the news of his death was announced Monday. He was 69.

*Which brings us back to what we’re doing here in Miami, which is tuning in as a longtime ABC affiliate, Berkshire Hathaway-owned WPLG (Channel 10), lost that affiliation and turned independent as a news-heavy local station hoping to hang on to viewers with the strength of its top-rated news operation, now producing more than a dozen hours of local news every day.

Does that sound familiar to Boston viewers? That’s exactly the game plan WHDH counted on when it lost the NBC affiliation at the end of 2016, and it’s worked pretty well for WHDH and a handful of similar stations around the country.

Here’s the irony, though, and the Boston connection: as well as WHDH owner Sunbeam Television has done as a Boston independent, the company’s flagship station, WSVN here in Miami, is now not only carrying Fox on its main channel but has added ABC on its new “ABC Miami” channel.

Like NBC in Boston, ABC in Miami is launching on a somewhat non-traditional channel lineup. It’s on WSVN’s channel 7 signal, both as digital 7.2 and also as “18.1,” a channel Sunbeam acquired from a low-power Miami station to allow it to use the “Channel 18” brand both on the air and on most area cable systems.

The new “ABC Miami” launches at a fraught time for linear TV. The medium is simply no longer as essential as it once was, with most viewers 40 and under barely using any sort of linear TV or local news in favor of getting most of their content by streaming it. That’s bad news for TV stations that once thought their services were so essential that cable companies would pay big fees to make sure they’re carrying the major networks’ affiliates.

(It’s telling that WPLG, like WSVN and other independents, has no traction with streaming providers such as YouTube TV, which very abruptly dropped WPLG at the moment it lost ABC this morning.)

Unlike Boston, where the new “NBC Boston” launched as a network-owned standalone with its own new newsroom that’s struggled to gain any traction, “ABC Miami” isn’t trying to establish itself as a new local news provider, instead simulcasting WSVN’s newscasts in most time slots, probably a much less risky approach to a 2020s-era startup.

How do you promote a new TV station in 2025? It’s not easy, but Sunbeam has billboards up all over Miami – and a plane was flying over the beach on launch day trailing an ABC Miami banner. (If we shot that picture for the column, that means we were working while on the beach, right?)

Next up as TV keeps going through its changes: later this month, CBS will move again in Atlanta, switching from its home of the last 30 years on a low-rated UHF station, now Gray’s WANF (Channel 46), to an even lower-rated station that CBS has been running as an independent, WUPA (Channel 69). Like NBC did in Boston, CBS will try to launch a new newsroom in Atlanta, though the new “CBS News Atlanta” on channel 69 will likely be run as inexpensively as possible while the new owners of Paramount try to figure out what to do with the CBS broadcasting division.

Which again brings us back around to Boston, since the impending new ownership of Paramount and CBS comes with recent job cuts at WBZ-TV, where health reporter Dr. Mallika Marshall is out suddenly and another veteran reporter, Beth Germano, is retiring in August. Several photographers and editors were also cut – and it wasn’t just in Boston, either. At Pittsburgh’s KDKA-TV, morning anchor Lindsay Ward and afternoon anchor Kym Gable were both cut loose while on vacation, while veteran meteorologist Kristin Emery will retire in August after a four-decade career.

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