January 8, 2007

WNEW Gets "Fresh"

• MAINE
• NEW HAMPSHIRE
• MASSACHUSETTS
• VERMONT
• RHODE ISLAND
• CONNECTICUT
• NEW YORK
• NEW JERSEY
• PENNSYLVANIA
• CANADA
• CLASSIFIEDS
• FROM THE ARCHIVES

*The new year brought yet another new format to one of NEW YORK's more troubled FM frequencies of late, as CBS Radio made a January 2 (1-02-7, get it?) flip on WNEW (102.7 New York), ditching rhythmic AC "Mix 102.7" in favor of "Fresh 102.7" adult contemporary.

By the time the flip finally happened at 5 AM Tuesday, it was no big surprise - the entire "Mix" airstaff was already out the door before the format changed, and the new URL (fresh1027.com) had already been sniffed out by the usual messageboard crowds. The new format wasn't hard to figure out, either - after recent talent changes at Clear Channel's longtime market-leading AC "Lite" (WLTW 106.7), there's probably as much chance of stealing some of Lite's audience as there's been in years.

No airstaff has been announced yet for the new "Fresh," though we'd be stunned if they weren't at least talking with ousted Lite staffers such as Bill Buchner and J.J. Kennedy. One big change, though: after the WNEW calls survived FM talk, two incarnations of "Blink," and several versions of "Mix," they're finally being retired from 102.7 just shy of their fiftieth anniversary there. Mark down "WWFS" as the new calls for "Fresh" - and look for the WNEW calls to follow much of their old audience south to Florida, where CBS Radio will park them in its West Palm Beach cluster.

Speaking of heading south, that's where a lot of CBS Radio staffers will be heading in 2008, as the company prepares to move all of its New York radio stations except WCBS (880) to the 10th and 11th floors of 345 Hudson Street. The move will take WINS (1010) and WWFS from their aging studios at 888 Seventh Avenue, WCBS-FM (101.1) from its digs in the former WLTW space in the Viacom building at 1515 Broadway and WFAN (660) from the basement of the old Kaufman Astoria studios in Queens - and it will put them all in an area that's becoming a hotbed of radio, including the Emmis stations (WQHT/WQCD/WRKS) just up Hudson Street, the new WNYC studios under construction a few blocks away, and the upcoming move of Clear Channel's five FMs to 32 Avenue of the Americas.

(WCBS 880, by the way, is staying put at its 2000-vintage studios on the eighth floor of the CBS Broadcast Center on W. 57th Street - and it's getting a new anchor/reporter, as Joe Avellar moves over from Channel 4, WNBC. It also appears that "Free FM" WFNY-FM will stay put at its fairly new digs on W. 56th Street.)

New York's big Spanish-language FM stations are staying put in Midtown, but their biggest air talent is on the move. Luis Jimenez, "El Vacilon de la Manana," the top-rated morning man on SBS' WSKQ (97.9), didn't renew his contract when it expired at year's end. Jimenez has signed a deal with competitor Univision Radio that will keep him off the radio airwaves in New York until 2008, when he'll join the staff at WCAA (105.9 Newark NJ)/WZAA (92.7 Garden City). In the meantime, he'll be on the air for Univision elsewhere in the country - and he may be seen on Univision's TV networks, too. (His morning crew from WSKQ, meanwhile, is reportedly staying at that station, as is the "Vacilon" name for the morning show.)

Eight years after it brought Radio Disney to the New York City airwaves with a long-term LMA of WQEW (1560) from the New York Times Company, Disney is turning its management of the 50,000-watt AM signal into an outright purchase. It's exercising an option to buy WQEW for $40 million, with the deal set to close within a few months. The Times Company, which is also selling its TV station group (more on that in our Pennsylvania section, below), says it has no intention of selling its last remaining broadcast property, WQXR-FM (96.3).

Congratulations to Alex Roman - just a few years after coming to New York from California as chief engineer at WKTU (103.5 Lake Success), he's taking on one of the most prestigious engineering jobs in the city, replacing Kevin Plumb as chief engineer of WABC (770)/WPLJ (95.5).

We'll be looking forward to seeing Alex - and most of the rest of the New York engineering community - on Thursday morning, when WOR (710) tries again to take down its old three-tower array in Lyndhurst. An invitation-only viewing party will take place at WOR's new site a mile away in East Rutherford; we'll have pictures for you Thursday night on Tower Site of the Week, and maybe even some video, if we can make it all work right. Stay tuned!

Moving on to Long Island, the end of 2006 and the start of 2007 brought some big changes on the radio dial, most of them having to do with Michael Metter's Business Talk Radio Network. Just after Christmas, BTRN announced a purchase of The Morey Organization's three remaining FMs on the East End of Long Island. While no format changes are planned for modern rock WLIR (107.1 Hampton Bays) or dance WDRE (105.3 Calverton-Roanoke), the active rock format at WBON (98.5 Westhampton) is already history, with a New Year's flip to business talk under new calls WBZB. (Those are the calls BTRN briefly placed on the former WBET 1460 in Brockton, Mass., before changing that station to WXBR.)

(We're still trying to nail down the purchase price for the three stations; thus far, the FCC has only posted transfer applications for WLIR and WBON/WBZB, at $1.75 million each. And while BTRN's press release says it's buying all three signals from TMO, its transfer application for WLIR says it's buying only WLIR and WBON/WBZB. Stay tuned!)

But while BTRN boosted its reach in eastern Suffolk County, it's losing its signal in Nassau and western Suffolk. It's been LMA'ing WLIE (540 Islip) from Stu Henry, but now that AM facility is getting a new owner. Otto Miller's Principal Broadcasting Network, which bought WJDA/WESX in Massachusetts last year, is paying $14 million for WLIE and will flip it to leased-time ethnic religion upon closing.

Moving upstate, Albany's WAMC is paying a total of $125,000 for W257BL (99.3 Oneonta) and W296BD (107.1 Warwick). WAMC already has a translator in Oneonta, W205AJ (88.9), but the 99.3 signal has wider reach to better compete with Binghamton's WSKG, which operates full-power relay station WSQC (91.7) in Oneonta.

Lots of news out of Albany itself this week: now that ESPN Radio affiliate WTMM has migrated from AM 1300 to FM 104.5, the AM signal, as expected, has relaunched as an outlet of Greenstone Media's female-oriented talk network. The new slogan is "Eve 1300," and the new calls for the Rensselaer-licensed station are WEEV. (Only the geekiest of radio geeks will note the similarity to 1300's original calls, WEEE, from back in the early sixties; yes, we count ourselves as part of that group.)

Longtime Albany talk host J.R. Gach is back on the air - on the web, at least. He's launched a new afternoon talk show at jrshowonline.com, heard weekday afternoons from 3-6.

Albany-area fans of Don Imus will have to tune in to his New York flagship, WFAN, or catch him on MSNBC; his show has been dropped from its Capital District affiliate, WOFX (980 Troy), replaced by Steve Czaban's Fox Sports Radio morning show.

In Syracuse, the "Beaner and Ken" morning show is history at Citadel's WAQX (95.7 Manlius), replaced by Opie and Anthony's syndicated show. Beaner and Ken had lost their Birmingham, Alabama home base when Citadel flipped WRAX (100.5) to sports as WJOX in late November, and their contract in Syracuse wasn't renewed when it expired at year's end.

Just days before New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer took on his new duties as governor, his office settled the payola investigation it was conducting against Entercom. The broadcaster will pay $4.25 million - $3.5 million to a music-education fund and $750,000 to repay the state's costs - to settle the allegations that it traded airplay for cash and gifts at its stations in Buffalo and Syracuse. Entercom also agreed to ensure that airplay on its paid overnight "CD Preview" and "CD Challenge" programs isn't logged by music monitoring services, and it agrees not to use independent record promoters' services.

A well-known voice is back on the air in Rochester: almost three years after leaving WXXI (1370) for the world of government, news guy Mark Giardina is doing weekends and occasional reporting for WYSL (1040 Avon).

Speaking of WYSL, it and WHTK (1280 Rochester) will bring Rochester Knighthawks lacrosse back to the airwaves this year. After a season that was webcast-only, WYSL will carry 8 K-Hawks games this year, with 3 more on WHTK.

Digital TV viewers who'd been watching "The Tube" music-video channel on Sinclair's DTV stations are out of luck. With the coming of new digital multicast rules that mandate educational programming on DTV subchannels and EAS capability on digital TV and radio subchannels, Sinclair pulled "The Tube" off its stations (including WUHF-DT in Rochester, WPMY-DT in Pittsburgh, WGME-DT in Portland and WGGB-DT in Springfield) on New Year's Eve; the network remains on DTV subchannels of other stations operated by Tribune (WPIX, WTXX, WPHL, WPMT), Barrington (WSTM), and several other operators.

Two obituaries close out our New York report this week: Jim Karvellas was the voice of the Baltimore/Washington Bullets before moving to New York in the mid-seventies to announce Knicks and Cosmos games. Karvellas called NBA games for CBS and USA Network as well, eventually retiring to Tampa, where he died January 1 at 71.

In Rochester, Domingo Carbonell was one of the first Spanish-language broadcasters, with shows heard on WCMF (96.5) and WROC (1280) in the seventies. Carbonell died Dec. 28 at 79.

*Talk radio listeners in eastern MASSACHUSETTS had to rearrange their schedules as 2007 began, with some big programming shifts at both Entercom's WRKO (680) and Greater Media's WTKK (96.9).

At WRKO, Todd Feinburg's evening talk show is history, with Feinburg moving temporarily into the former John DePetro slot from 9-noon and Michael Savage filling the 7-10 PM slot, followed by Jerry Doyle. (On nights when there's Celtics basketball or - soon - Red Sox baseball in the evenings, Savage will be on delay following the game.)

WRKO's still looking for a permanent show for late mornings, though the station says Feinburg may remain part of that solution when it's launched. It's also still courting former House speaker Tom Finneran, who pleaded guilty to felony obstruction-of-justice charges last week, for morning drive.

Meanwhile at WTKK, Michael Graham has also moved from evenings to mid-mornings as part of a new lineup that cuts Don Imus off at 9, followed by an hour of Mike Barnicle, then Graham from 10-noon and an expanded three-hour "Eagan and Braude" show from noon-3. Bill O'Reilly now follows Jay Severin at 7, and then Laura Ingraham's on from 9-midnight.

All those changes leave WBZ's Paul Sullivan as the last local talk show standing in the evening hours, at least when the Bruins aren't on the air. And while we're on the topic of WBZ, our one-week break from regular NERW duty (you have checked out our 2006 Year in Review, haven't you?) means this is our first chance to recap the last day on the air for legendary morning man Gary LaPierre.

Reached by phone early that morning, Gary sounded more than a little uncertain about leaving the studios he's called home since 1964, but with the festivities already well underway, there was no turning back. Boston Mayor Tom Menino was among the dignitaries who stopped by in person to wish Gary well, and Governor Mitt Romney (who declared "Gary LaPierre Day" in the Commonwealth) and Senator Ted Kennedy were among the callers who made it on the air. (So did Boston broadcast legends Charles Laquidara and Jess Cain.)

Behind the scenes (though visible on the WBZ webcast hosted by Jordan Rich), the studios were packed with current and former colleagues, including many faces your editor recognized from his time at 1170 Soldiers Field Road in the early nineties. Gary's family was there, too, including his wife, Peg, and his children and grandchildren.

When the last newscast was over a few minutes past 9, Gary signed off with his usual class, thanking all the managers he'd worked for over the years (and drawing a huge laugh from the crowd when he called some of them "idiots") - and finally ending up in tears as he handed the mike over to his morning sports partner of many years, Gil Santos. (Gil, in turn, declared that there was nothing significant in the world of sports to talk about, then devoted his sportscast to saying goodbye to Gary.)

And a few minutes later, the entire staff of WBZ lined the long hallway that leads from the radio/TV newsroom up to the lobby, giving Gary and Peg a hero's farewell as he headed off into retirement.

(Meanwhile, the segue to new morning anchor Ed Walsh was seamless; after keeping an appropriately low profile on the air during the LaPierre farewell, Walsh was on the air with the 9:30 newscast.)

More Radio People on the Move: Dana Marshall, former program director at WXRV (92.5 Andover), has surfaced at AAA competitor WBOS (92.9 Brookline), where she's now music director. Over at CBS Radio's WODS (103.3), Chris Palermo has departed his production director post. After almost two decades at WODS and before that at WBZ, Chris is off to pursue his music and acting career, including an upcoming cameo in the final season of The Sopranos. On the TV front, former WLVI meteorologist Mike Wankum is now over at WCVB (Channel 5) as a part-timer.

The transfer of what's now WKAF (97.7 Brockton) to Entercom is now complete, after the FCC rejected several petitions from listeners unhappy about the disappearance of the urban format former owner Radio One was running as WILD-FM. Holding to its long-established doctrine that it does not interfere with programming decisions, the FCC ruled that it has no grounds on which to stop the $30 million sale.

Out west, Dave Isby moves from afternoons at Vox's WUPE (1110 Pittsfield)/WUPE-FM (100.1 North Adams) to the GM's chair at sister station WSBS (860 Great Barrington). "Big Mike" Patrick moves from middays at Vox's WBEC-FM (95.9 Pittsfield) to Isby's WUPE airshift, remaining operations manager for the Pittsfield cluster and PD of WBEC-FM, as well.

*In CONNECTICUT, WELI (960 New Haven) starts 2007 without a local newsroom. On December 30, Clear Channel pulled the plug on local news at "Radio Towers Park," eliminating the jobs of Paul Paccelli and Steve Kalb. For the moment, we're told WELI is carrying only national Fox News Radio headlines and short headline updates voiced from WHJJ in Providence, but it will soon have "local" news from Clear Channel's Syracuse-based news hub.

Down the shore in Greenwich, Business Talk Radio Network's WGCH (1490) is saying goodbye to its longtime studio at 1490 Dayton Avenue, now that its lease is up there. The station's local operations will move to 71 Lewis Street in downtown Greenwich, while BTRN's network operations will move to a new office at 401 Shippan Ave. in Stamford by the end of this month.

*An on-again, off-again AM facility in RHODE ISLAND is reportedly off again. Word is that WALE (990 Greenville) was silenced late last month after electric bills went unpaid at its transmitter site.

At Clear Channel's WHJJ (920 Providence), afternoon news anchor Bill Trifiro is out. PD/ND Bill George is handling afternoon news duties for the moment there.

There's a new morning co-host at Hall's WCTK (98.1 New Bedford MA), with Chris Reed moving south from sister station WOKO (98.9 Burlington VT) in two weeks to work alongside Chris Whitten.

*The new year brought a new format in NEW HAMPSHIRE, as WSNI (97.7 Winchendon MA) relaunched with AC (from ABC's "Hits and Favorites" satellite service) as "Sunny 97.7."

Sister station WKBK (1290 Keene) shuffled its talk lineup as well, dropping Howie Carr's afternoon show, moving Eric Scott from late mornings to Carr's 3-6 PM slot, and moving Glenn Beck from WZBK (1220) to the 10-noon slot on WKBK.

Up in Concord, Chris Ryan is the new morning news anchor at WKXL (1450). The former WTPL (107.7) producer is also helping out with local sports play-by-play, and hosting the weekend "NBA Life with Matt Bonner" show, featuring Concord's hometown pro basketball star.

*In VERMONT, Anson Tebbetts is leaving WCAX (Channel 3) after more than a dozen years at the station, most of it at the Montpelier bureau. Tebbetts, who grew up on a dairy farm, will become Vermont's deputy secretary of agriculture today. He signed off from WCAX - including one last "Bird of the Week" feature - at the end of December.

*There's an AM transmitter move to report in northeast PENNSYLVANIA: Saturday was the scheduled moving day for WBZU (910 Scranton) to leave its longtime tower site on Davis Street south of downtown Scranton, diplexing with WEJL (630 Scranton) on the tower atop the Scranton Times building on Penn Avenue. (Irony alert: WEJL's predecessor, WQAN, began as a share-timer with WBZU's predecessor, WGBI, broacasting from the Davis Street site on 880 and then on 910.)

On the TV side of things, WNEP (Channel 16) is part of the $575 million sale of the New York Times Company's television station group. The buyer, Oak Hill Capital Partners, is controlled by Texas investor Robert Bass. Meanwhile - and not related, as best we can tell - WNEP executive VP/station manager Louis Abitabilo is moving over to the competition, joining Nexstar's WBRE (Channel 28) as VP/general manager.

Down the road in Bloomsburg, WHLM (930) applies to double its day power to 2000 watts. It remains at 18 watts at night, non-directional.

In Philadelphia, the big news is the ongoing dispute over Arbitron's attempt to launch the Portable People Meter (PPM) ratings system. One of the two big holdouts, Radio One, agreed last week to encode its broadcasts so they can be measured by the PPM - but the other, Clear Channel, is still refusing to participate in Arbitron's Philadelphia launch, slated for this Thursday. Without Clear Channel's stations in the PPM fold, some ad agencies are concerned that the ratings won't reflect actual listening in the market, and a few are saying they may boycott unencoded stations, or even the entire market.

The rest of the week's Philly news also comes from those two clusters - at Clear Channel, "Philly's 106.1" (WISX) has segued to "My 106.1," with no change to its rhythmic AC format. At Radio One, Monie Love is out of mornings at WPHI (100.3 Media), with co-hosts Pooch and Laiya holding things down there for now.

In Pittsburgh, more changes at KDKA (1020): Lisa Alexander is out as morning news reporter, while Paul Rasmussen joins from Jacksonville's WQIK as co-anchor of the new "Total News Hour" broadcasts at 5 PM and 6 PM.

*Just one headline from NEW JERSEY: WYGG (88.1 Asbury Park) has been taken off the air after an FCC inspection found that the station had moved without notifying the Commission. WYGG shut down operations from the unlicensed site in late November; it's since applied to resume broadcasting under an STA, telling the FCC its licensed site is no longer available for use.

*The last full-power AM station on CANADA's Prince Edward Island has finally gone silent. CFCY (630 Charlottetown) spent much of late December broadcasting with an open carrier after ending its AM programming and moving to 95.1 FM. Now it's history - and so PEI becomes the first Canadian province to go all-FM.

A former Canadian AM station is being remembered on the Web: Montreal's Marc "Mais Oui" Denis has created a tribute site to the old CFOX (1470), at marcdenis.com/cfox. Check it out!

And we close this week with the obituary for longtime CBC Toronto morning host Bruce Smith. He came to CBL (740) to do mornings in 1947, and remained on that shift until moving to afternoons in 1972. Smith retired in 1978. He died Dec. 26, at age 87.

*It's here! As seen in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Chicago Sun-Times, and soon on WCVB's "Chronicle," Tower Site Calendar 2007 is not only now shipping - it's close to a sellout! If you're waiting for the 2007 edition to go on clearance sale, don't keep waiting - the word from the shipping department is that fewer than 200 copies remain, and we expect to sell them all in the next month or two.

This year's edition features what we think are the finest tower images yet - from the cover image of WCCO Minneapolis all the way to the back-cover centerfold of WBZ in Boston, and from KGO San Francisco to KOIL Omaha to Philadelphia's famed Roxborough tower farm, captured in a dramatic dusk shot with the lights all aglow.

This sixth annual edition once again contains plenty of historic dates from radio and television history in the Northeast and beyond, and as always, it comes to you shrink-wrapped and shipped first class mail for safe arrival.

You can even get your 2007 calendar free with your new or renewal subscription to NERW at the $60 level.

Visit the Fybush.com Store and place your order today - and be among the first to get the Tower Site Calendar 2007!

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 2007 by Scott Fybush.