April 2, 2007
Hornell's WKPQ Changes Hands - Maybe
TOWER SITE CALENDAR 2007 - SELLING OUT FAST!!!
*There's an unusual ownership dispute playing
out in NEW YORK's Southern Tier, where the future of  WKPQ (105.3 Hornell)
has been up in the air for several years now, as longtime owner
Bilbat Radio fights a planned sale to Robert Pfuntner's Pembrook
Pines group that apparently went sour somewhere along the way.
We're not quite sure how the whole dispute got started, but it's
outlived one of Bilbat's principals - Richard "Bat"
Lyons died last year, leaving Bill Berry to carry on his fight
to keep the sale to Pembrook Pines from going through.
The latest installment of the saga finds control of WKPQ passing
from Bilbat, which had been LMA'ing the station to Sterling Management,
to Anthony Panetta, who began running the station under an interim
LMA Sunday morning, en route to a settlement that will put WKPQ
in Pembrook Pines' hands in exchange for WABH (1380 Bath).
Bilbat, which continues to operate WHHO (1320 Hornell), is
still fighting the transfer; the website
for WKPQ's now-former "Freedom 105" format offers information
to listeners about how to challenge a license transfer. It appears
that the "Freedom 105" programming has migrated down
the dial to WHHO; we can't hear the AM signal here at NERW Central,
but a check of the big FM signal Sunday afternoon found it running
satellite-delivered AC as "Power 105," a return to
an earlier WKPQ slogan.
This saga's clearly far from over; we'll be keeping an eye
on it.
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*Here in Rochester, Entercom was in the headlines last week
as it shuffled the lineup of stations it plans to keep when it
completes its purchase of CBS Radio's local cluster.
Entercom now says it will keep classic rock WCMF (96.5 Rochester)
and top 40 WPXY (97.9 Rochester) from the CBS group, as well
as its country WBEE (92.5 Rochester), classic hits WBZA (98.9
Rochester) and talk WROC (950 Rochester). That means former CBS
stations WZNE (94.1 Brighton) and WRMM (101.3 Rochester), as
well as Entercom's WFKL (93.3 Fairport), will go up for sale.
The decision makes it clear that WCMF was the prize Entercom
wanted from the CBS cluster, bringing veteran Rochester morning
man Brother Wease into the Entercom Rochester fold. As for the
rest of the stations, the sale of signal- and ratings-challenged
WZNE was a given - but why keep WPXY and sell WRMM, which has
higher ratings and revenue with its AC "Warm 101.3"
format? NERW suspects the deal would have had a harder time winning
Justice Department and FCC approval if Entercom had ended up
with both WBEE and WRMM, which are usually two of the top three
stations in town.
No buyer has yet been announced for the spinoff group (which
will presumably remain housed at CBS' facility in the HSBC Building,
while WCMF and WPXY move to Entercom's High Falls studios), which
probably means there's still some room for these station lineups
to change before the deal is finalized.
Over at Rochester's other big cluster, Clear Channel, there's
another naming deal: sports/talk WHTK (1280 Rochester) now broadcasts
from the "Rowe Photo, Video and Audio Broadcast Center,"
as the local retailer signs a deal for naming rights to the studio.
NERW wonders if they sell ShopVacs at Rowe - WHTK and its sister
stations could use them, after a pipe burst in the walls of the
Euclid Building last week, causing water damage to the Clear
Channel facility and to the offices below in Midtown Plaza.
 It sounded
a little like Christmas on Sunday in Rochester, at least for
listeners of Crawford's WRCI (102.7 Webster): the station spent
April Fool's Day as "Santa 102.7," stunting in advance
of a format shift that sees "102.7 the Light" drop
religious preaching and teaching shows and other leased-time
offerings (including weekend Spanish broadcasts) in favor of
24/7 Christian contemporary music.
The FCC's settlement of 76 long-pending mutually-exclusive
applications for new noncommercial FM signals will yield two
new signals in western New York. In the Buffalo suburb of Lancaster,
Holy Family Communications will get 90.7, winning over a competing
bid from the Mary V. Harris Foundation. (Will Holy Family sell
its current Buffalo-market signal, rimshot commercial station
WLOF 101.7 Attica?)
And in Ithaca, a new signal on 90.1 goes to Geneva public
broadcaster WEOS (89.7), over Binghamton's WSKG, which already
has WSQG (90.9) in Ithaca to relay its main servce and presumably
wanted a relay for its second service, news/jazz WSQX (91.5 Binghamton).
Perhaps WSQX can end up on the 88.1 translator in Ithaca that
WEOS now operates...
It's possible that we missed this somewhere along the way,
but we just noticed that the puzzling next-morning delayed broadcast
of Michael Savage on Syracuse's WFBL (1390) has been replaced
by a more conventional morning show: the syndicated Bob and Sheri,
who are more commonly heard on adult contemporary FMs than on
a news-talk AM such as WFBL.
 WSLP (93.3 Saranac
Lake) kicks off its regular programming this morning, and we
hear there will be local hosts on the station's airwaves once
it gets up and running.
Downstate, New York's "Fresh FM" (WWFS 102.7) has
named a morning host: he's Dave Packer, whose career has included
weekends at WBEB (101.1 Philadelphia) and a stint at WBGO (88.3
Newark).
Two obituaries to report this week: Jerry Girard, who was
the voice of sports on New York's WPIX (Channel 11) from 1974
until his retirement in 1995, died March 25 at 75. And Dave Abbey,
formerly of Corning's WZKZ/WCLI, died March 23 at his home in
Brevard, N.C. He was 54.
|
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They've become a fact
of life for many of the most popular radio and TV websites out
there. Just a few weeks ago, our pal Dave Hughes put part of
his excellent DCRTV.com site
behind a pay wall, and mandatory subscriptions are an established
way of life at LARadio.com
and reelradio.com, too,
just to name a few.
Here at fybush.com/North East
RadioWatch, we've managed to hold off from imposing a password
and mandatory subscription fee, but we depend on your support
- and that of our advertisers - to keep it that way.
If you still haven't subscribed
yet for 2007, do it right now at our Support
page - and enjoy another exciting year of NERW, guilt-
(and password-) free. And if you have become one of our
many subscribers, thank you! |
*There's another sports franchise changing
channels in MASSACHUSETTS, as the Boston Celtics prepare
to leave current flagship WRKO (680 Boston) after this season
comes to a merciful end. The team won't be going very far - just
down the hall to Entercom sister station WEEI (850 Boston) and
its network of sister stations across southern New England, giving
Boston's sports station a regular dose of play-by-play to replace
the Red Sox, who begin their season on WRKO today.
 It would
have seemed impossible, once upon a time, to imagine a Celtics
team entering April with a 23-50 record - and many would have
found it just as hard to believe that new towers would ever rise
at the Oak Hill tower site of WUNR (1600 Brookline), given all
the opposition from neighbors in that corner of Newton.
But seeing is believing, and thanks to NERW research director
Garrett Wollman, we can now show you some of the first photos
of the five new 199-foot towers that rose a few days ago over
there. When the work is completed later this summer, WUNR's two
existing towers will come down, and the new array will hold not
only a bigger WUNR signal but also WKOX (1200 Newton) and WRCA
(1330 Watertown).
Speaking of higher power, WCRN (830 Worcester) says it'll
flip the switch Wednesday to put its new 50 kW night signal on
the air. That date is no coincidence - it's the first night game
of the year for the Red Sox, who are in their first season on
WCRN, using its big new signal to fill in the holes in WRKO's
night coverage in Boston's western suburbs.
The FCC has tentatively awarded new FM construction permits
in two mutually-exclusive situations on the South Shore and Cape
Cod. In Marshfield, UMass Boston's WUMB prevails over the Talking
Information Center for a new signal on 91.7. (TIC is an offshoot
of Marshfield's local commercial station, Ed Perry's WATD 95.9.)
And in Orleans, WUMB loses out to Lower Cape Communications for
a new signal on 91.3, which will now become a relay of Lower
Cape's WOMR (92.1 Provincetown).
Radio (and TV) People on the Move: Former WRKO news anchor
Mary Blake has resurfaced across town at WBZ, where she's doing
some weekend and fill-in shifts. In Springfield, Dave Cooper
is the new PD at WAQY (102.1), arriving from WLVQ in Columbus
to replace the departed Neal Mirsky. And former Boston TV meteorologist
Todd Gross, who's been doing some fill-in work at Springfield's
WWLP (Channel 22), has landed a new gig at KTVX (Channel 4) in
Salt Lake City. Gross will continue to provide New England forecasts
to several radio clients, and to visitors at his toddgross.com
website.
 *There's
an official format now at VERMONT's newest radio station.
WTNN (97.5 Bristol) is now "Eagle Country 97.5," challenging
Burlington market leader WOKO (98.9) and Rutland's "Cat
Country" WJEN (94.5). So far, it's all satellite-delivered,
but that'll be changing, we hear.
In the Bennington area, we hear WHAZ-FM (97.5 Hoosick Falls
NY) is now simulcasting the "Alive Radio" network from
parent station WHAZ (1330 Troy NY), instead of the classic gospel
format it had been running.
 And
in Brattleboro, WTSA (1450) switched affiliations Sunday, moving
from Sporting News Radio to ESPN Radio.
*On the NEW HAMPSHIRE border, there's
a new PD at Nassau's "Wolf" country stations, WXLF
(95.3 White River Junction) and WZLF (107.1 Bellows Falls); Kevin
Cregg arrives there after stints at upstate New York's WSCP,
WWHT and WPXY.
*In southeastern PENNSYLVANIA, Temple
University won out over Family Stations and American Family Association
in the race for a new signal on 89.3 in Coatesville. The new
signal will run 600 watts, vertical-only, at 72 meters above
average terrain.
In Philadelphia, Radio One's WPPZ (103.9 Jenkintown) moves
morning host CeCe McGhee to afternoons, plugging in the syndicated
Yolanda Adams/Larry Jones show for mornings.
In Scranton, the FCC rejected Leslie Quick's challenge to
the deal last year that transferred the stations owned by Doug
Lane to Bold Gold Media, using the proceeds to compensate victims
of Lane's sexual abuse. Quick, a minority investor in Lane's
stations, says the forced sale (from which he received no money)
deprived him of due process; the FCC says his complaint should
have been filed earlier in the process.
There's a new LPFM on the air in Nanticoke: WVHO-LP (94.5)
is programming contemporary Christian music.
In Pittsburgh, today's the launch of "Zone" talk
on WTZN (93.7) - and down on the AM dial, we can attach a price
tag to the sale of WURP (1550 Braddock); BusinessTalkRadio.net
will pay $225,000 for the little daytimer on Pittsburgh's east
side.
*Two new noncommercial FMs in NEW JERSEY:
in Barnegat,WWN Educational Radio Corp. gets 91.9, winning the
construction permit over JC Radio Inc.; up north in Hopatcong,
it's Youngshine Media winning the CP on 88.1 over EMF Broadcasting
and CSN International.
And WCHR (1040 Flemington) has been granted a power boost:
it goes from 4.7 kW days/1 kW nights to 15 kW days/7.5 kW critical
hours/1 kW nights, still with a big shift in directional pattern
that sends its night signal in almost the opposite direction
from its day pattern.
 *A
most unusual travel information station in CANADA is changing
formats. CFYZ (1280) signed on a few years ago as the voice of
Toronto's Pearson International Airport, and for a time it actually
offered live drive-time programming aimed at travelers heading
to or from the airport. Then the airport authority pulled the
plug on the station's funding, and CFYZ went silent. Now it's
back, under new calls and with a new programmer. Canada's Business
Network is providing a combination of business talk and syndicated
talkers (including Dennis Miller and Glenn Beck) to the station,
which will soon be operating under new calls CFBN.
Official sign-on for the new CFBN, which will operate from
studios in Pearson's Terminal 1, is set for next Monday, April
9.
Up north at Humber College, CKHC (96.9) hopes to graduate
from low-power status to a class A1 community radio license;
it's applying to increase power from 5 watts to 60 watts/31 meters.
In Sarnia, Points Eagle Radio applies for a new station on
103.3, with 6 kW DA/66.6 meters, to broadcast in English and
in Aboriginal languages.
 And in
Montreal, CKAC (730) relaunches today as a French-language all-sports
station, replacing the RadioMedia talk that's moving to FM across
the province, as the venerable AM signal tries to find a way
to bring back the listeners who have largely moved elsewhere
in recent years.
*How about some more Baseball on
the Radio? Last week, we profiled the Major League lineups
across NERW-land, and this week we'll look at the radio scene
for the top echelons of the minors: the AAA International League
and the AA Eastern League.
We'll start our IL coverage somewhere other than our home
base (the Rochester Red Wings), since there are bigger changes
at two other franchises this year. The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre
Red Barons are no more, replaced by the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre
Yankees, who'll play on a grass field instead of the artificial
turf we saw when we attended the Red Barons' very last game on
a rainy night last September (in which the Red Wings beat the
Barons to advance to the Governors Cup finals, but we digress.)
The S/W-B Yanks have signed a five-year radio deal with Bold
Gold Radio that will keep the games on WICK (1400 Scranton),
WYCK (1340 Plains), WPSN (1590 Honesdale) and WFBS (1280 Berwick);
Bold Gold will also carry a daily Yankees report on its FM stations
across the region. The team also has a four-game TV deal with
ABC affiliate WNEP (Channel 16), whose studios are just up the
road from Lackawanna County Stadium in Moosic.
It's likely the last season for the Ottawa Lynx, who
take the Phillies' affiliation that had been in Scranton. The
Phils plan to move the team to a new stadium in Allentown next
year (they'll become the Iron Pigs when they move), but they'll
play out this year in Ottawa, where games will again be heard
on CFGO (The Team 1200).
There's a new radio affiliation for the Pawtucket Red Sox,
who move from WSKO (790 Providence) to WHJJ (920 Providence)
this year. Expect to see a few Pawsox games on NESN, too, on
nights when Boston's not playing.
We never stopped calling them the Syracuse Chiefs,
even when they were going by "SkyChiefs" for a few
silly seasons, but the team to our east has its old name back
this year; it remains on WNSS (1260 Syracuse) for another season,
as well. The team will also have TV coverage on Time Warner Sports,
cable channel 26 across the region.
To our west, the Buffalo Bisons enter their second
year with WECK (1230 Cheektowaga) as the flagship; WSPQ (1330
Springville) will also carry most of the team's games.
And our hometown Rochester Red Wings continue
their split schedule this year: most games will air on WHTK (1280
Rochester), with weekday afternoon games moving to WYSL (1040
Avon) so as not to disrupt the fans of Don and Mike on WHTK.
Moving along to the Eastern League, we'll start up at the
Portland Sea Dogs, who continue to have one of the biggest
networks in the minor leagues, anchored at WBAE (1490 Portland),
with affiliates WCNM (1240 Lewiston), WKTQ (1450 South Paris),
WTME (780 Rumford), WPHX (1220 Sanford) and WMEX (106.5 Farmington
NH), as well as TV coverage on WMTW (Channel 8), with four games,
and NESN, with two.
The New Hampshire Fisher Cats start the season with
yet another new flagship; this time, it's WGIR (610 Manchester),
along with WGIN (930 Rochester) and WGIP (1540 Exeter).
The Connecticut Defenders of Norwich remain on WICH
(1310), while the New Britain Rock Cats remain on WDRC
(1360 Hartford), along with its simulcast stations around the
state. (WELI in New Haven, which had carried some Rock Cats games
last year, isn't on the network this year.)
The Binghamton Mets continue on WNBF (1290), while
the Trenton Thunder remain on WBUD (1260).
In Pennsylvania, fans can hear the Erie SeaWolves on
WJET (1400), a move from sister station WFNN (1330), which had
been the flagship for several seasons. The Altoona Curve
remain on WHPA (93.5 Barnesboro), with a network that now includes
WKVA (920 Lewisburg) as well as previous affiliates WDBA (107.3
Du Bois), WTRN (1340 Tyrone) and 35 games on WBGG (970 Pittsburgh).
The Harrisburg Senators are in their second season WTKT
(1460), and the Reading Phillies continue on WIOV (1240).
We'll tackle the independent leagues and the short-season
New York-Penn League in upcoming editions of NERW; in the meantime,
we have one correction to offer from last week's Major League
baseball review - there is indeed a small New York Mets network
that includes WOFX (980 Troy), WIZR (930 Johnstown) and WPSL
(1590 Port St. Lucie FL), for those spring-training fans.
|
From
the NERW Archives
(Yup, we've been doing this a long time now, and
so we're digging back into the vaults for a look at what NERW
was covering one, five and ten years ago this week, or thereabouts
- the column appeared on an erratic schedule in its earliest
years as "New England Radio Watch," and didn't go to
a regular weekly schedule until 1997. Thanks to LARadio.com
for the idea - and thanks to you, our readers, for the support
that's made all these years of NERW possible!)
April 3, 2006 -
- It's been a rough year for fans of oldies in the New York
metropolitan area, what with the demise of WCBS-FM and all. But
oldies aficionados in the CONNECTICUT suburbs and nearby parts
of Westchester and Long Island still had somewhere else to turn
- Cox's "Kool" WKHL (96.7 Stamford) - at least until
last Wednesday night at 10, when the Box Tops' "The Letter"
faded out, replaced by "The New 96-7, the Coast, Fairfield
County's Greatest Hits." The new station, which is running
jockless for now, kicked off with Billy Joel's "Big Shot"
(a wee bit ironic, perhaps, for a station that's billing itself
as being "all about Fairfield County" to debut with
Long Island's favorite son?), and the music mix appears to be
somewhere between all-out adult hits and mainstream AC. New calls
for the station are apparently WCTZ.
- Over in RHODE ISLAND, rumors began swirling late last week
that Brown Broadcasting Service was preparing to sell WBRU-FM
(95.5 Providence), the modern rock station that's operated (commercially)
by a mostly-volunteer staff of Brown University students. An
article in a local alternative weekly led to a story Thursday
night on WJAR (Channel 10), and by Friday the message boards
were aflame with talk of WBRU's imminent demise. Friday afternoon
at 4, the WBRU jocks said their farewells, to the tune of Green
Day's "Time of Your Life," and were abruptly replaced
by an automated adult hits format as "Buddy FM," a
nod to imprisoned former Providence mayor Buddy Cianci. The stunt
lasted 20 hours, until the WBRU jocks "broke in" to
the Benevolent Street studios Saturday afternoon and "liberated"
the station from its new corporate overlords at "Initek."
Yes, it was April Fool time in the Ocean State. And yes, "Initek"
is the infamously clueless corporation from the movie "Office
Space." And, yes, it was fun watching the message boards
- and the TV stations - take the whole thing seriously.
- From the "moved" file, WFNX (101.7 Lynn) turned
on its new transmitter site atop One Financial Center in downtown
Boston late last week, dramatically improving its signal in the
city. WFNX had been transmitting from the old WEEI-FM site on
the Medford-Malden line since 1987, and from the WLYN (1360 Lynn)
tower on Route 107 before that, never quite getting enough signal
into the parts of Boston where most of the station's young audience
lives, works and goes to school.
- More moves: the bulldozers are already on site at WUNR (1600
Brookline), where the existing transmitter will be moved into
a trailer when work begins any day now to gut the transmitter
building. That'll be the first phase of the project to replace
WUNR's current two-tower, 5 kW signal with a five-tower site
shared by WUNR, WRCA (1330, moving from Waltham to Watertown)
and WKOX (1200, moving from Framingham to Newton). We'll bring
you updates on this fascinating (and long-delayed) project as
it progresses.
- Syracuse's NBC affiliate, WSTM (Channel 3), and its UPN LPTV
offshoot, WSTQ-LP (Channel 14), have a new owner, as Barrington
Broadcasting pays Raycom $262 million for WSTM/WSTQ and a dozen
other stations in nine markets around the country. No sooner
was the deal announced than WSTQ completed its agreement to become
Syracuse's CW affiliate this fall. My Network TV, meanwhile,
signed with WPNY-LP in Utica, making it all but inevitable that
CW will land on cable there (and likely in Watertown, Binghamton
and Elmira, too.)
April 1, 2002 -
- One of the best-known voices in Buffalo radio is without
a spot on the dial this week - and alas, the end of Danny Neaverth's
morning show on WHTT (104.1) is no April Fool joke. The Citadel-owned
oldies station began dropping hints late in March that it was
looking to cut costs, dismissing Neaverth's son (Dan Jr. had
been doing sports on WHTT) and daughter-in-law (P.J. Fox, who
had been doing part-time air work for the station. When Tony
Violanti of the Buffalo News broke the news that Neaverth's own
contract would not be renewed, WHTT pulled Neaverth off the air
after Wednesday's show, calling at least a temporary halt to
a career that began at WKBW in the fifties. There's no word yet
on what Neaverth's next move might be - but WHTT didn't wait
long to fill his shoes, announcing Friday that veteran WBEN morning
man Bill Lacy will take over morning drive in a few weeks. Lacy,
who was let go in a cost-cutting binge at WBEN last year, had
been heard filling in for Neaverth during several scheduled vacations
recently.
- Other news from around NEW YORK: Binghamton's WMRV (105.7
Endicott) is the target of a lawsuit from the husband of a woman
who died during a station promotion in June 2000. Susan Santodonato,
37, was one of about a hundred Britney Spears fans who turned
up at WMRV's old Endicott studio building after the station announced
the pop star would be visiting. Spears wasn't there, of course
- but the Clear Channel CHR station had hired an actress to impersonate
her and several "guards" to keep fans at a distance.
Santodonato fell and hit her head on a garage door during the
chaos, and the $1.2 billion suit filed by her husband says the
injury, which led to her death a few hours later, was caused
by one of the guards pushing her. The lawsuit names Clear Channel
and Visions Federal Credit Union, which owned the Country Club
Road building where WMRV's studios were then located. (The station
moved to a new studio in Vestal a few months ago.)
- To PENNSYLVANIA we go next, and the next installment of the
Harrisburg CHR wars. Last week, we told you that Cumulus had
pulled the plug on the format at WNNK (104.1 Harrisburg), shifting
"Wink" to a hot AC in the face of tough competition
from Clear Channel's "Kiss" WHKF (99.3). But it turns
out that was only half the story: this week, Cumulus flipped
oldies outlet WWKL (92.1 Palmyra) to CHR as "Hot 92,"
launching a new challenge to Kiss, albeit on a signal that's
weak over much of the market. WNNK PD John O'Dea is overseeing
the new entry as well, and he's running it jockless for now.
The irony here? Those WWKL calls and that oldies format were
last heard in the market on...99.3, just before it flipped to
"Kiss" last year!
April 1, 1997-
- New England is recovering from a freak
April snowstorm, and we here at NERW headquarters are suddenly
having no regrets whatsoever about making the move to Rochester
- and to think of all the ribbing we took for moving to "snowy"
Upstate New York! Anyway, the storm is our top story this week,
so on with the news:
- The storm took several stations completely
off the air, including WSSH (101.5) Marlboro VT and WDIS (1170)
Norfolk MA. Several others, including WZSH (107.1) Bellows Falls
VT, WHDQ (106.1) Claremont NH, and WVAY (100.7) Wilmington VT
stayed on the air but without any audio. WLKW (790) Providence
was noted with a phone-line audio feed to its East Providence
transmitter. Most of the stations are now back on the air, with
the exception of WDIS, which remained silent as of Wednesday
morning. WBZ (1030) in Boston suffered a lightning strike to
one of its two towers in Hull, Massachusetts, forcing the station
to run from its backup 10 kilowatt transmitter at the Brighton
studios for several hours on Tuesday while repairs were being
made. 'BZ ditched its usual taped overnight newscasts Monday
night and Tuesday morning, keeping Don Huff in the studios with
live newscasts all night.
- On the radio-with-pictures side of
the aisle, Boston's network affiliates dumped most of their daytime
programming Tuesday to stay with the big story. CBS O&O WBZ-TV
was on the air from 5 AM until 1 PM, pulling veteran storm reporter
Shelby Scott out of retirement to stand amidst nearly three feet
of snow in Worcester. WCVB (Channel 5) was on from 5 AM until
2 PM, and WHDH-TV (Channel 7) outdid 'em all with coverage from
just before 4 AM until 3 PM, pausing for an hour before picking
back up at 4. As for Fox O&O WFXT (Channel 25), they were
plagued by a power outage at the Dedham studios, which knocked
out their 10 PM newscast. Backup power, Mr. Murdoch?
- April Fool! Several Northeast stations
got into the spirit of the day Tuesday, including Syracuse's
WNTQ (93.1), which spent the morning telling listeners their
cash was about to be replaced by a new series of bills. The stunt
was not appreciated by area banks, which had to spend the rest
of the day persuading 93Q listeners that there was no need to
come in and exchange their bills. Here in Rochester, WHAM (1180)
went small-town for a few days, replacing the last hour of its
midday talk show with "Tradio," giving listeners the
chance to call in and sell their household items. (We think that
was an April Fool joke...)
- News from all over: Providence's WPRO
AM/FM (630/92.3), WLKW (790), and WWLI (105.1) have new owners.
Citadel Broadcasting is moving beyond its current markets in
the midwest and out west to buy Tele-Media, whose holdings include
almost 20 stations in its home base of Pennsylvania as well as
the Providence stations and stations in Quincy IL. Purchase price
for the whole package is $117 million, according to Inside Radio.
WPRO and WLKW are the market's AM leaders, with news/talk and
standards formats, respectively. PRO-FM is the market's CHR station,
and "Lite 105" is one of two ACs. Format changes? One
never knows...
- Up in New Hampshire, the new owners
of Lebanon's 100.5 FM have put a new format and calls on the
former WVRR (ex-WNBX, ex-WUVR, etc.). As of March 24, 100.5 is
now "KIXX country," picking up the WXXK format and
calls from co-owned 101.7 Newport NH. 101.7 becomes WVRR, "V-101,"
with a satellite adult-rock format. WKBK (1220) in Keene is promoting
what it claims will be the market's first all- female morning
team.
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*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. |
