January 7, 2008

Entercom/Nassau WEEI Deal is Dead

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

*It was one of the biggest radio stories of the summer in NEW HAMPSHIRE, MAINE and the rest of northern New England last year: Entercom, programmer of Boston's highly successful WEEI (850 Boston), was to partner with Nassau to spread WEEI's sports format to Portland, Concord, the Lakes Region, the Upper Valley and Cape Cod - and in exchange, Entercom would take a half-interest in Nassau's classical WCRB (99.5 Lowell) for the improbably-low-sounding sum of $10 million. (Nassau had paid $60 million for the station just a year earlier, after all.)

As 2007 wound to a close, Nassau began laying the groundwork for the format changes that would accompany the start of its WEEI simulcasts: in Concord and the Lakes Region, WNNH (99.1 Henniker) and WLKZ (104.9 Wolfeboro) moved from oldies to classic hits ("Frank") to clear the way for classic rocker "Hawk" WWHK (102.3 Concord)/WWHQ (101.5 Meredith) to become WEEI affiliates. And the "Free Beer and Hot Wings" morning show heard on several Nassau stations started saying goodbye to listeners in Portland ("Bone" WHXR/WHXQ).

But then rumors started spreading about problems with the deal, and even as the champagne was being chilled and we were stepping away from the computer on New Year's Eve afternoon, the companies pulled the plug on their plans for a network.

"The transaction hit an impasse," was the word from Nassau's Lou Mercatanti to Clea Simon at the Boston Globe, and we've still heard nothing definitive about what caused the deal to fall apart at the last minute.

So in the absence of hard fact, we'll offer some educated speculation. First, from the Entercom side of the fence, there's no question that the deal was more essential to announce in August than to close in December. In August, WEEI faced what could have been a serious challenge to its sports supremacy: while Entercom had locked up a long-term Red Sox contract, at no small expense, its morning stars John Dennis and Gerry Callahan were flirting with other suitors - not just the long-rumored Greater Media dream of flipping WBOS (92.9) to an all-sports format, but also a possible Nassau flip of WCRB to sports. Allying Nassau with WEEI took away that option for Dennis and Callahan, and it's no coincidence that the pair re-signed with Entercom soon after the Nassau deal was announced.

With Dennis and Callahan safely under contract, and the Sox not only safely under contract but celebrating their second World Series in four years, the threats to WEEI are significantly blunted today as compared to last summer. And while WEEI could certainly have benefited from adding WCRB's FM signal (with its strong reach from southern New Hampshire into Boston's northern and western suburbs) to its existing network, we have no way of knowing if that simulcast was ever anything more than rank speculation, anyway.

Also speculative - but it's a speculation we're pretty comfortable making - is the notion that Nassau, in the end, needed Entercom more than Entercom needed Nassau. While Nassau could certainly still create a sports network out of the stations that were targeted to become WEEI relays, it's hard to imagine the national sports coverage of ESPN Radio, Fox Sports Radio or any of their competitors having the same regional appeal as the non-stop Sox/Pats/Celtics (and occasionally BC Eagles and Bruins) talk that makes up most of WEEI's programming day. (We can also speculate that Entercom won't give up on the idea of an expanded WEEI network on stations other than Nassau's.)

For Nassau, then, there are are new challenges both immediate and long-term. In New Hampshire, the unexpected conflict between "The Hawk" and "Frank" will need to be addressed - and to the south, there's still the longer-term issue of WCRB. While Mercatanti says publicly that Nassau is committed to keeping 99.5 classical over the long haul, it's been a rough road for commercial classical radio nationwide over the last few years, especially for an operator like Nassau that's functioning as a standalone in Boston in the midst of much bigger operators such as CBS, Clear Channel, Greater Media and, yes, Entercom.

Which brings us to the most interesting bit of speculation: with another all-sports station struggling mightily to find its footing in the market - Jessamy Tang's "ESPN Boston" WAMG (890 Dedham)/WLLH (1400 Lowell) - could ESPN and Nassau team up to flip 99.5 into a sports competitor to WEEI? It wouldn't have the Sox, of course, or Dennis and Callahan, but it would have a fairly potent FM signal, at least.

GETCHER 2008 TOWER SITE CALENDAR - BEFORE THEY'RE ALL GONE! Still haven't ordered your 2008 Tower Site Calendar? You do realize that it's now...er...2008, don't you? We're already down to the last 180 or so calendars, and they're going fast. The 2006 and 2007 editions of the calendar sold out, and this one will do so as well, possibly as soon as this month. This year's edition is a particularly fine one, if we do say so ourselves. From the cover photo of KAST in Astoria, Oregon to the back cover shot of the Blaw-Knox diamond tower at WBNS in Columbus, this year's calendar features 14 all-new full-color shots of famous broadcast sites far and wide. There's KROQ in Los Angeles, KFBK in Sacramento, WESX in Salem, WGAN in Portland, Black Mountain in Vegas, Mount Spokane in Spokane, and many (ok, several) more. The calendar is just $18 with shipping and handling included - or better yet, beat our move to mandatory subscriptions later this year and get a free calendar with your $60 subscription to NERW for 2008. (Remember, the proceeds from both the calendar and the subscriptions help keep NERW right here on the web, as we head into our fourteenth year of news and analysis.) So click right here and you can be sure to have your very own Tower Site Calendar 2008! (And thank you!) The 2008 Tower Site Calendar is dedicated to the memory of Robert Eiselen (1934-2007), whose digital imaging skills made even a bunch of pictures of radio towers look almost like art. His contributions were essential to the calendar's evolution from 2003 to the current edition, and he will be missed dearly.

*The year's first big station sale came early, and it involved a familiar face in VERMONT radio. Ken Barlow's history in the Green Mountain State includes stints at WCFR in Springfield and WDOT in Burlington, then the launch in the nineties of WCPV (Champ 101.3) and WXPS (now WXZO 96.7). After his Dynacomm group sold those stations to Capstar in 1999, Barlow went on to join Bruce Danziger and Jeff Shapiro to build the Vox Radio Group, which at one point owned more stations in northern New England than any other broadcaster.

In 2005, Vox sold most of its stations to Nassau. Barlow and Danziger then formed Vox Communications Group, which picked up Vox Radio's cluster in western Massachusetts.

And now Vox Communications is coming into Vermont with an $11 million purchase of Clear Channel's Burlington and Randolph stations - including Barlow's old haunts, WCPV and WXZO.

Here's what the entire cluster looks like: there's AC "Star" WEZF (92.9 Burlington), with a class C signal from Mount Mansfield that is, hands-down, the best commercial FM signal in Vermont. Classic rock "Champ" is now heard on both WCPV (101.3 Essex NY) in the Burlington market and on WCVR (102.1 Randolph) in central Vermont. WXZO (96.7 Willsboro NY) now carries a talk format as "The Zone," simulcast on WEAV (960 Plattsburgh) and WTSJ (1320 Randolph). South of Burlington, there's also "True Oldies Channel" WVTK (92.1 Port Henry NY).

(NERW notes that these stations were originally among the big group of signals in small Clear Channel markets that were supposed to go to the Goodradio.TV group in that deal that never came to fruition last year; we also note that this is Clear Channel's second New England spinoff to a group with roots in the old Vox Radio Group - the company's stations in the White River Junction/Lebanon/Hanover market were sold last year to Jeff Shapiro's new Great Eastern Radio group, which is now competing against the former Vox, now Nassau, cluster in that region.)

No purchase price has yet been announced for the Burlington sale; Barlow tells the Burlington Free Press that he doesn't expect to make major changes at the signals.

Back in the Upper Valley for a moment, former upstate New Yorker Kevin Cregg is out as afternoon jock at Nassau's "Wolf" WXLF (95.3 White River Junction)/WZLF (107.1 Bellows Falls) after less than a year.

Miss our complete look back at the year that just ended? Have you caught (and responded to) our Year-End Rant yet? Click here for NERW's comprehensive recap of 2007. Sponsored by:

*Even before the new year began, some big changes were underway in NEW YORK radio. On New Year's Eve, Allan Sniffen's New York Radio Message Board broke the news that Valerie Smaldone had become the latest veteran of Clear Channel's WLTW (106.7 New York) to depart the station.

But it's a pretty safe bet that Clear Channel, now in serious cost-cutting mode as it prepares to be taken private, wasn't in any hurry to open its wallet to pay the veteran midday jock what she's worth, either. Over the past year or so, WLTW had already cut loose its other founding voices - Stephen Roy, Al Bernstein, Bill Buchner, JJ Kennedy and Bill Buchner - and the company has made similar cuts at other big AC stations around the country as well, including two prominent departures from KOST in Los Angeles over the last few weeks, morning co-host Kim Amidon and middayer Mike Sakellarides.

And if we can cross the line into opinion here for a moment, what may work for the bottom line in the short term just doesn't seem very healthy for radio in the long run. It's easy to downplay the importance of personality on a "utility" radio station like WLTW, which made its reputation over the years as the background music of office cubicles and reception desks all over the tri-state area. But it's also a mistake. While nobody in radio is irreplaceable, talents like Smaldone, Bernstein and Roy were just as crucial (in a much more subdued way) in forging a bond between their radio station and its audience as are higher-profile radio names like Imus, Mike and the Mad Dog, or any of the other radio people who tend to draw the headlines.

Outside the glare of those spotlights, WLTW has been a quietly dominant force in New York radio for many years now, regularly appearing at or near the top of the revenue rankings. That sort of success doesn't happen by accident. It takes a good programming team, solid marketing and promotion, a top-notch sales team, flawless engineering - and in New York, especially, it takes on-air voices, too. Remove any piece of that structure and the whole thing comes crashing down, maybe not in a few months or a year, but surely within a few years.

We explored these ideas in more depth in our Year-End Rant that appeared in this space last year as part of our 2007 Year in Review, and next week we'll print some of your reactions. It's not too late to check out the Rant, and to join in the conversation at "rant at fybush dot com." We welcome your input!

Back to the week's news - down the street at Disney's ESPN Radio flagship, WEPN (1050 New York), the headlines were all about the station's less-than-full-market signal. Ever since its days as WHN, the 1050 signal has been a non-starter in much of NEW JERSEY, thanks to a directional pattern that sends its 50,000 watts away from adjacent-channel KYW (1060 Philadelphia).

In the early nineties, a new station squeezed into that hole between KYW and WEPN. WJHR (1040 Flemington NJ) signed on in 1998 as a community-oriented full-service station serving Hunterdon County, but that phase of its existence lasted only a few years. In 2002, it changed hands to Nassau Communications and changed calls to WCHR, picking up the religious format that had accompanied those calls in their prior incarnations on 920 and 94.5 in Trenton, to the south.

Now Nassau has signed a deal to LMA the 1040 facility to Disney, turning it into a full-time simulcast of WEPN. While the move will extend WEPN's signal into parts of western and central New Jersey that have never had a clear signal from 1050, the move still won't bring "ESPN 1050" to signal parity with competitor WFAN (660). That's because WCHR's tight squeeze onto the AM dial came with some compromises: by day, its 4700-watt signal (with a CP to increase to 15 kW) aims mostly south and west from Flemington, covering an area from the Lehigh Valley down to Trenton and even some of Philadelphia's outermost suburbs. But come sunset, WCHR must protect WHO (1040) in Des Moines, and that means its pattern flips almost completely, aiming back over Hunterdon County into central New Jersey with just 1000 watts (and a CP for 1500 watts.)

Still, any signal is better than no signal, and the addition of 1040 to the 1050 signal can only help WEPN's efforts to become a major player on the New York sports scene.

(As for the WCHR religious format, it's rumored to be returning to its previous spot on 920, with Nassau displacing ESPN from what's now WPHY.)

One more New Jersey sports radio note before we return to the Empire State: WADB (1310 Asbury Park) flips from ESPN Deportes (Spanish-language sports talk) to Fox Sports Radio in English today, just eight months after its April flip from standards to "deportes."

Out on Long Island, all the big news comes from the Morey Organization: its "Party 105," WDRE (105.3 Calverton-Roanoke), has expanded its reach west into Nassau County. "Party" is now also being heard on translator W268AN (101.5 Plainview), with a 10-watt signal that covers a chunk of central Nassau.

Meanwhile, Morey has quietly pulled the plug on the latest incarnation of modern-rock WLIR (107.1 Hampton Bays). The format disappeared last week (though it will supposedly continue as a webcast), and 107.1 is now in a temporary "Party" simulcast, with a rumored flip to sports talk coming soon.

Up in northern Westchester, Cumulus' WFAF (106.3 Mount Kisco) quietly ended its simulcast with rocker WPDH (101.5 Poughkeepsie) late last month, after almost two years with that format. WFAF is now running adult contemporary music, with only an hourly ID for interruption. Could 106.3 be the new home of the AC format that's been on WFAS-FM (103.9 Bronxville) once that Cumulus signal moves south into the Bronx soon? (Even if it is, the 106.3 signal misses most of the lucrative southern Westchester market that 103.9 now blankets.)

And looking ahead before we head way upstate, we note that next week is expected to bring the long-awaited return of Luis Jiminez to the New York airwaves. The former WSKQ (Mega 97.9) morning star has been sitting out a non-compete with new employer Univision Radio, which hopes he can bring his big following to its WCAA (La Kalle 105.9), turning that signal into a major player in New York's Hispanic market.

Meanwhile in Rochester, Entercom has been locked in contract negotiations with the star morning man at its new acquisition, WCMF (96.5). "Brother Wease" (Alan Levin) was last heard on WCMF on Dec. 21, when he began his scheduled end-of-the-year vacation. His contract ran out Dec. 31, and the rest of his morning-show cast was on the air without him all last week while contract talks played out.

At week's end, both Wease and Entercom were expressing hope that they'd come to a fairly quick settlement; Entercom can ill afford to lose the main revenue draw on the station it just spent so much money acquiring from CBS Radio, and for Wease, there are few other options to continue doing the radio show he loves doing. (With CBS out of the market, the only other active major player in Rochester radio now is Clear Channel, and that company's not adding any expensive new talents to any of its stations.)

Over in Syracuse, a veteran broadcaster is moving on to a new challenge. Dow Smith came to Syracuse University in 1995 from a lengthy management career that included several years as VP/GM of Albany's WTEN (Channel 10). While at SU, Smith wrote a textbook for TV news producers. Now he's retiring from Syracuse and returning to the Albany area to launch an electronic journalism program at Siena College.

*In CONNECTICUT, Clear Channel's WELI (960 New Haven) has named a replacement for Jerry Kristafer, who's headed north to Hartford's WDRC-FM for mornings. As had been widely rumored, WELI will pick up Don Imus for its morning drive slot, effective next Monday (Jan. 14).

In Westport, they're mourning the death on Dec. 27 of Robert A. "Red" Graham, Jr. Graham had many careers in his long life, including a managerial role at IBM, a traveling life as a theatrical performer and a later career as a travel agent. But in broadcast circles, he was known for his 10 years at the helm of WMMM (1260 Westport), which he ran from 1987 until 1997, when he donated the station to Sacred Heart University's WSHU. Graham was 94.

*In addition to the Nassau/WEEI/WCRB developments we covered at the top of the column, there's other news out of MASSACHUSETTS, starting with a new format on the AM dial. WJOE (700 Athol) quietly dropped its oldies format last Wednesday (Jan. 2), flipping to ESPN sports. And there's a new face in the operations manager's chair at WJOE and sister stations WGAW (1340 Gardner) and WNYN (99.9 Athol): Steve West is now holding down that role, as well as hosting a morning talk show on WGAW (and maintaining the always-excellent airchexx.com site!)

More Radio People on the Move: Mike "Big Daddy" Morgan, who had been morning executive producer at WJMN (94.5 Boston) until his job was cut back in 2006, has landed at Entercom's WMKK (93.7 Mike FM) as assistant PD. Out in western Massachusetts, Win Lewis is the new PD at smooth jazz WEIB (106.3 Northampton). And a radio play-by-play on the move: Tuesday's New Hampshire primary coverage will displace the match between the Bruins and the Carolina Hurricanes from WBZ (1030) to WODS (103.3).

You can have your ad here! Click here for information on the most economical way to reach tens of thousands of Northeast radio and TV people each week.

*A contract dispute leads off our PENNSYLVANIA news. Lloyd Roach was one of the founders of the Route 81 Radio group back in 2003, combining his own WCOJ (1420 Coatesville) with capital from the investment firm WallerSutton to form a group that included holdings in the Harrisburg, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and Elmira markets.

Roach departed Route 81 in 2005, and an FCC ruling issued last week provides some insight into the dispute that developed between him and the cluster he left behind. In 2006, Roach filed petitions to deny against the license renewals of WCOJ and Route 81's other Pennsylvania stations, WHYL (960 Carlisle), WNAK (730 Nanticoke), WCDL (1440 Carbondale), WAZL (1490 Hazleton) and WLNP (94.3 Hazleton).

Roach claimed that WCDL and WLNP were out of compliance with FCC main-studio rules, that WNAK and WHYL had technical problems with their towers, and that Route 81 in effect stole his equity interest in the company. The FCC quickly tossed out the first two complaints, finding that the stations were in compliance with the rules.

As for the third charge, which stemmed from Roach's September 2005 decision to exercise a "put option" to sell his 18.9% interest in Route 81, the Commission found that to be a question for the courts, renewing the licenses and dismissing Roach's complaints. (But we'd note an interesting revelation from the decision: Route 81 says it advised Roach against exercising that option back in 2005, warning him that the lack of cash flow at the stations would end up leading to his options being valued at zero, as indeed they were. (The FCC also denied Roach's claim of discrimination based on his status as a Vietnam veteran.)

Some other news from around Scranton and vicinity: up on Penobscot Mountain, WNEP (Channel 16) restored an analog TV signal to the air at reduced power on New Year's Eve. With the loss of its old tower, WNEP's new analog signal comes from the neighboring American Tower site that's home to WNEP-DT (Channel 49) and WOLF-TV/DT. Also back on the air is WVIA-DT (Channel 41), from the remaining portion of its tower, which was partially destroyed by the storm.

On the radio side of things, Kelly Green (Jayme Gordon) is departing Entercom's WGGY (101.3 Scranton), where she's been music director and afternoon jock, reportedly heading for a new gig in South Carolina; Jessie Roberts takes over as PD at "Froggy."

In Erie, WICU (Channel 12) has a new news director, as Julie Eisenman replaces Phil Hayes, who'll stick around to do some consulting.

And while Stu Nahan was best known for his TV sports work in Los Angeles, he's remembered by old-timers in Philadelphia, too, for his stint as "Captain Philadelphia" on the old WKBS (Channel 48) and for his mid-sixties play-by-play for the Flyers. (He also played a boxing commentator in the Rocky movies.) Nahan died Dec. 26 in Los Angeles; he was 81.

*In CANADA, we can now put a price tag on the deal that transfers CIKZ (106.7 Kitchener-Waterloo) to Rogers and CICX (105.9 Orillia) to Larche Communications; the Kitchener-Waterloo station is valued at C$12.2 million, while the Orillia station is valued at C$4 million.

Radio People on the Move: in Hamilton, Milkman UnLimited reports that Ben and Kerry, late of Toronto's "Jack" (CJAQ 92.5), are the new morning team at Y108 (CJXY 107.9). And in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Mark Downey replaces the late Perry White in morning drive at CHTD (98.1).

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 2008 by Scott Fybush.