"Radio 92.1" Comes to Scranton

TOWER SITE CALENDAR 2011 - JUST ABOUT HERE!

The production process was a little more complex than usual for Tower Site Calendar 2011, but at long last we're about to begin shipping the tenth installment in what's become an annual radio tradition.

In just a few days, the new calendar will be back from the printer, complete with more than a dozen exciting new images including that nifty cover shot of Mount Beacon, N.Y.

And if you order now, you'll still be at the top of the list to get your 2011 calendar shipped to you next week!

But wait - there's more! We now have a small supply of the new FM Atlas, 21st edition, as well as a limited supply of Tower Site Calendar 2010 as well - plus the signed, limited-edition version of the 2011 calendar and much more in the fybush.com store!

(We've got special discounts for bulk orders, too - they make great gifts for your business colleagues or friends...)

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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, ten and - where available - fifteen years ago this week, or thereabouts. Note that 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.

September 21, 2009 -

• Boston's largest public broadcaster, WGBH, is buying the market's commercial classical radio station, Nassau's WCRB (99.5 Lowell), ending years of speculation about the long-term future of classical radio in the Hub and doubling the daily radio output from WGBH's Allston studios. Details of the deal are being announced this afternoon - but NERW believes it will involve the transformation of WCRB from commercial to non-commercial operation, in a move strikingly similar to WNYC's impending acquisition of New York City's WQXR. (According to a WGBH press release issued just after 3 PM, that's exactly the case: WCRB will go non-commercial, and a capital campaign is now underway to raise the purchase price of the station, reportedly $14 million.)
• Unlike that deal in New York, it appears that at least some of WCRB's airstaff will stay with the new WGBH-run 99.5. Like that deal in New York, it appears that the transaction will move WCRB into WGBH's Allston studios from the longtime WCRB facility in Waltham. And like the New York transition, it appears that the purchase of WCRB will allow WGBH to complete the shift of its main FM facility on 89.7 to full-time news and talk by day, which may explain the recent departure (later in this week's column) of WGBH afternoon classical host Richard Knisely.
• There's no immediate word on a purchase price for WCRB, which last changed hands in 2006 as part of a complex deal that sent the station's intellectual property to Nassau and its former frequency, 102.5, to Greater Media. In recent months, Nassau has been beset by financial problems, with control of most of its stations passing to a group of lenders led by Goldman Sachs. That lenders' group now holds 100% of WCRB, which has been rumored to be up for sale - and the deal to transfer the station to WGBH closes the book on some strong rumors that had 99.5 becoming part of Entercom's cluster and perhaps flipping to sports as an FM home for WEEI.
• One of the most familiar sports voices in MASSACHUSETTS has been silenced. "No one I've heard in 45 years of New England residence has ever broadcast anything better than Fred Cusick broadcast hockey," wrote the Boston Globe's Bob Ryan in a tribute this week, and there are few in New England who would disagree with Ryan's assessment of the veteran Bruins announcer who died Tuesday at the age of 90, just hours before he was to be inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
• Cusick started with the Bruins on radio in 1952, and in addition to announcing the games on radio he soon became the driving force behind the team's early TV broadcasts. Under Cusick's leadership, the team began buying time on Sundays (initially on WMUR-TV and WHDH-TV) to broadcast tape-delayed broadcasts of Saturday games. (Cusick was even involved with the editing in those early years.) By 1971, the Bruins games had become a regular part of the schedule on WSBK (Channel 38), and Cusick moved over to the TV booth, where he would remain until he retired from the team in 1997. "Retirement," in this case, was actually something of a misnomer, since Cusick remained active for another five seasons calling games of the AHL's Lowell Lock Monsters.
• In addition to his Bruins work, which earned him a berth in the Hockey Hall of Fame, Cusick also served as sports director at WEEI in the fifties and sixties, where he worked on early Boston Patriots broadcasts in that team's first few seasons.
• In NEW YORK City, Bruce Anderson wrapped up a quarter-century of news anchoring at WABC (770) last week. Anderson worked in Michigan (most notably at WWJ in Detroit) before coming to WABC in 1984. Anderson anchored afternoon drive news at WABC from 1993 until he hung up his headphones at the end of Thursday's shift.
• CBS Radio's WWFS (Fresh 102.7) has dropped its latest morning show. "Dave and Danni" had been together for only a year or so, bringing together Dave Packer (who came to the station in 2007) and former K-Rock jock Danni.
• A CONNECTICUT broadcasting landmark is being demolished. Broadcast House in downtown Hartford, home to WFSB (Channel 3) from the early sixties until the station moved to Rocky Hill in 2007, is being replaced by a high-rise that will be built by a Middletown-based engineering and architecture firm, AI Engineers. Last week, demolition crews began tearing down the building from the Columbus Boulevard side; the interior of the building had already been gutted.

September 19, 2005 -

• It's far too early to say whether it's a brilliant move or just an interesting dead-end, but the outcome of last week's speculation about the future of The Morey Organization's three NEW YORK FM stations on Long Island's East End is certainly stirring debate within the broadcasting community. The new formats on the three stations are collectively known as "FM ChannelCasting," and the idea - according to TMO - is to bring listeners the same benefits that they'd get from satellite radio, without the expense of buying new equipment or paying a subscription fee.
• Late last week, active rock WBON (98.5 Westhampton) became rock "FM Channel 98: Long Island Rock", dance/top 40 WDRE (105.3 Calverton-Roanoke) became top 40 "FM Channel 105: Party Hits" and modern rock WLIR (107.1 Hampton Bays) became "FM Channel 107: Neo-Breeze," an unusual (and interesting-sounding) melange of standards, soft AC and smooth jazz. What's new about the stations, though, isn't the music; it's the programming concept: Morey says "FM ChannelCasting" aims to bring listeners the same benefits they get from satellite radio - long sets of music uninterrupted by DJs or commercial breaks - without the costs. In practice, what it amounts to are jockless 15-minute music sweeps, with just one sponsor for an entire hour of programming and very brief sponsor announcements (15 to 30 seconds) four times an hour. Morey says it hopes to lure nontraditional sponsors, even individuals wishing to honor anniversaries and birthdays and such.
• Meanwhile in Manhattan, it's sounding an awful lot like 1990 at WPLJ (95.5), which announced last week that Rocky Allen and Blain Ensley will return to the air there on Tuesday to resume the afternoon-drive "Showgram" that they did so successfully at 'PLJ more than a decade ago. The move shifts afternooner Race Taylor to middays, displacing Rich Kaminski to weekends.
• Moving upstate, Double O Radio hopes to add to its dominance in the triangle between Binghamton, Utica and Albany with its $3.8 million deal to buy WDOS (730 Oneonta) and WSRK (103.9 Oneonta) from Ultimate Communications. Double O already owns Oneonta's only other commercial station, WZOZ (103.1), as well as the stations in nearby Norwich, so this move creates quite the cluster along I-88.
• From NEW JERSEY - or is it PENNSYLVANIA - comes word that Nassau has now taken the inevitable next step in the move of WTHK (97.5) into the Philadelphia market. The former WPST changed city of license from Trenton to Burlington a few weeks back, and now it's applied to move its transmitter from the downtown Trenton site it's called home since the sixties, all the way into Philadelphia. The move comes with some very tight spacing requirements, though: while there's no restriction on spacing to third-adjacent WOGL (98.1), thanks to pre-1964 grandfathering, the relocated WTHK can't increase interference to WIXM (97.3 Millville NJ) or WALK-FM (97.5 Patchogue NY), with which it's also grandfathered, nor can it move much closer to WRVV (97.3 Harrisburg).
• The result? As we'd sort of expected, WTHK is applying to move its transmitter to the Wyndmoor section of northern Philadelphia, adjacent to the Mermaid Lane site of WJJZ (106.1). From there, WTHK will be a full class B signal, 43 kW at 525 feet above average terrain, but with a deep directional null to the northwest to protect WRVV and a shallower null to the south and east to protect WIXM. What's next? Expect the CP to be granted fairly quickly - and then the speculation will build about a sale of the station. Nassau isn't a big-market player, especially not with a single FM signal, and a full-market FM like this would certainly bring big bucks. Stay tuned...
• In MASSACHUSETTS - well, OK, on Long Island, where he actually does the show most of the time, "Jay Severin Has Issues." That's the name of the syndicated afternoon show that the WTKK (96.9 Boston) talker will be doing for Infinity beginning in January, but it's also a pretty good description of what the last week was like for him. It seems Severin told a caller that he'd won a Pulitzer Prize for online journalism, which raised some questions a few doors down at the Boston Globe. Columnist Scot Lehigh investigated, and found that MSNBC.com, for which Severin used to write, had won a couple of Online Journalism Awards, which were awarded by Columbia University, which also awards the Pulitzers...and there's now some frantic "what I meant to say was" backtracking going on.
• All-news radio, in English anyway, is now history in one of CANADA's biggest markets, as Corus quietly pulled the plug on "940 News" at CINW, replacing it with a news-talk hybrid branded as "AM 940, Montreal Radio." The new AM 940 retains a news-heavy presence in morning and afternoon drive and during the noon hour, but it adds more talk elements outside of drive time, including the syndicated Charles Adler show from 3-5 PM. (Adler also joins the lineup at sister station CFMJ, "AM 640 Toronto," where he's heard from 2-4 PM weekdays.)
• To the east of Toronto, CKDO (1350 Oshawa) is asking the CRTC for permission to move up the dial to 1580, where it would run 10 kW fulltime (up from the current 10 kW day/5 kW night). The 1580 frequency was where CHUC (1450 Cobourg) was going to move, but now CHUC is headed to the FM dial instead.

September 18, 2000 -

• This week's big news from NEW YORK was, of course, the end of a 75-year tradition at WOR (710), as John R. Gambling parted ways with the station that employed his grandfather, John B., and his father, John A., as hosts of "Rambling With Gambling" weekday mornings. The younger Gambling had hosted the show solo for the last decade. He tells the New York papers that he could have stayed at WOR until the end of his contract in December, but chose to leave with a farewell show that aired last Monday (9/11) on short notice. No replacement has been named yet, and WOR is showing the unusual grace of letting its listeners openly discuss the end of the Gambling dynasty on the air. Where next for John R.? The rumor mill is pointing towards WEVD (1050), as that station struggles for respect as a talk outlet.
• Moving upstate, WOFX is the new set of calls for Troy's AM 980, the first call change there in the station's history. (The WTRY calls live on at 98.3 FM in Rotterdam, along with the oldies format that had been simulcast on both outlets for years). Now a sports outlet, WOFX will offer Imus, Jim Rome, and Fox Sports Radio to the Capital District.
• Syracuse's big country station, WBBS (104.7 Fulton), can breathe easy -- it's not being challenged by Galaxy Broadcasting after all. The "Big Cow" stunt on WRDS (102.1 Phoenix) last weekend lasted just a day before the former urban station was relaunched (at 8 AM last Monday, 9/11) as "Sunny 102," variously described to NERW as an AC outlet and as a classic hits station. Whatever it's playing, the new Sunny has Bill Baker as morning man, returning home to Syracuse (where he was WSYR 570's morning host for years) from a stint down in Richmond.
• NERW thinks the new Sunny will make for interesting listening around Geneva and Seneca Falls, where it's first-adjacent to Clear Channel's "Sunny 102" (WISY 102.3 Canandaigua), rimshotting the Rochester market. But then, listeners in that area might not notice -- they have a new format to check out on a four-way AM simulcast. The Radio Group has flipped standards WAUB (1590 Auburn)/WSFW (1110 Seneca Falls) and AC WCGR (1550 Canandaigua) to a simulcast of news-talk WGVA (1240 Geneva) under the "Finger Lakes News Network" name. ABC news and a lot of satellite programming was what we heard on all four frequencies this weekend...
• Speaking of obituaries, a broadcaster who left his mark on MASSACHUSETTS radio died last month down in Florida. Richard M. Fairbanks took Framingham's WKOX from a kilowatt daytimer to a major local voice in the MetroWest area, and helped make FM a force in the Boston market in the early seventies by flipping WKOX-FM to rock as WVBF (105.7), named for his wife Virginia B. Fairbanks. Fairbanks Broadcasting was founded way back in 1948 to purchase WIBC (1070) in Indianapolis. Fairbanks (who was the last surviving grandson of Teddy Roosevelt's vice president, Charles W. Fairbanks) sold most of his properties in the last decade, leaving just WKOX in his portfolio at the end. He was 88 when he died August 11 at his home in Key Largo. Funeral services were held in Indianapolis August 13.

New England Radio Watch, September 20, 1995

• (no issue)