May 23, 2011

World Ends, NERW Rolls On

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

*Even if you weren't accosted by someone on a city streetcorner holding a sign and thrusting a tract at you, it was hard to escape the headlines these last few days: "End of the World?"

And as you know - since you're still here reading the column, and we're still here writing it - Family Radio's predictions of global earthquakes and rapture failed to materialize on schedule Saturday evening at 6. (The closest we could come to any evidence of the predicted devastation was the utter meltdown of the Red Sox bullpen later that evening, but that's another story...)

It didn't take long at all for the conversations to get going all over the radio landscape: after staking so much, including millions of dollars in billboards and other publicity, on the "guaranteed" end of the world, what happens now to Family Radio and its extensive network of stations, including its most valuable property, NEW YORK-market WFME (94.7 Newark)?

Here's what we know so far: for all of the apocalyptic claims being made by Family Radio founder and leader Harold Camping on his nightly "Open Forum" show and on the Family Radio website (above right), the rest of the network's programming carried on Saturday over WFME and Family Radio's other stations in its usual phlegmatic fashion, with nary a mention of the 6 PM deadline as it drew near. And whatever Camping may have said about having no "plan B" (as he left his Oakland, California studio after his "farewell" show Thursday evening, he reportedly told colleagues he didn't expect to ever be back there again), someone kept the network's automation running, not only into Saturday evening but into Sunday as well.

It's the long term that may prove more interesting. Camping gave an interview to the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday in which he pronounced himself "flabbergasted" that his prediction didn't come true - but he says he'll be back at work today to figure out what to do next.

Camping is one of four voting members on Family Radio's board, and while the network appears to run largely debt-free, it's been very much the product of Camping's vision over the last half-century, and little is known about how it might function if he doesn't remain at the organization's helm. Then there's the question of license renewal: the eight-year radio renewal cycle begins next month for stations in the mid-Atlantic region, and it's likely that all the publicity over Camping's blown prediction will lead to some sort of challenge against the renewal of Family Radio's licenses there (including a high-power commercial FM license in Annapolis/Baltimore) and perhaps to others down the road.

A challenge to Family's license renewals would likely be a long shot, given the specificity of the FCC's anti-hoax rule, which asks whether a "hoax" broadcast caused public panic, which Camping's broadcasts mostly did not. But whatever happens in the short term, it's certain that there will now be more scrutiny of Family's operations and more broadcasters eyeing the possibility of acquiring some of the network's big signals.

In addition to WFME, which has been in Family's hands since 1965, broadcasting a big class B signal that blankets most of the New York market, Family also owns a Philadelphia-market class B commercial signal, WKDN (106.9 Camden), as well as full-power noncommercial FMs in the Johnstown, Erie, Bedford, State College, Buffalo, Rochester, Kingston and Long Island markets, an AM daytimer in Connecticut (WCTF 1170 Vernon) and a slew of translators. Family also owns WFME-DT, a noncommercial religious TV station licensed to West Milford, N.J. and serving the New York market (and Philadelphia, too, via a subchannel of WYBE-TV.)

A sale of WFME or WKDN would be a big deal indeed: in the boom years of the mid-1990s, WFME's license could probably have fetched several hundred million dollars, and even today, it's likely that the signal could be worth close to nine figures to any of several potential buyers. We'll be watching closely to see what happens as Family Radio deals with the fallout from the world's failure to end...

(One more quick note here: there's no connection at all between the Oakland-based Family Radio, legally Family Stations Inc., and the "Family Life Radio" network that extends across upstate New York and Pennsylvania.)

*Elsewhere in the region, it was indeed "the end of the world" for CONNECTICUT's "Coast 96.7" just after midnight on Thursday (May 19), as Cox shut down the Stamford transmitter site of WCTZ (96.7 Port Chester NY) in preparation for the sale of the license to EMF Broadcasting.

Typical of Cox Radio, in six years on the air, the AC station never stopped being "The New Coast," but in its last few months it had been running entirely on automation, serving little purpose other than to keep the license alive and some ad contracts fulfilled until the station can be transferred to EMF to become its new "K-Love" outlet for the New York market under the new calls WKLV-FM.

That could happen any day now, since the FCC has granted a license to cover for 96.7's new signal from the top of Trump Plaza in New Rochelle.

*After almost twenty years at Long Island's WALK-FM (97.5 Patchogue), K.T. Mills is out of afternoon drive - and out of her weekend shift at Clear Channel sister station WLTW (106.7) in New York. Nick Parker, who also works for Clear Channel's WHTZ (Z100) in New York, replaces Mills at WALK-FM.

*Up north, there's a new public radio signal on the air in Canton, but it's not just another relay of the fast-growing North Country Public Radio network, already heard in town on WSLU (89.5).

North Country does own the new WREM (88.7), which made its debut last Monday (May 16) - but the new signal is carrying something called "Public Radio Remix," which is basically a nonstop automated sequence of features from Public Radio Exchange (PRX), the program service that connects independent program producers to public radio stations around the country. WREM is the second station to carry "Remix," after KPBZ (90.3 Spokane).

*Joe Wershba never worked in local radio in New York, but he was a vital part of the city's broadcast news community for many decades, starting in 1944 when he joined CBS News as a writer. Within a few years, he'd moved over to the fledgling CBS-TV news operation, where he was one of the producers and reporters working on "See It Now" with Ed Murrow.

At "See It Now," Wershba did much of the work behind the seminal 1954 takedown of Senator Joseph McCarthy (earning him a portrayal by Robert Downey, Jr. in the dramatization of the story a half-century later, "Good Night, and Good Luck"), and he went on to become one of the original producers of "60 Minutes" when it debuted in 1968.

Wershba retired from CBS in 1988, and he died last Saturday (May 14) at 90, survived by his wife and CBS colleague, Shirley Wershba.

*Radio People on the Move in NEW JERSEY: Scott Taylor has exited as station manager at contemporary Christian "Star 99.1" (WAWZ-FM Zarephath). No replacement has been named yet.

And there's a new signal on the air in Monmouth County: Domestic Church Media signed on WFJS (89.3 Freehold) on Tuesday (May 17), filling the frequency vacated by the now-defunct WDDM (89.3 Hazlet), which was an unprotected class D signal.

WDDM's "Dhoom FM" Hindi-language programming has been replaced on translator W264BT (100.7 Edison) by "Hum Desi Radio," originating on the HD2 signal of New York's WRKS (98.7).

*There's once again an urban radio station in western PENNSYLVANIA. We've been telling you about Tim Martz's acquisition of WPYT (660 Wilkinsburg) and his plans to use translator W261AX (100.1 Pittsburgh) to augment the AM daytimer's signal, and it all came together over the weekend.

WPYT went silent late last week, but it returned to the air on Friday playing hip-hop and rhythmic top-40 as "The New WAMO 100, Pittsburgh's Home for Hip-Hop and R&B" - and on Saturday, the translator (which had been testing from KDKA-TV's North Hills tower with a relay of public radio WDUQ) lit up with the urban programming as well.

The "WAMO" identity (which doesn't yet extend to the actual call letters) comes, of course, from Pittsburgh's longtime urban outlet, which was sold off a couple of years ago to become Catholic WAOB AM/FM. The WAMO calls are parked, for now, on a noncommercial CP in northeastern Pennsylvania, but it seems likely that they'll migrate back to the 'Burgh to appear on 660 at some point.

And in good Martz fashion, the new "WAMO" launches with a full-frontal attack on Clear Channel's top-40 WKST-FM (96.1), which is clearly in Martz's sights as he seeks a segment of the Pittsburgh audience that's been unserved for a few years now.

*There's some sad news from Pittsburgh as well: John Cigna, veteran morning man on KDKA (1020) through the eighties and nineties, died Friday (May 20) after a battle with emphysema and a stroke.

Cigna came from Fort Wayne's WOWO (1190) to Pittsburgh in 1969 to work at WJAS (1320), but four years later he was back with Westinghouse as the evening talk host on KDKA - and in 1983, he succeeded Jack Bogut in KDKA's morning slot, a position he held until his retirement in 2001.

"John Cigna and the K-Team" became a Steel City morning staple, complete with Cigna's trademark spaghetti breakfasts for listeners and a series of comedic TV commercials for the show.

Cigna had been in declining health in recent months, especially since the death of his wife in January. He was 75.

*Even with our passion for tall towers and antennas, it's sometimes hard to keep up with the exact configuration of FM stations on the many sticks of the Roxborough tower farm in Philadelphia. The latest move involves public station WXPN (88.5): it's staying on the same tower (next to WPVI-TV 6) where it's been located ever since it moved to 88.5 more than two decades ago, but now that WGTW (Channel 48) has vacated its old analog antenna at the top of the tower, WXPN has been granted a construction permit to move up to the former WGTW space, going from 5 kW/919' to 3.2 kW/1102' as it trades a bit of power for a considerable increase in antenna height.

*There's no shortage of pirate operators in eastern MASSACHUSETTS, but the FCC is at least trying to crack down on some of the more blatant unlicensed broadcasters. "Datz Hitz 99.7" in Mattapan has been a longstanding thorn in the side of first-adjacent WCRB (99.5 Lowell), and on May 13 FCC agents raided the station, taking it off the air, at least for now. And then on Tuesday, the FCC issued forfeiture orders against Lloyd Morris and Robert Brown, who were accused back in October of operating the 99.7 pirate. Morris and Brown failed to respond to the FCC's initial Notices of Apparent Liability for $15,000 each.

Where Are They Now?: Former WBZ-TV (Channel 4) chief meteorologist Ken Barlow has landed a new job back home in Minnesota, where he'd been based at KARE-TV (Channel 11) before his move to Boston. This time, Barlow will be at ABC affiliate KSTP-TV (Channel 5), where he starts work in June.

CBS Radio is shuffling its weekend lineup in Boston: starting June 10, Joe Cortese's "Back to the 80s Friday Night" will move from hot AC WBMX (Mix 104.1) to classic hits WODS (103.3), which continues its steady move away from 60s music and into the 1980s.

*Dick Smith was a big name in Worcester radio in the 1950s and 1960s. After starting his career in Springfield at WHYN and then in Portland, Maine at WMTW, Smith came to WORC (1310 Worcester) in 1952, becoming a longtime fixture at the station as afternoon host, morning man, music director, program director and even, later on, as general manager for a few years in the 1980s. Smith had also worked in Boston at WCOP and at Worcester competitor WTAG in between his stints at WCOP. Smith died Wednesday (May 18) at Worcester's UMass/Memorial Hospital; he was 84.

*More Radio People on the Move around New England: in MAINE, Jake Navarro moves north from WGGY (Froggy 101) in Scranton to become the new morning co-host at WPOR-FM (101.9 Portland), filling the vacancy (alongside Jon Shannon and Alisha Bolin) left behind by Joe Lerman.

In Rutland, VERMONT, Kwame Dankwa ("KD") moves up from interim PD to fulltime PD at WZRT (97.1), replacing Brooke Meris, who's now in Houston at KILT-FM.

In RHODE ISLAND, Citadel's "Hot 106" (WWKX 106.3 Woonsocket) has named its new airstaff: afternoon jock Deanna Cruz moves to mornings to join Vezzy Parmesan (formerly with CBS Radio's WZMX in Hartford) for the "Rise & Grind Morning Show," which replaces the syndicated Big Boy's Neighborhood. Inbound from Boise's KWYD is Dee Garcia, who'll replace Cruz in afternoon drive.

And in CONNECTICUT, the syndicated Tom Kent show is now filling the evening hours (from 7-midnight) on WDRC-FM (102.9 Hartford). Production director Rob Ray (brother of Buckley Broadcasting engineering guru Tom Ray) had been voicetracking that shift on the Big D.

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*Two of CANADA's biggest AM signals could soon be returning from the dead, if the CRTC signs off on a proposal from Cogeco and Quebec's provincial transport ministry (MTQ) to launch a pair of all-traffic stations in Montreal.

The back story here: when Corus abruptly pulled the plug on CINF (690) and CINW (940) in January 2010, it appeared that the 50,000-watt signals were gone for good, deleted from the CRTC's records and closing out an era of Montreal radio history that stretched back to 1919 for the station that eventually became CINW.

But it turns out the stations weren't quite as dead as they appeared. We now know that Corus' sale of its Quebec radio properties to Cogeco included, among other assets, the former CINF/CINW transmitter site along highway 138 in Kahnawake, south of Montreal - and that the 690/940 transmitting equipment has remained in place at that site, awaiting new use.

That use will come in the form of all-traffic formats similar to Corus' CHMJ (730) in Vancouver, which has found a small but apparently profitable niche doing "All Traffic, All The Time." In Montreal, MTQ would provide $9 million over three years to fund the operations of 690 in French and 940 in English, operating with live announcers from 4:30 AM until 1 AM on weekdays and 6 AM-1 AM on weekends, cranking out the same 50,000-watt directional signals that CINF and CINW used until they were shut down.

If their return is approved, it will be the second time these frequencies have been resurrected in Montreal: they'd been home to the flagship Radio-Canada/CBC stations, CBF and CBM, until those stations moved to FM in 1999, leaving 690 and 940 available several years later as upgrade opportunities for two weaker-signalled stations, CKVL (850) and CIQC (600).

The CRTC will consider the Cogeco/MTQ application at a hearing in Gatineau, Quebec on July 18.

*In Toronto, Spanish-language community station CHHA (1610) is applying to modify its signal to better serve the city's Hispanic communities northwest of downtown. CHHA originally operated from a tower behind the San Lorenzo Latin American Community Centre, which owns the station, but problems with neighborhood RF interference forced it to move to a new site in Toronto Harbour, where it's been running 10,000 watts by day and 1,000 watts by night. The station says that signal doesn't reach its target audience very well, especially after dark - so it's applying to go directional, running 6,250 watts day and night with a null toward Montreal's co-channel CJWI.

Ontario's Haliburton Broadcasting Group just keeps on growing: its latest application requests a new signal in Prescott, west of Ottawa. The hot AC (presumably "Moose FM") station would run 1 kW (4.2 kW max DA)/120m on 107.9, and the CRTC will review the application at its July hearing.

The July hearing will also include an application from Small Town Radio for a new community station in Port Hope, near Cobourg on the northern shore of Lake Ontario. Small Town's station would run 700 watts/9m on 89.7.

In Bouctouche, New Brunswick, Jean-Noël Allain is applying for a new community station on 100.7, running 10.4 kW (50 kW max DA)/107.7m at 100.7 on the dial. In keeping with New Brunswick's bilingual status, the new station would program approximately two-thirds of its day in French and one-third in English.

And in Windsor, Ontario, the CBC's CBE (1550) is getting at least a temporary reprieve. The CBC tells the CRTC that it's having trouble with CBE's replacement signal, CBEW (97.5), due to adjacent-channel HD Radio interference from the nearby Detroit signals on 97.1 (WXYT-FM) and 97.9 (WJLB), and so it's keeping the AM on the air until at least September 30 while it tries to find a way to minimize the interference and provide a clean FM signal to the entire CBE listening area.

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