Arbitron Enters the "Hudson Valley"

TOWER SITE CALENDAR 2011 - CLEARANCE SALE NOW ON! GET 'EM BEFORE THEY'RE ALL GONE...AT JUST $8 EACH!

Maybe you need an extra copy for the wall of your shop. Maybe you gave your first copy away as a gift. Maybe the year just got away from you and you forgot to order your Tower Site Calendar 2011.

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It's June now, and we want to clear out our remaining stock of the 2011 calendars so we can make room for the 2012 calendar, already in production. And that's why we're offering our very limited remaining supply for just $8 postpaid. (That's a $10 discount from the original list price of $18!)

Tower Site Calendar 2011 features more than a dozen great images of radio and TV broadcast facilities all over the country (and even beyond - this year's edition takes us to Mexico!)

Thrill to a night shot of KFI's new tower! Check out the WAEB Allentown array just after it lost a tower - or enjoy the history at venerable sites like those of KID in Idaho Falls, WCAP in Lowell, KTKT in Tucson and Rochester's Pinnacle Hill.

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

Orders of 20 or more calendars get an even bigger discount. We'll even add a bow or a gift card upon request. But don't wait...supplies are limited, and the calendar will sell out soon!

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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.

One Year Ago: June 21, 2010 -

• The future of digital radio in the United States remains a hot topic for debate whenever broadcast people get together. North of the border in CANADA, however, the debate is over: the L-band Eureka-147 DAB system that launched to extensive fanfare just over a decade ago is now dead.
• Last week, the CBC notified Industry Canada that it's pulling the plug on its DAB transmitters, beginning with the multiplex in Montreal that carried two English and two French radio signals. While the CRTC has not yet given public notice of CBC shutdowns at its other digital transmitters, we checked with the lone Canadian DAB receiver owner we know - and he reports that as of Friday, the CBC multiplex on "channel LF" (1461 MHz) was indeed off the air. (Thanks to Bill Hepburn for his monitoring assistance with these!)
• With the CBC signals gone, it's a pretty good bet that the remaining commercial DAB signals will soon disappear as well. In Toronto, Bill reports that many of the stations on the three remaining multiplexes had no audio on Friday; out of 15 stations that were supposed to be available, only nine had audio - and that audio, he reports, was "internet-quality."
• The demise of the CBC DAB signals reflects a reality that the CBC has been quietly acknowledging for some years now; the promises made for DAB circa 1999, including bouquets of new services aimed at niche audiences, never came true - and with only "improved audio quality" (and barely even that) to sell the new radios, the radios largely failed to sell. As early as 2003, the engineers maintaining the DAB transmitters at the CN Tower were already complaining that the signals were unreliable at best; most of the commercial signals in Toronto were apparently off the air for much of 2009 without much, if any, complaint from listeners. That should be no surprise: one estimate we've seen suggests that no more than 1,000 DAB radios ever found their way into listeners' hands during the years the system was in operation.
• While digital radio fades away, the pressure for new analog signals continues unabated. This week marks the end of a frequency test aimed at squeezing yet another FM signal into the crowded Toronto dial. Since May 31, "CARN Radio" has been testing from the First Canadian Place transmitter site, reportedly with about 500 watts, as Fitzroy Gordon attempts to find a workable dial position for the Caribbean-focused station the CRTC licensed to him back in 2006. CBC, which operates Radio One outlet CBLA on 99.1 from First Canadian Place, objected to Gordon's proposed use of the second-adjacent 98.7 frequency, which would normally have been the end of that story - but Canada's heritage minster intervened to authorize the test on 98.7. It's not yet clear when a decision will be made about whether CARN can use 98.7 as a permanent frequency.
• The week's big news from NEW YORK came from the Capital District, where veteran morning man Don Weeks announced that when his contract is up later this year, he's retiring from WGY (810 Schenectady) after 30 years on the job. Weeks, who's 71, has been on the air in the Albany market since 1956, including a stint as a top-40 DJ at WTRY (980, now WOFX) and a long run doing weather and hosting the kiddie shows on WAST (Channel 13, now WNYT). Last year, he was inducted into the New York State Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame (and indeed, that's where this picture of him was taken!) "It has been a great run but I want time now to pursue some other interests," Weeks said in a statement; WGY says it will launch the proverbial national search to find a replacement for WGY's morning slot.
• Rochester's Bob Lonsberry has lost one of his jobs: on Thursday, he was abruptly canned from his longtime morning gig on Clear Channel's KNRS (105.7) in Salt Lake City. For the better part of the last decade, Lonsberry had been doing the 6-9 AM show (8-11 Eastern Time) on KNRS, followed immediately by his 11 AM-2 PM talk show on sister station WHAM (1180 Rochester), usually from Rochester but sometimes from Utah. He told readers of his blog that it was the Salt Lake job that was providing him with most of his income, and he's blaming the arrival of PPM ratings in Salt Lake City for the weak numbers that led to his dismissal. Lonsberry also alleges that KNRS was uncomfortable with his endorsement in a recent Utah election campaign - but he says he's most upset that Clear Channel also fired his son, Lee Lonsberry, who had started out as a producer for other Clear Channel stations in Salt Lake before working on his father's talk show.

Five Years Ago: June 19, 2006 -

• In 43 years on the air, the 100.5 dial spot in Rochester, NEW YORK has seen a few formats come and go - automated beautiful music, "Heart of Gold" full-service AC, "Variety 100.5" AC and "Mix 100.5" hot AC. In all that time, one thing has remained constant, though: the WVOR calls that first appeared on the frequency way back in 1963. As of this past Thursday (June 16) at noon, WVOR's long run on the air is pretty much over. After stunting for a day as all-Dave Matthews "Dave FM," Clear Channel pulled the plug on "Mix," ran one liner jokingly introducing the station as "Country 100.5," announced "just kidding" - and relaunched the station as "100.5 the Drive."
• While Clear Channel's initial press release described "Drive" as being a AAA (adult album alternative) format, the station appears to be running more of an adult hits format, not all that different from the old "Mix" format with a few more currents added here and there - and remarkably reminiscent of the very earliest days of "Mix," when the format debuted with a rather unusual variety rock approach that, in retrospect, was something of a precursor of the full-on "Jack"-type variety hits stations that came along a few years later. "Mix" was already running with a fairly light airstaff, after the departure of morning man Chuck Kelly earlier this year, and it's now running jockless as "Drive." If the initial positioning holds, the plan seems to be to market "Drive" as a low- to no-personality alternative to Entercom's adult hits "Fickle" (WFKL 93.3) and classic hits "Buzz" (WBZA 98.9). And about those calls - "WVOR" will give way, we're told, to WDVI as soon as the paperwork clears the FCC (and, presumably, the WVOR calls are parked somewhere else in the Clear Channel empire so they can't be grabbed by a competitor.)
• NERW wonders: are memories of the glory days of WVOR, when the local Lincoln Group ownership ran the station as a top-notch live-and-local community voice, with heavy doses of local news and public service, still strong enough that anyone could resurrect the old "Heart of Gold" if they wanted to? Or can Rochester radio in 2006 really be summed up as... "Shut up and Drive"?
• An LPTV in the Burlington, VERMONT market lost its former studio building to fire June 6. The old Hotel Holland in Rouses Point, N.Y. was the home of WWBI-CA (Channel 27) in its days as an independent, and continued to house equipment for the station in its more recent days as a Pax and Daystar outlet. The building was razed last week, and it's not clear whether WWBI is still on the air. (Local cable companies have been carrying the national Pax/i network feed in place of WWBI's signal for some time, anyway.)
• The word from NEW JERSEY is that WKOE (106.3 Ocean City) has begun testing its new signal on 106.5, licensed to Bass River Township, north of Atlantic City. Are format shuffles on the way among Press Communications' "Breeze" and "G Rock" simulcasts up and down the Shore?
• A well-known western PENNSYLVANIA sports radio voice is about to be silenced. Stan Savran's contract with WBGG (970 Pittsburgh) expires July 7, and the Clear Channel sports talker isn't renewing. Savran's 3-6 PM weekday slot is likely to be filled by Tim Benz, who's moving over from competing sports talker WEAE (1250). Savran keeps his TV gig, hosting "SportsBeat" on FSN Pittsburgh.
• In the Scranton market, the standards simulcast between WNAK (730 Nanticoke) and WNAK-FM (94.3 Carbondale) has ended. The FM side flipped last Monday to "Lite 94.3," with the ubiquitous John Tesh in mornings. Standards remain in place on the AM side.
• New calls for the new "Joe FM" in the State College market: WUBZ (105.9 Phillipsburg) is now WJOW.

10 Years Ago: June 18, 2001 -

• The airwaves of central NEW YORK are undergoing some interesting transformations this week. We'll start in Utica, where Clear Channel finally stopped stunting on WRBY (102.5 Rome) last week, launching (as predicted here in NERW) a "Bob Country" format to challenge Forever's market-leading WFRG (104.3). There's not a lot of local content to be heard on the new "Bob"; mornings are handled by the syndicated team of Tim and Willy, while Lia and After Midnight take the evening and overnight hours. Still, it ought to be enough to shave a point or two off the "Frog," which seems to be Clear Channel's motivation here.
• Down the Thruway toward Syracuse, WBGJ (100.3 Sylvan Beach) hit the airwaves this past week, initially with a simulcast of Radio Disney from WOLF (1490 Syracuse) and its sister stations. The signal's not drawing many raves so far, but we hear it's not yet at full power, either. (We'll have to head out that way once we get back to town to see what the site looks like.)
• Michael Sleezer's new 1440 in Gloversville has calls: WFNY will be the ID on the brand-new AM there; those calls lived on a never-built Family Radio CP in Syracuse for a while in the 80s (it eventually took air at 90.3 as public radio WRVD).
• In New York City, the "Save WEVD" folks have set Thursday (June 21) for a street protest in front of the Forward Association headquarters at 45 E. 33rd St. They're hoping to persuade WEVD (1050 New York)'s owners to keep the left-leaning talk station rather than selling it to Disney, as has been widely rumored. The protest is scheduled to run from 4 until 6 PM.

15 Years Ago: New England Radio Watch, June 18, 1996

• Mega-opoly has reached its logical conclusion up in Portland, Maine, as Fuller-Jeffrey announces plans to trade its KKSO(AM)/KJJY-FM Des Moines for Barnstable Broadcasting's WCSO(FM) Portland, WLPZ(AM) Westbrook-Portland, and WHOM(FM) Mt. Washington NH-Portland. With this deal, all of Portland's major radio stations are now in the hands of just two owners, Fuller-Jeffrey and Saga. With the most recent Arbs I have access to, Fall '95 12+, Saga and Fuller-Jeffrey will control a total 61.1 percent of the Portland audience. (The rest is divided among some much smaller players, notably The Meg Company's AAA WCLZ 98.9, and the Wireless Talking Machine Company, which has an adult-standards simulcast on WLAM 870 Gorham, WZOU 1470 Lewiston, and brand-new WVYH 106.7 N. Windham, along with hot-AC WKZS 99.9 Auburn and country WTHT 107.5 Lewiston, for a 12.3 total share last fall.
• Saga has been an increasingly aggressive player elsewhere in New England as well, especially by increasing the coverage of its flagship Manchester NH property, ac WZID 95.7. In addition to WZID's translator on 96.5 in Laconia NH, the station has applied for a translator on 101.9 in Peterborough NH, in the southwestern corner of the state. In other translator news, Rhode Island's first translator has been licensed. W243AI in Newport will rebroadcast the classical programs of WCRB 102.5 Waltham-Boston.