NorthEast Radio Watch 9/14/2020: More Cuts at Entercom

In this week’s issue… Big cuts at Entercom - NY AM changes hands - VPR, VPBS join forces - New remote middayer at Magic - AM sells in RI - New FM in Canada, and a surprise AM return By SCOTT FYBUSH Jump to: ME - NH - VT - MA - RI - CT - NY - NJ - PA - Canada We could have led this week's column with any of several big stories this week: iHeart's surprise acquisition of an AM signal in New York for its Black Information Network, or the merger of two public media entities in Vermont. Both point in interesting and potentially positive ways at the future of media in our region, and we'll get to them in a moment. But then came the latest round of bad news from one particular sector of the industry that's been a reliably depressing source of unhappy stories these last few years: the big publicly-traded radio companies that took on lots of debt to grow in major markets - and now have to keep cutting payrolls to satisfy their investors and continue to pay down their debt service in an era when revenue isn't necessarily keeping pace. And so we lead off with Entercom, which has been struggling to digest the very big meal it swallowed two years ago with its acquisition of CBS Radio's big-market clusters. Just as we've seen in the past with Clear Channel/iHeart and Cumulus/Citadel/ABC Radio, the balance of juggling the big budgets and revenues of the acquired stations against the company's established small- and medium-market business hasn't played out very well for the small and medium markets. Entercom's latest strategy, as played out last week, is to cut a lot of local small- and medium-market talent in two specific format categories - country and alternative - with the goal of using top staffers in bigger markets to handle many of those duties on a national level. Whatever breathless fear-mongering you might read in certain national trades, that's neither a surprise nor an endgame: all the big cluster players have been talking about doing more national programming for years now, though none on the commercial side have gone as far as EMF with its completely nationally-programmed K-Love and Air1 formats. Entercom's not going that far yet, either. Its moves last week targeted exactly the dayparts we've long known are endangered in smaller markets: middays and nights, where most Entercom stations in those two formats will now be taking national programming. Katie Neal of WNSH (94.7) in New York will do middays nationwide for Entercom country stations, while Rob Stone and Holly Hutton of WYCD in Detroit will do nights. On the alternative side, Entercom is taking several of its local morning shows regional. New York's WNYL (Alt 92.3) will become one of its hubs, bringing its new "Cane & Corey" morning show to WLKK (Alternative Buffalo 107.7) and sister stations in Miami, Orlando and Baltimore as well. There's a rebranding at WLKK, too - like several other Entercom stations in the format, it's now simply "Alt 107.7/104.7," though the "Alternative Buffalo" name survives as a tag below the new logo. Meanwhile at WNYL, Chris Booker is back in New York: the former host on 92.3 in its K-Rock and Free FM days is now the afternoon jock on Alt, returning east after doing mornings for Entercom on its top-40 AMP (KAMP-FM) in Los Angeles. But what's good news for a few big names in big markets is bad news for smaller Entercom stations. Our list of cuts is still incomplete, but we know the cuts hit hard at Alt Buffalo, where Nik Rivers is out after a seven-year run in afternoons and the PD chair. (Monday update: it appears the entire airstaff is out in Buffalo, with middayer Axe and night guy Kennedy also gone; the new on-air lineup for WLKK appears to exactly mirror New York's WNYL lineup, complete with Booker in afternoons.) Here in Rochester, Michael "Mud" Gross is also reportedly gone as PD and night guy on WCMF (96.5). How do we move forward now, with so many good radio people out of work and so few jobs available out there? It's heartbreaking (and of course we're here to help connect anyone looking for talent with those in need of work) - but there are some good ideas in this commentary from our content partner Lance Venta of RadioInsight . [bucket id="8276" title="Calendar Ad"] [pmpro_login show_menu="false" show_logout_link="false"] [membership level="1,3,5,7,8,9,10,11"] *It's unusual indeed to be able to report a station purchase from one of the big groups these days. While they're mostly not selling, iHeart hasn't been much of a buyer lately in recent years as it's navigated the shoals of bankruptcy. But with outside corporate support pushing the national growth of iHeart's Black Information Network, we'd been hearing rumors that the company was looking for an AM station in NEW YORK City to provide a full-time analog clearance for the new service. Enter NJ Broadcasting's WWRL (1600), which was long a voice for New York's Black community before being sold a few years ago to become a leased-time home for the "Radio Mirchi" Indian programming that's now on the 25 kW signal. We don't yet have details on how much iHeart will pay NJ Broadcasting for WWRL once the BIN programming shows up on 1600 under an LMA that starts Nov. 2; we suspect the price will be somewhat lower than the $7 million NJ paid when it bought WWRL from Access.1 in 2016. And we assume BIN will continue to be heard in New York on its existing home, the HD-2 of WWPR 105.1, even after it shows up on 1600. (If you're historically minded, you might note that the deal reunites WWRL with 105.1, which began in the 1950s as WWRL-FM, back when both AM and FM had studios out in the Woodside section of Queens; you might also note that the deal puts 1600 back together with another former FM partner, from back in the 1970s when it was paired with then-WRVR on 106.7, now iHeart's WLTW.) *In VERMONT , the statewide public radio and public TV networks have long been close neighbors, occasional partners and tenants and landlords at shared tower sites - yet since Vermont ETV was put on the air by the University of Vermont in Burlington in 1967 and Vermont Public Radio began in Windsor as an independent nonprofit in the 1970s, the networks have been owned, programmed and funded separately. That will begin to change in the next few months, as what's now Vermont PBS merges its operations with VPR after both networks' boards voted to move forward with the merger, which was announced on Wednesday. Over the next few months, VPR CEO Scott Finn (who will serve as the merged entities' CEO) and VPBS interim CEO Steve Ferreira (who will serve as COO) will work to create a new nonprofit, "Vermont Public," which hopes to complete the transfer of both networks' FCC licenses by June 2021. There are still many unanswered questions about the merger: for now, we'd assume VPR will stay put in its recently-expanded studios and offices at Fort Ethan Allen in Colchester, right around the corner from the old ETV studios that VPBS left behind not long ago when it moved to new space in downtown Winooski. Will "Vermont Public" become the permanent new brand of the merged stations? What sort of programming and fundraising partnerships might flourish from the merger? And in a time when expenses and overlap are being carefully scrutinized everywhere, will Vermont's merger (and the recent similar merger of public radio and TV operations in western Massachusetts) lead to similar discussions in the two other New England states where public radio and TV also evolved separately? *That's NEW HAMPSHIRE , where the statewide public TV network, like Vermont, has benefited from state university funding since the 1960s, while public radio grew independently starting in the 1980s - and Rhode Island, where Rhode Island PBS has state funding and a big pile of cash from the DTV spectrum auction, while The Public's Radio is smaller, scrappier, much younger and very independent. (And if you think we'd bet on a merger or collaboration in New Hampshire long before it happens in the Ocean State, you win your very own coffee milk cabinet!) *In MASSACHUSETTS , we send our best wishes to Ted Wayman, the veteran WCVB (Channel 5) reporter who was sitting in a news vehicle in Boston's Copley Square last Sunday night covering a protest when he was stabbed in the arm by a man who reached through the window with a pair of scissors. At last report, Wayman was recuperating well; Boston police say they arrested a man on stabbing charges Sunday night but haven't confirmed that it was Wayman's assailant. *At Beasley's WKLB (Country 102.5), Dawn Santolucito adds assistant PD to her job title of marketing director, while morning show producer Jim Clerkin takes over Santolucito's music director duties. The promotions sort out the question of who's doing what at WKLB after PD David Corey exited a few months ago; "Cadillac Jack" McCartney took over the PD reins then as part of his role as the cluster's director of programming. *Radio voices on the move: Shawn Tempesta, the New England native who's been heard and seen on Mix 104 (then-WBMX) in Boston and as the host of "The Rhode Show" at WPRI/WNAC in Providence, has returned to the Boston airwaves as the new midday jock on Entercom's WMJX (Magic 106.7). Tempesta is tracking the shift from his home base in Las Vegas, where he does afternoons on sister station KMXB and co-hosts "The Morning Blend" on KTNV (Channel 13). And in New Bedford (and nearby Providence, RHODE ISLAND ), Hall's WCTK (Cat Country 98.1) brings mobile DJ Brendan Sharp in as its noon to 3 host, taking over the shift Hall exec Bob Walker had been tracking since Courtney Kelley moved from middays to mornings. (Sharp has radio experience, too, as "Bren St. James" on WFHN in the 1990s.) And we wish all the best to Fred Toucher of the "Toucher and Rich" show on WBZ-FM (98.5 the Sports Hub), who returned to the show last week after seven weeks of rehab for the alcoholism issue he disclosed over the summer. Back in the Ocean State, WPVD (1450 West Warwick) is changing hands. Hall has been running the little Kent County AM and its translator on 105.5 as a simulcast of country WCTK, but now it's headed to Chris DiPaola's DiPonti group, which owns WBLQ (1230) down in Westerly and which has ties to two southern Rhode Island LPFMs, WSUB-LP (96.7) in Westerly and WWRI-LP (95.1) in Coventry, which serves the same area as WPVD. (Will WWRI's classic rock format follow WBLQ in moving from LPFM to a full-power AM/translator combination?) DiPaola is paying $110,000 for WPVD and the translator. *In MAINE , Stan Bennett is shuffling calls at two of the FMs he recently bought: WIGY (780 Rumford) will become WEZR, while WEZR (1240 Lewiston) becomes WIGY, matching the legal callsign with the 80s-heavy pop format he's running on 1240 and its 105.5 translator. *And in CONNECTICUT , budget cuts mean that Sacred Heart University's WSHU public radio network will be ending its lease of Dennis Jackson's commercial WQQQ (103.3 Sharon), where it's been heard since 2011. WSHU says it will continue to be available by streaming and smart speakers in the Litchfield County area that WQQQ has served. [caption id="attachment_9829" align="alignright" width="300"] Griffey at work, 2012[/caption] *Jim Griffey has been a radio institution in northwest PENNSYLVANIA since the early 1970s, when he went straight from high school to Erie's then-new public radio station, WQLN (91.3). After graduating from Gannon, where he was an early driving force behind college station WERG, Griffey went on to WWFM (99.9, now WXKC), WCCK (K104) and then to what's now the Cumulus cluster, where he worked for 30 years at WRIE (1260) and its FM sister stations, including WXKC and WXTA (Nash FM 97.9). Griffey ended that run last year with a quiet retirement from the building at 471 Robison Road, looking forward to a retirement plan that he hopes will include a return to area theaters, where he's often spotted playing drums in pit bands. "Unlike the guy in the WKRP in Cincinnati theme song, I never had to travel from 'town to town, up and down the dial,'" Griffey wrote in a Facebook farewell message. "It was all here in Erie and only 4 places." Brian McKay takes over today as Griffey's successor in the role of production director at the Cumulus Erie cluster. *Just over the state line to the west, WWOW (1360) in Conneaut, Ohio co-owner Bill Shannon has recently retired, we're hearing. Shannon had a long Erie radio career that included many years on the air and in the PD chair at WCCK in the 1970s and 80s, then another chapter playing country on WXTA and a third chapter at Mercyhurst University, where he ran WMCE (88.5) and put oldies on the air at WYNE (1530) in North East before departing in 2008. *And out Route 6 in the other direction, WRRN (92 Gold) in Warren, Mark Silvis retired recently after 44 years in town and 47 years overall in the radio business. Johnny Marx succeeds Silvis in the morning-drive chair at WRRN. *In CANADA , there's a new station on the air in Listowel, Ontario, northwest of Kitchener. Five Amigos Broadcasting began testing CHLP (100.1) over the weekend, and it will formally launch the station's country format as "100.1 the Ranch" on Tuesday. The new station will be the second for Five Amigos Broadcasting, which has been running CKXS (99.1 Wallaceburg) east of Windsor for more than a decade. *And in Montreal, Steve Faguy reports CJMS (1040) didn't stay silent for long after the CRTC denied its license renewal at the end of August. The country station, which had faced repeated CRTC inquiries for non-compliance with its license terms, went back on the air less than a day after it signed off August 31, apparently while filing an appeal of the CRTC's decision with a federal court. Faguy says it remained on the air through last Friday, and is now off again, telling listeners it's undergoing transmitter site maintenance. (Stay tuned...) [/membership]

NorthEast Radio Watch 9/14/2020: More Cuts at Entercom

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NorthEast Radio Watch 9/7/2020: Brucie Returns, Wendy’s Gone

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Scott Fybush

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