NorthEast Radio Watch 10/19/2020: New Owner in Toronto?

In this week’s issue… New owner picked for Toronto FM - CT AM license sells - Remembering Westchester's Norman Wain - Lipof returns to NBC, at a new address By SCOTT FYBUSH Jump to: ME - NH - VT - MA - RI - CT - NY - NJ - PA - Canada [bucket id="8276" title="Calendar Ad"] *One of the most prominent Black-owned stations in CANADA is on the verge of being sold, and it appears the station's ownership will end up outside Toronto's Black community. CKFG (G98.7) has been in trouble ever since the death of its founder, Fitzroy Gordon, back in April 2019. Gordon's company, Intercity Broadcasting Network, was almost immediately under financial scrutiny, eventually ending up in he hands of a bankruptcy receiver, A. Farber and Partners. Farber determined that CKFG had to be put up for sale to satisfy IBN's creditors, and last week Broadcast Dialogue reported that the company had picked Neeti P. Ray as the winning bidder for CKFG's assets. Ray is a longtime South Asian broadcaster whose existing ownership holdings include CINA (1650) in Mississauga, aimed largely at Indian and Pakistani communities in the GTA, and CINA-FM (102.3) in Windsor, which programs primarily in Arabic for listeners in Windsor and Detroit. The CRTC must still approve Ray's bid - and if it doesn't, there's a backup bid from Whiteoaks Communication, the Oshawa-based company that owns CJYE (Joy 1250) and CJMR (1320). The bid from Ray, reports Broadcast Dialogue , includes a promise to operate CKFG "in a manner consistent with the mandate to serve the Caribbean and African communities of Toronto with its spoken word and music format." But it met with dismay from some corners of the Black community in Toronto, thousands of whom had signed a petition asking the CRTC to ensure CKFG's ownership would stay with them. Yet the receivership firm reported it had received no offers for the station from any potential Black-owned buyers. How will the transfer to Ray play out once it reaches the CRTC? We'll be watching... [pmpro_login show_menu="false" show_logout_link="false"] [membership level="1,3,5,7,8,9,10,11"] *The latest incarnation of a venerable Black radio institution in western PENNSYLVANIA is changing frequencies again. It's been a long time since "WAMO" was on its original homes at AM 860 and FM 105.9, or even at its last full-power home on suburban rimshot 106.7. More recently, the WAMO identity has been split across two signals: the WAMO calls have been with Tim Martz' Wilkinsburg-licensed AM 660, plus a translator at 107.3 on WQED's tower in Oakland, playing R&B oldies as "107.3 the Beat." Martz has also been running a hip-hop format branded as "WAMO 100.1," using the HD3 of Entercom's WBZZ (100.7) and a 100.1 translator at the 1250/96.1 site in the South Hills. That will change November 2, when Martz will consolidate the "WAMO" brand on 660 and 107.3, using those facilities for the hip-hop format and discontinuing the R&B "Beat" format. The 107.3 signal will move from Oakland to a more central location, too - overlooking downtown from the KDKA-FM (93.7) tower on Duquesne Heights. And what becomes of 100.1? Stay tuned... *In Allentown, WHOL (1600) and its translator at 106.9 flipped formats on Saturday, dropping "Mega" Spanish hits for English-language talk as "Talk 106.9." Mega continues on the air via WEST (1400) and its translator, which holds a CP to move from 99.5 to 101.7; it's already promoting its new identity as "Mega 101.7." *Up in the northern tier, Family Life Ministries is applying to move recently-acquired WCGT (89.1 Tidioute), relocating it south toward I-80 on 88.7 with a new city of license of Clintonville to provide a better signal to Knox and Clarion. Family Life will change the city of license of its WCOT (90.9) from Jamestown, NY to Tidioute, PA to maintain "first local service," such as it is. WCGT would go from its present 2.3 kW/129m to 4 kW/66m as part of the relocation. *In Philadelphia, Jim Jackson is out as the Phillies' pre- and post-game host. Jackson had also been calling play-by-play in the middle innings of games. Last week, he tweeted that his role had become a "luxury the organization can no longer afford in such uncertain times." Scott Franzke will resume calling all nine innings next year, and it's not yet clear who'll handle pre- and post-game duties on WIP (94.1) and the rest of the Phils' network; Jackson, meanwhile, will still be heard calling Flyers' games on NBC Sports Philadelphia. *Our NEW YORK news starts with a station sale on Long Island, Michael Celenza (via his Commercial Assets, Inc.) is buying the AM signal that serves as the nominal parent for his "93.3 the Breeze," the soft AC station heard over his W227CL (93.3 Port Jefferson) in central Suffolk County. Commercial Assets will pay Cantico Nuevo Ministry, Inc. $20,000 for the license to WLIM (1440 Medford). The deal also includes an agreement for Cantico Nuevo to continue rebroadcasting WLIM's "Breeze" programming over Cantico's W295CK (106.9 Medford) until next August, when the translator will be freed from its link to the parent AM station. *On TV, MeTV has parted ways with Nexstar's WSYR-TV (Channel 9), where it ran on the 9.2 subchannel whenever WSYR wasn't putting local news there. MeTV is now on one of Craig Fox's low-power stations in town, WIXT-CD (Channel 40/RF 27), which ironically enough uses channel 9's old calls. Meanwhile, WSYR's 9.2 channel now carries Antenna TV alongside rebroadcasts of WSYR's newscasts. *Rick "RJ" Jordan has a new radio gig: the veteran of western New York, Cape Cod and North Country radio is now tracking middays on "Yes FM" WYSX (96.7 Morristown) from his home base near Rochester. *Norman Wain was a big name in radio ownership in several markets, including the one where he made his home for most of his life, Cleveland. But in addition to owning the legendary WIXY in Cleveland, Wain's Westchester Corp. started out in 1964 by buying WFAS and WFAS-FM in White Plains, then followed up with WIXZ (1360) in McKeesport. Wain, who died Oct. 10 in Cleveland, was a native of Brooklyn who started his radio career at Brooklyn Tech's WNYE (91.5) in the 1940s. After working on the air at stations in Virginia and Maryland, he landed in Cleveland in 1954 as a DJ at what was then WDOK (1260/102.1). He moved into sales in the 1960s, working at Cleveland's WHK, where he partnered with two other salespeople to start his ownership group. Westchester's Cleveland and Pittsburgh stations were top-40 screamers, overcoming less-than-full-market signals to seriously challenge those markets' top-40 leaders. After selling the stations later in the 1960s, Wain went into consulting, then returned to ownership with the Metroplex Communications group that he co-founded in 1976. In addition to signals in Dallas, Miami, St. Louis, Tampa and Cleveland, Metroplex eventually owned WUFX (103.3) and WXBX (1400) in Buffalo in the early 1990s before LMAing and then selling the stations to Rich Communications. In recent years, Wain had focused on philanthropy, largely in the Cleveland community. He was 91. *In CONNECTICUT , veteran New England broadcaster Clark Smidt is buying the license of a long-silent AM station. The New Haven Register reports Smidt arranged the sale of the building and land that used to house Quinnipiac University's WQUN (1220 Hamden) earlier this year, and now Smidt's Clark Media, LLC will get the license for the station (now known as WATX) in exchange for paying Quinnipiac's legal expenses for the transfer. Smidt may have to find a new transmitter site for WATX, which has been mostly off the air since June 2019, and he'll have to have the station back on the air by June 2021. (FCC antenna registration data shows the former WQUN towers are now registered to tower owner Vertical Bridge, though Hamden property records still list Quinnipiac as the owner of the site, so it's possible the 1220 towers stay at their current location with Smidt as a tenant.) *Speaking of tenants, community radio WPKN (89.5 Bridgeport) has been an occupant studio space at the University of Bridgeport for 57 years now - but it's about to make its first big move ever. WPKN was owned by the university from 1963 until going independent in 1992, but remained as a tenant in the university's student center, using the same 1965-vintage studio space (right) it had built out when the student center was expanded. But with the struggling university poised for some big changes, merging its programs with several other area colleges, WPKN is heading downtown. By the middle of next year, WPKN will relocate to the second floor of Bijou Square at 277 Fairfield Avenue, partnering with the building's owner and longtime WPKN supporter Phil Kuchma to take over the 1800-square-foot space that had formerly been used by WNLK (1350). "As a community radio station our move downtown offers WPKN a better platform for community engagement with our listeners, civic groups and cultural allies such as The Bijou Theatre, City Lights Gallery, Read’s ArtSpace—where we hold our annual Music Mash Record Fair—the new NEST, and many others. We think our move will be a catalyst for other creative groups to come and join us," said WPKN station manager Steve di Costanzo. ( See our Tower Site of the Week visit to WPKN's longtime home here .) *Hartford's WFSB (Channel 3) is looking outside the newsroom for new hosts for its Sunday "Face the State" public affairs program, after letting veteran anchor and "FTS" host Dennis House go. The show will now be moderated by two frequent guests, Kevin Rennie of the Hartford Courant and Duby McDowell, a former WFSB political reporter and "FTS" moderator who now runs the McDowell Communications Group. *Where Are They Now? Phil Lipof, former lead anchor at NBC Boston (WBTS), has a new gig with the company after leaving his Boston job back in the spring. Lipof started last week as a reporter at WNBC (Channel 4) in New York, where he'd also worked earlier in his career. And Alaina Pinto is off her morning anchor position at Sunbeam's WHDH (Channel 7), where she apparently didn't ask for management permission before making an on-screen appearance in an Adam Sandler Netflix movie. That ran afoul of her contract, and now Pinto is looking for new work. *Back in CANADA , an attempt to sync up two co-channel FM signals east of Ottawa appears to have hit some snags. Radio Communautaire Cornwall-Alexandria, Inc. signed on CHOD-FM-1 (92.1 Dunvegan) at the start of 2020, using 20.5 kW to reach more of the Francophone community in Hawkesbury and Lachute, along the Ontario/Quebec border between Ottawa and Montreal. CHOD hoped to make the new CHOD-1 coexist with its existing primary station to the south, CHOD-FM (92.1 Cornwall), but discovered that it was actually creating significant co-channel interference. Now the CRTC has granted permission for the Cornwall CHOD signal to slide down the dial from 92.1 to 91.9, dropping power from 19.2 kW average/45.6 kW max DA to 420 watts average/1 kW max DA, effectively making the Cornwall transmitter a smaller fill-in for the bigger signal up in Dunvegan. [/membership]

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