In this week’s issue… New leader for struggling WEEI – New format in the Merrimack Valley – NYC translator seeks new channel – NJ FM surrendered – Canadian sports host steps down
By SCOTT FYBUSH
*The week’s biggest news came from eastern MASSACHUSETTS, where there’s a new brand manager heading to Audacy’s struggling sports station, WEEI-FM (93.7).
As it continues to lag in the ratings far behind Beasley’s “Sports Hub” (WBZ-FM 98.5), WEEI has been without a programming leader since Joe Zarbano’s exit in January – and now it’s reaching deep into the Midwest to tap Jeff Rickard, who’s been both PD and morning co-host at Emmis’ “The Fan” in Indianapolis.
(That’s the station that made news last week when it sold off the valuable suburban land under its AM transmitter site, tearing down the six-tower array of 50,000-watt WFNI 1070 and leaving The Fan on the two FM translators where the vast majority of its audience had been listening anyway.)
Rickard’s no stranger to New England; he’d been an anchor for Comcast Sports Network in Boston and a host at ESPN Radio and Sporting News Radio. Backing him up in his new job, which starts Wednesday, will be WEEI executive producer and host Ken Laird, who gets promoted to assistant brand manager.
What’s on Rickard’s plate when he arrives on Leo Birmingham Parkway? The station’s main play-by-play attraction, the Red Sox, are having a rough second half to a season that started better than expected – and even so, they haven’t been the ratings draw they used to be. WEEI’s Greg Hill morning show, which migrated downstairs from the former WAAF, has a new co-host in Courtney Cox, the former NESN host who started last month. And the biggest challenge will be in afternoons, where founding WEEI voice Glenn Ordway will be departing the “OMF” show in a few weeks.
Can Rickard do what his predecessors couldn’t, making WEEI a real challenger to the Sports Hub again?
And if you don’t have your Tower Site Calendar, now’s the time!
If you’ve been waiting for the price to come down, it’s now 30 percent off!
This year’s cover is a beauty — the 100,000-watt transmitter of the Voice Of America in Marathon, right in the heart of the Florida Keys. Both the towers and the landscape are gorgeous.
And did you see? Tower Site of the Week is back, featuring this VOA site as it faces an uncertain future.
Other months feature some of our favorite images from years past, including some Canadian stations and several stations celebrating their centennials (buy the calendar to find out which ones!).
We still have a few of our own calendars left – as well as a handful of Radio Historian Calendars – and we are still shipping regularly.
The proceeds from the calendar help sustain the reporting that we do on the broadcast industry here at Fybush Media, so your purchases matter a lot to us here – and if that matters to you, now’s the time to show that support with an order of the Tower Site Calendar. (And we have the Broadcast Historian’s Calendar for 2025, too. Why not order both?)
Visit the Fybush Media Store and place your order now for the new calendar, get a great discount on previous calendars, and check out our selection of books and videos, too!
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