NorthEast Radio Watch 7/14/2025: Townsquare Cuts Continue
In this week’s issue… Budget cuts hit Townsquare markets - WBEN rearranges schedule - WPDH's Taylor steps down - K-Love prepares for PA additions - "Swan" preens in VT
NorthEast Radio Watch 1/3/2022: Penguin Waddles Into Vermont
In this week’s issue… Great Eastern’s latest simulcast – Cumulus makes early flip – WBZ vets retire – WTPA rocks Harrisburg again – Remembering Gary Starr
By SCOTT FYBUSH
Jump to: ME – NH – VT – MA – RI – CT – NY – NJ – PA – Canada
Here we go again – it’s the start of our 29th year of providing news and information to broadcasters all over the northeastern US and eastern Canada. We hope you enjoyed all five parts of our big Year in Review 2021 special that filled this space over the holidays, and if you were lucky enough to be completely away from the screen and keyboard for the last week, catch up by clicking on the link for part one and go from there.
As always, Lisa and I (a true independent “mom and pop” operation for over two decades) thank you for all the support you show, whether it’s buying a Tower Site Calendar (there’s still a limited quantity of 2022 editions available at the Fybush.com Store) or through your ongoing subscriptions to NERW. For as little as 39 cents a week, you can get the full NERW experience, every week, all year – and make sure we’re still here for year 30 and beyond of reporting on all the stories of the region’s broadcasters.
*In VERMONT, Great Eastern is ringing in the new year with a new format in the Burlington market. When it acquired WXMS (97.9 Dannemora NY) from RadioActive for just under $100,000 last year, it installed a Christmas format there as a holiday stunt. Now we know that signal, like Great Eastern’s sister stations “Froggy” (WJKS 104.3) and “Frank” (WWFK 107.1), will be simulcasting one of Great Eastern’s signals over in the Barre/Montpelier market.
After a call change to WSNO-FM, 97.9 rang in the new year with a new simulcast of WSNO (1450 Barre). WSNO had been doing rhythmic top-40 as “105.7 the Beat,” but both signals have flipped to new branding as “The Penguin” and a new variety hits format.
The new Penguin picks up three former on-air staffers from Burlington competitor WXXX (95.5). Pete Belair and Sarah Mitiguy had moved from WXXX to sister talker WVMT (620) back in 2019 before leaving Vox; now Belair will be doing mornings (“Pete and the Morning Chill Out”) and Mitiguy will be heard on the midday shift. Former WXXX middayer Jackie Steele, who left that station in September, takes afternoons, while Great Eastern VP/programming Matt Houseman is programming the station.
SPRING IS HERE…
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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