In this week’s issue… NYC Russian broadcaster accused of extortion – NH translator revived after long silence – Promotion for CT’s Rivers – Remembering Boston’s “Miss Jean,” B104.7’s Palmer, CT’s McDonough, Wyler
By SCOTT FYBUSH
*We don’t write much here about Russian-language radio, but “Davidzon Radio” in NEW YORK, aka WSNR (620 Jersey City NJ), is as big as it gets in that universe – and so it’s a big deal when its owner, Gregory Davidzon, is being accused of extortion.
The New York Post reports that Inna Vernikov, a New York City council member who represents a heavily Russian district in Brooklyn, is claiming that when she ran for her seat in 2021, Davidzon demanded that she hire “someone from his team” to work on his campaign, and that she spend $30,000 on advertising on WSNR. In exchange, she says, Davidzon promised to support her on WSNR and make sure she won her race.
She refused to hire Davidzon’s staffer, spent only about $3000 on the station, and still won her race in 2021. Now, she says, Davidzon is providing financial backing to run one of his own WSNR employees as a rival to her in the upcoming primary. She says that employee, Igor Kazatsker, has been benefiting from free ads on WSNR that he’s not reporting as campaign expenses.
“I don’t take well to extortion,” Vernikov told the Post; a lawyer for Kazatsker calls the claims “false and defamatory.”
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!
In this week's episode - It was a longer hiatus than we intended, but Top of the Tower is back with a new spring season of conversations with some of the most interesting people in radio. This week, we continue bringing...
In this week’s issue… Catsimatidis, Shula add signals - Radiodays rocks Toronto - Ex-Bell, Evanov stations rebrand By SCOTT FYBUSH Jump to: ME - NH - VT - MA - RI - CT - NY - NJ - PA -...
Top of the Tower talks with Inrush Broadcast's Rob Bertrand about the future of broadcast engineering as a service
In this week’s issue… Public media faces a CPB-less future - Elections change broadcasters' fates - Another AM goes silent - K-Love buys in PA, Holy Family sells in Mass. - Bell hands off Peterborough stations
