NorthEast Radio Watch 4/8/2024: Broadcasters Get Ready for Eclipse Day

In this week’s issue… Darkness on the edge of NERW-land – WQZS leaves the air – Remembering WBXL’s Jenner, Stern’s “Crazy Cabbie,” Pittsburgh’s O’Brien

By SCOTT FYBUSH

Jump to: ME – NH – VT – MA – RI – CT – NY – NJ – PA – Canada

*For those of us who are giant astronomy nerds, this is a special day. A total solar eclipse doesn’t come around very often, after all, and this is the first one to reach any part of the NERW coverage area in over 50 years. (The last one? That was the 1972 eclipse over Nova Scotia that Carly Simon referred to in “You’re So Vain.”)

It’s a remarkable scientific moment, of course, and not just for astronomers: when the moon covers the sun, the ionosphere below reacts as though it’s night. For a few minutes along the path of totality, AM DXers will get to experience enhanced conditions, made all the more interesting because it has the potential to bring in stations on daytime facilities that would never be heard during ordinary nighttime DX.

(That’s the tower of WMJL/WMJL-FM in Marion, Kentucky, as seen during the total eclipse in 2017.) 

And for radio programmers, it’s an opportunity to play too much Bonnie Tyler and Pink Floyd – or, in some cases, to do something more creative. There will be special eclipse playlists on a lot of music stations along the path, and in the places where there are still live jocks on the air at 3 PM, there will be a lot of DJs trying to say something more interesting than “wow, it’s really dark outside!” before playing Bonnie Tyler again.

(Everyone’s getting in on the act: here in Rochester, for instance, WXXI Classical will have its own eclipse playlist running through the afternoon, as will its AAA sister station, WRUR, “the Route.” And at least two Rochester TV stations have eclipse-themed special logos, too.)

The biggest bang, of course, is coming from all the news and talk stations looking to provide wall-to-wall coverage of the eclipse itself and the impact of millions of people traveling to experience it. The major networks in the US, and the CBC in Canada, will all be doing several hours of live TV coverage through the afternoon, which will in turn be preempted by local live coverage in the cities that will get totality, from Erie through Buffalo and Rochester up to Watertown, Burlington and northern Maine.

Gray Television, which bought WWNY in Watertown, WCAX in Burlington and WAGM in Presque Isle in recent years, is taking advantage of all that coverage area with its own stream of eclipse reporting from all of its stations along the path – and those northern New England areas seem likely to have the best chance of a truly clear view of the event.

On the radio, Buffalo’s WBEN (930) will be commercial-free for more than two hours during the duration of the eclipse, and we’ll be live on WXXI (105.9/1370) from 3 to 4 as well here in Rochester. New York’s WCBS (880) has a reporter in Montreal – and on it goes.

Your editor, a passionate astronomy nerd, will be seeing totality for a second time if all goes well – and will be part of the WXXI live coverage from right here at NERW Central.