NorthEast Radio Watch 9/2 and 9/9/2024: It’s TJ Time

In this week’s issue… NY’s 98.7 enters stunt mode – Double shifting at WBLI – WICC, WFOX simulcast with talk – New country in Toronto – Big booster project in western Mass

By SCOTT FYBUSH

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

[Programming note: after an unusually heavy few weeks of late summer news, we’re going to try to take a week off and return with a new NERW on Sept. 16 – but if there’s something big breaking, we’ll be back next week anyway. And watch this space for some special features in the meantime…]

*It was, for a while, the very best kept secret in broadcasting: when Good Karma Brands’ lease of WEPN-FM (98.7) in NEW YORK came to an end Friday night, what would Emmis begin programming as it took back operation of the station?

There’s an answer now, but if anything, it leaves even more questions hanging. There was no ceremony to the end of ESPN programming on 98.7 after a dozen years. What had been the local 9 PM to midnight show, hosted by station veterans Larry Hardesty and Gordon Damer, broadcast its final episode Thursday night as Good Karma let the pair go. (Why? Apparently a bit of cost-cutting as the ESPN New York programming moves to WHSQ 880, but along with that the reality that with the addition of the Mets, there’s not going to be much space for a local night show on the station now.)

Listeners to 98.7 heard a few seconds of static before midnight as audio sources were switched around at the Empire State Building and the station’s HD Radio signal was turned back on after many years – and then it was into “Shut Up and Dance” by Walk the Moon and the revelation that listeners were now hearing “TJ 98.7, a pop-up radio station.”

What’s that about? As the hot AC tunes began to spin (with a legal ID noting that the automation for the pop-up is coming from radio.cloud, which puts automation, yes, in the cloud, feeding it through an internet connection to an output device at the transmitter site), some clues began to emerge. What was longtime WINS news anchor Judy DeAngelis doing on the new station talking about her hometown of Westwood, New Jersey? And what’s the “special treat” arriving on 98.7 Tuesday morning after a commercial-free weekend?