NorthEast Radio Watch 5/12/2025: New Owners For Two AMs

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 – Canada

*What’s the difference between “dying” and “dead” when it comes to small AM radio stations in 2025?

A few hundred thousand dollars, and a few owners still willing to make some small investments to see what kind of life they can still eke out of the medium – at least at both ends of NEW YORK state this week.

In Buffalo, we’d broken the news back in March that WHLD (1270 Niagara Falls) was on the list of Cumulus stations that were going to go dark because they were no longer profitable for the giant broadcaster. But when its deadline date came and went with the all-syndicated talk format still on the air, we began to get wind that something was up, and indeed it was.

Last week, Buddy Shula’s Radio One Buffalo, which owns oldies “Big WECK” (WECK 1230 and three FM translators), filed to buy WHLD from Cumulus for $150,000, a price that includes only the station’s license and transmitting equipment, since the 5000-watt AM signal leases space from Crawford to diplex on the five-tower array of WDCZ (970) in Hamburg.

And no sooner did that deal hit the FCC than we began to learn things weren’t quite as they originally appeared at Alexander Broadcasting’s WRCR (1700 Haverstraw) in Rockland County.

A couple of weeks ago, WRCR’s morning show told listeners the station had lost its studio space on Garnerville Road in Ramapo and was in the process of moving to a different space nearby. Without a way to originate its own programming, WRCR began simulcasting New York’s WABC (770), which of course is extremely well-heard already in the area.

But as the morning show learned to its surprise a few days later, there’s no new studio and apparently no more morning show. Instead, WRCR is reportedly being sold to John Catsimatidis’ Red Apple group, which owns WABC and WLIR (107.1) out at the tip of Long Island.

There’s been no official FCC filing yet, and thus no price for this deal, though it’s hard to imagine station owner Alex Medakovic will get anywhere close to the original asking price of just under a million dollars for the little signal at the top of the dial.

Nor do we know yet exactly what Catsimatidis has planned for his second signal, which right now reaches only a small fraction of the WABC coverage area. Could it get moved to WABC’s transmitter site in NEW JERSEY and provide some sort of incubator for new talent for Red Apple? That seems the likeliest scenario, but until we see some FCC filings and more hard news on this situation, it’s as murky as the 1700 signal is at, say, Third Avenue and 49th Street in Manhattan.

Back in Buffalo, Shula will take over WHLD under an LMA that’s due to start June 1. Based on his long experience selling the talk format at competitor WBEN (930) for Entercom/Audacy and its predecessors, we’d bet that some form of talk will continue on 1270, and with Shula at the helm, we’d expect to hear some familiar local Buffalo voices making appearances there, too. We’ll keep you posted as we learn more.