NorthEast Radio Watch 12/8/2025: Cichon’s Back in Buffalo

In this week’s issue… Veteran newsman returns – Remembering NY’s Leitner, RI’s Jones – CT AM saved – Maine AM moves – “Indie” adds suburban signals

By SCOTT FYBUSH

*It’s been seven years since Steve Cichon’s voice has been heard regularly on the radio in his beloved hometown of Buffalo, but that changes this afternoon when he starts his new gig as senior reporter and All Things Considered host at Buffalo Toronto Public Media’s WBFO (88.7).

There are few radio people out there who care as much about the work and the medium as Steve, which actually also explains why he walked away from his gig as news director at WBEN (930) after a decade there back in 2013, and why he thought he was leaving radio entirely in 2018 after a short run at oldies station WECK.

As he explained to Alan Pergament in the Buffalo News last week, and as he alluded to us in a 2020 “Top of the Tower” podcast episode, Cichon’s passion for radio news had been ground down over the years by all of the headwinds any of us face these days trying to keep a career in the business alive. (Which, if someone asked your editor, would also explain my own exit from that phase of the business a few years later, but I digress…)

In Steve’s case, though, after a fulfilling detour into teaching at Bishop Timon High School, the combination of an intriguing job opening at BTPM and a familiar face there in the form of his longtime colleague Michael Mroziak at the helm of the newsroom led Cichon back into the business.

“This is an amazing company,” Cichon wrote of his new job. “They’ve shown they appreciate what I can bring to the company and the people of Western New York and Southern Ontario over the airwaves.”

WNED/BTPM is just the latest addition to an already impressive resume for Cichon, who’s written multiple books about western New York broadcasting and community history and contributed history pieces to the News. 

He began his career as a teenage producer at WBEN in 1993, moved down the hall to WIVB-TV (Channel 4) for a few years, programmed upstart sports station WNSA (107.7) from 2000 until its end in 2003, then returned to WBEN as news director – and as a longtime friend and admirer of his work, I’m very much looking forward to seeing what he does next in his new role.