NERW Update: Clear Channel’s New England Shuffle

By SCOTT FYBUSH

When Clear Channel acquired Qantum’s Cape Cod stations as part of a bigger northeast station swap, we suspected there might be a move afoot to rearrange a chunk of the FM dial in eastern New England – and sure enough, that’s just what Clear Channel has planned.

In a set of interlinked applications filed Tuesday, Clear Channel outlined its plans to upgrade its Boston country upstart, WBWL (101.7 Lynn), by downgrading two other stations, most notably WWBB (101.5 Providence). One of just four class B signals in Providence, WWBB will leave its longtime transmitter site on the old WNAC-TV tower in Rehoboth, Massachusetts and relocate to one of the towers of Clear Channel’s WHJJ (920) in East Providence. Even more dramatically, it will drop all the way to a class A signal, running just 4.9 kW/361′ with a directional notch to protect WBWL to the north.

On Cape Cod, WCIB (101.9 Falmouth) will stay at its present site and remain a class B, but will drop to 13 kW from its present 50 kW, with a sharp directional notch toward WBWL.

So what does “The Bull” (which just pulled in a very impressive 2.6 12+ rating in its debut PPM appearance) get for all of that? Less than you might imagine – it remains a class A signal from its perch atop One Financial Center in downtown Boston, but gets to go non-directional, significantly improving its coverage south of Boston at the considerable expense of WWBB.

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