NorthEast Radio Watch 6/16/2025: Townsquare, Corus Cut Deeper
In this week’s issue… Oneonta signals go dark - Whiteoaks takes over in Niagara - Corus empties Ottawa studios - CBS-FM shuffles talent - Armstrong anniversary to be honored
Site of the Week 8/11/2017: Some Last Bits of Omaha
Text and photos by SCOTT FYBUSH
We’re back at home base after two weeks on the road across America, and while we catch up from a drive to Denver to back (and lots of interesting visits along the way that you’ll see in this space soon), here are a few final looks at the Omaha and Lincoln markets that were omitted from our coverage these last few weeks from our February visits there.
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The drive from Omaha to Lincoln on I-80 is a short one – it’s a wide, straight highway where traffic moves at close to 80 miles per hour, so it’s easy to get from one city to another in under an hour.
Unless, of course, one gets distracted by the tall towers that sit south of 80 – and of course, we did get distracted that way, especially when we had the chance to meet up with Salem’s Mike Shane at the aux site of his KGBI (100.7) near Gretna, off gravel roads a few miles south of 80.
This was once the KGBI main site, before Salem moved the religious station in to the Omaha Crown Point tower farm (we saw its new main facility in this installment a few weeks back), and it remains a fully-functional aux site. It’s also now the main site for NRG Radio’s KOOO (101.9 La Vista), a former Lincoln-market signal that’s moved in to the Omaha market.
The two stations have separate transmitter rooms, but share an antenna at the top of this 1200-foot tower by way of a combiner behind the KGBI transmitter.
Just a couple of miles to the north and west, another tall tower out here is home to the market’s Fox affiliate, KPTM (Channel 42/RF 43) and CW affiliate, KXVO (Channel 15/RF 38); this tower was also home to Omaha’s old KEFM (96.1), which has since moved in to the Crown Point tower farm as iHeart’s KISO.
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On the way back in to Omaha, there’s one more small site to be seen, far away from most of the rest of the market’s towers.
Out Dodge Street (US 6) near the famed Boys Town, a short utility tower holds the antenna for Salem’s K233CO (94.5), the translator for “Answer” talker KOTK (1420) that gives the station’s AM coverage a boost where it needs it, out in the fast-growing western suburbs of Omaha.
Thanks to Salem’s Mike Shane for the tours!
SPRING IS HERE…
And if you don’t have your Tower Site Calendar, now’s the time!
If you’ve been waiting for the price to come down, it’s now 30 percent off!
This year’s cover is a beauty — the 100,000-watt transmitter of the Voice Of America in Marathon, right in the heart of the Florida Keys. Both the towers and the landscape are gorgeous.
And did you see? Tower Site of the Week is back, featuring this VOA site as it faces an uncertain future.Â
Other months feature some of our favorite images from years past, including some Canadian stations and several stations celebrating their centennials (buy the calendar to find out which ones!).
We still have a few of our own calendars left – as well as a handful of Radio Historian Calendars – and we are still shipping regularly.
The proceeds from the calendar help sustain the reporting that we do on the broadcast industry here at Fybush Media, so your purchases matter a lot to us here – and if that matters to you, now’s the time to show that support with an order of the Tower Site Calendar. (And we have the Broadcast Historian’s Calendar for 2025, too. Why not order both?)Â
Visit the Fybush Media Store and place your order now for the new calendar, get a great discount on previous calendars, and check out our selection of books and videos, too!Â
And don’t miss a few more Omaha-Lincoln IDs next Wednesday, over at our sister site, TopHour.com!
Next week: Southern California in Transition
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