NorthEast Radio Watch 5/14: 1150 Splits Off...

[fybush@world.std.com (Scott D Fybush)]

*Boston's AM 1150, WNFT, has broken away from its simulcast with WAAF
(107.3 Worcester).  The ARS (soon to be CBS) station began running the
satellite "Touch" R&B oldies format earlier this week, perhaps as a
challenge to longtime urban daytimer WILD, just down the dial at
1090.  The ARS/CBS sale is expected to close any day now, and NERW
wonders whether WNFT will end up staying with the CBS stations (WBZ,
WZLX, WODS, WBCN, WBZ-TV, plus ARS acquisition WBMX) or being sold off
along with the stations the Justice Department ordered CBS to sell
(WRKO, WEEI, WEGQ, WAAF).

More from MASSACHUSETTS: Cape Cod probably needs another FM allocation
the way it needs more summertime traffic on US 6, but that hasn't
stopped someone from asking the FCC to allocate 94.3A to Brewster,
near the "elbow" of the Cape.  If you're keeping track, that means
that the Cape would have 13 commercial FMs (plus two AMs) for a total
year-round population of just over 200,000.  This allocation would
have been impossible, of course, before Ernie Boch's WXTK in West
Yarmouth moved from 94.9 to 95.1 last year.  (And NERW notes also that
the 102.3 CP in Truro, WCDJ, is *still* unbuilt...)

Two station sales to report: Joe Gallagher's Auritaur Communications
(which owns WBEC AM/FM in Pittsfield, is buying WNGN in Hoosick Falls
NY, and has an interest in WBET/WCAV in Brockton through KJI 
Broadcasting) is paying $1 million for WMVY (92.7 Tisbury), the Cape and
Islands' really cool AAA station.  Meantime, troubled business-talker
WADN (1120 Concord) changes hands from Ned Crecilus' Assabet
Communications to Susan Armstrong's Money Matters Radio, for a
reported $450,000.  Money Matters programs the morning business show
on WADN.

Radio people on the move: After five years as program director of WBOS
(92.9 Brookline), Jim Herron has left the building on Soldiers Field
Road.  Don Kelley of sister station WMJX (106.7) will handle WBOS PD
duties for now.  And after losing his bid to host Good Morning America
to Kevin Newman, WBZ veteran Tom Bergeron has signed on to host a new
version of Hollywood Squares.

Digital TV updates: WBZ-TV (Channel 4) and WCVB (Channel 5) have
applied for DTV licenses.  WBZ-DT, on Channel 30, and WCVB-DT, on
Channel 20, will operate from WBZ's Cedar Street tower in Needham.

In Central Massachusetts news, Cardwell Broadcasting's WPVQ (93.9
Turners Falls) has been granted a license for a 105.3 translator in
South Hadley.  W287AK was granted over the objection of Brian Dodge's
Harvest Broadcasting.  And Athol's WCAT-FM (99.9) has been granted
permission to move to a higher tower on the south side of Route 2 a
few miles east of its present location.

And religious WJLT (1060 Natick) has applied to move its CP for 40,000
watt daytime operation.  The station now holds a CP to build two new
towers at the old Unisys plant in Sudbury, but without approval from
the town, it can't actually use that site.  The new application is for
40 kW day, 22 kW critical hours from WJLT's current site, shared with
WKOX (1200 Framingham) and WRPT (650 Ashland) on Mount Wayte Avenue in
Framingham.

*Moving along to NEW YORK, WTOR (770 Youngstown) is now on the air.
The station is broadcasting a variety of music (including, from the
sound of it, plenty of polkas) from a makeshift studio at its
transmitter site, just across the lake from Toronto.

It's license-renewal time, and someone has filed petitions to deny
renewal against more than a dozen upstate radio stations.  Syracuse
University's WAER (88.3) and WJPZ (89.1) are the targets of opposition
from neighbors unhappy about the interference they say the stations
are causing in the SU neighborhood.  NERW suspects WSQG (90.9 Ithaca)
is being opposed by locals who say the Binghamton-based WSKG operation
isn't running enough local Ithaca programming.  And there's been a
slew of EEO-related petitions as well; targets of those are Ithaca's
WQNY (103.7), Syracuse's Pilot group (WNSS-WNTQ-WAQX-WLTI), Albany's
WABY-WKBE-WKLI, Lockport's WLVL, and the Y107 stations in Westchester
and Long Island, WWXY and WWVY.

WVIN-FM (98.3) in Bath has applied to boost power from 2750 to 4500
watts, while New York's WLIB (1190) has applied for an extension of
time to add 30 kilowatts of night power.  NERW thinks the delay in
this one is at the other end of the 1190 chain, where WOWO in Fort
Wayne has yet to build its new 9.8 kilowatt night facility.  A recent
visit to WLIB's transmitter in the Jersey Meadowlands found that the
two new towers needed for night service are in place and apparently
ready for use.

Across the lake in Lindsay, Ontario, CKLY (910) has turned on the
transmitter of CKLY-FM (91.9).  Both stations are simulcasting for the
next few months as "Y92" before the AM leaves the air for good.

Radio people on the move: Rochester's WHAM (1180) welcomes Randy
Gorbman back as news director.  It's Randy's second time on the job;
he left a couple of years ago to become operations manager at WIBX
(950) down the Thruway in Utica.  WHAM has also replaced its evening
rerun of "Dr." Laura Schlessinger with a new local talk show, hosted
by former WPXY (97.9) morning co-host Joan Brandenburg.  Her show airs
weeknights from 8-10 PM.  Speaking of PXY, part-timer/promotions
assistant Cory Kincaid is moving down to the Elmira market, where
he'll do nights on WNKI (106.1 Corning).  Aaron Brillbeck is leaving
the morning news slot on the North Country's "FSR" (WGIX 95.3
Gouverneur/WSLB 1400 Ogdensburg) to work at WSYR (570) in Syracuse.

*In MAINE, there's a new station to report.  Religious WWWA (95.3
Winslow) signed on April 10.  It's running from the same Augusta
studios as sister station WMDR (1340).   Up in Presque Isle, WOZI
(101.7) has applied to change frequency to 101.9 and move to the Mars
Hill site south of town.

*CONNECTICUT has a new 24-hour AM station.  WRYM (840) in New Britain
is now running all night long from its two-tower array with 120 watts.  

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-New Haven) is standing up for the FCC in
the ongoing fight over unlicensed "La Nueva Radio Musicale."  In an
op-ed piece in the New Haven Register this week, DeLauro said she
understands the need for a station like the 104.5 pirate, but she says
the FCC's duty to keep the spectrum well-policed for legal stations
takes priority.  The 104.5 folks (who are back on the air after a
third FCC visit last week) had presented DeLauro with a petition
supporting their cause.

New London's WHPX (Channel 26) has a new owner.  Roberts Broadcasting
is selling the (soon to be) PaxNet outlet to DP Broadcasting.  The
"DP," of course, stands for Devon Paxson, son of PaxNet owner Lowell.
DP is also the new owner of WBPX (Channel 46) in Norwell MA.

*One bit of NEW HAMPSHIRE news: Saga's new translator in Peterborough
has applied for a license to cover.  W270AH on 101.9 will relay
Manchester's WZID (95.7).

*And while VERMONT itself has no news to report this week, just to the
north we're told Montreal's CJAD will come home to 800 kHz on May 22.
CJAD has occupied a series of temporary homes, most recently CKGM's
990 facility, since its own four-tower array was toppled in January's
ice storm.  990 will supposedly go to an oldies format when CJAD goes
home.  NERW's looking forward to seeing the new CJAD towers as we
make our great circle around northern New England, the Maritimes, and
Quebec late next month...

*One distribution note for those of you who read NERW at our website,
http://www.bostonradio.org/radio/nerw.html: 

The website is intended primarily as an archive for NERW.  Depending
on the workloads of those who maintain it, NERW may not always be
available on the Web right away.  If you want to make sure NERW
reaches you as soon as it's published, we encourage you to join our
mailing list.  Just send email to nerw-request@bostonradio.org with
the word SUBSCRIBE as the body of your message, and NERW will be on
its way to your mailbox every week.  (You can also find NERW on
Usenet, where it's posted to rec.radio.broadcasting every week, as
well as to the companion AIRWAVES mailing list.)

As most of you know, NERW is a labor of love for me and for everyone
else involved in its creation each week.  As NERW's readership has
grown over the past several years, the amount of e-mail we receive
each week has exploded.  We try as much as possible to reply to all
the e-mail readers send us each week...but we hope you'll understand
if the press of our full-time jobs (yes, there's life outside NERW!)
keeps us from replying to each and every message.  Please know that we
do value your contributions; there'd be no NERW without you!

And note also that we do NOT, as a matter of policy, reply to anyone
who can't figure out the difference between the Radio Archive sites
and individual stations' sites...so to anyone who's sent us e-mail
requesting "us" to play a song for them, sorry!  (And you'd be
surprised how many of those we get, too...)

*That's it for NERW this week; please note that next week's NERW will
be an abbreviated early edition, arriving in your mailboxes sometime
Tuesday night or Wednesday while we head off to northern Ohio and
Indiana for Memorial Day.  See you next week!

- -=Scott Fybush - NorthEast Radio Watch - (c) 1998=-

------------------------------