NorthEast Radio Watch 6/30: There's No Place Like Home

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

*So here's how the Great Radio Trip of '98 wound down...

Saturday morning began with a distinctly non-radio event, as your
editor indulged another hobby interest with a tour of the Royal
Canadian Mint in Ottawa.

Returning to form, we walked over to the York Street studios of CHEZ
(106.1) for a guided tour from production guru Craig Jackman.  CHEZ
just recently moved into its new digs in a converted grocery
warehouse, and it's a really nice place, largely arranged in an open
plan (no walls around the newsroom or engineering areas, for
instance).  A stop at a used bookstore around the corner also turned
up some Canadian gems for the NERW bookshelf, including books by CBC
stars Barbara Frum and Knowlton Nash.

After lunch, it was back on the road, stopping at studio locations on
the Quebec side in Hull (CIMF and CHOT/CFGS in the same industrial
park) and Gatineau (CKTF, which now shares space with CJRC in a
building adjacent to the big shopping mall there).

Recrossing the river, we passed several more studios, including the
CBC's TV operations in a residential neighborhood on Lanark Avenue and
the CJOH/CKQB complex on Merivale Road, before turning south at day's
end. 

Time allowed us only a handful of additional stops: a failed attempt
to get close to the CJRC (1150) transmitter, a stop at the CFRA (580)
array on Highway 16 south of the city, and then the long drive down
the 401, over the Thousand Islands Bridge, and into Watertown, where
we made the last stop at public TV WNPE (Channel 16) on Arsenal
Street.

And from there it was dinner and another hour or so south to Syracuse,
where our long journey came to a close some three thousand miles from
its start.

Coming soon: A market-by-market summary of what we saw, heard, loved,
hated, and wondered about during the trip...stay tuned.

*And now on to the week's other news:

Rumors are flying at Boston's WBZ-TV (Channel 4), after a visit last
week from Joel Cheatwood, the news impresario who turned things around
at WHDH-TV (Channel 7) a few years back before leaving for a
controversial tenure at WMAQ-TV (Channel 5) in Chicago.

'BZ honcho Ed Goldman tells the newspapers that he was just picking
Cheatwood's brain while Cheatwood was in town taking his son to an
orthodontist's appointment...but nobody's failed to notice that
Cheatwood is currently an NBC consultant, while WBZ is a CBS O&O.
Could Cheatwood be returning to Boston to try to boost 'BZ's
plummeting ratings?  We'll see...

In other MASSACHUSETTS news, George Flinn's "Broadcasting for the
Challenged" is trying to become the next multi-market noncomm
operator.  BFC has been filing dozens of applications around the
country in recent weeks, and the most recent are for 88.1 in New
Bedford (NERW's comment: Haven't we seen that before?) and 89.5 in
Nantucket.  NERW's still trying to figure out just what BFC does, but
we suspect religion's involved somehow.

We mourn the passing of John Burgomaster, better known as John
Masters, the voice of WRKO news for 28 years until his retirement in
1994.  Masters' booming voice defined RKO's "20/20 News" during its
top-40 years, and he remained with the station for most of its years
in the talk format as well.  Burgomaster succumbed to cancer last
week.

*NEW HAMPSHIRE is about to get a new nightly newscast.  Derry's WNDS
(Channel 50) has hired longtime WMUR news director Jack Heath to put
together a nightly half-hour to debut in September.  WNDS is one of
several New Hampshire stations that used to have a daily newscast,
along with WNHT (now WNBU, Channel 21) in Concord and WGOT (now WPXB,
Channel 60) in Merrimack.

Congratulations to Lisa Garvey, who's leaving Manchester rocker
WGIR-FM (101.1) for a big move up in market size -- all the way to
number one, with a night shift at WNEW-FM (102.7) in New York.  NERW
hears longtime 'GIR personality Fil Robert Kaye has left the airwaves
as well, to become a salesman for the Capstar station.

*In MAINE, it seems NERW missed a call-letter change by just days. We
visited the area on Friday the 19th -- and on Monday the 22nd,
Scarborough-based WPKM (106.3) finally became WBQW, simulcasting
classical WBQQ (99.3) from Kennebunk as "W-Bach."  Oh well, now we
have an excuse to go back...

*VERMONT has a new satellite-delivered morning show, as WSSH (101.5
Marlboro) and WZSH (107.1 Bellows Falls) pick up the "Bob and Sheri
Show" from WLNK (107.9) in Charlotte, North Carolina.

*In RHODE ISLAND, it's a format change - sort of - at WXEX (99.7
Wakefield-Peace Dale), as the "X" goes back to a pure modern-rock
format.

WERI-FM (99.3) has applied to move its transmitter and change power
and height -- but the application hasn't shown up yet in the FCC
database, so we're not yet sure what it's for.

And the owner of leased-time WALE (990 Providence) has bought another
station.  North American Broadcasting is paying a reported $5.5
million for KCCF (1100) Cave Creek, Arizona.  KCCF is an
adult-standards station that blankets Phoenix by day with 50
kilowatts; NERW wonders whether it will change to a "dollar-a-holler"
format like its Ocean State cousin once the sale closes.

*A call letter change in upstate NEW YORK became official while we
were away; Rochester's AM 950 is now WEZO, and 98.9 FM has changed
from WKLX to pick up the WBBF calls from the AM side.  The WBBF calls
had been on the AM side since 1953; AM 950 is now the fourth area home
for the WEZO calls, whose heritage use was on 101.3 FM (now WRMM) from
1971 until 1987.  The calls also appeared on AM 990, now WDCZ, for a
few years in the late eighties, and then on Avon's 93.3 FM, now WQRV,
for a few years after that.

Another PBS station is going commercial.  Schenectady's WMHQ (Channel
45) is being sold to Sinclair Broadcasting, which will turn it into
either a UPN or WB affiliate.  WMHQ was the second service for public
TV WMHT (Channel 17), which says it needs the money for digital TV
development.  Albany-area viewers with long memories will recall that
channel 45 began as a commercial independent, WUSV-TV, before being
bought by WMHT and operated first as WMHX-TV and then as WMHQ.
Meantime, Buffalo's WNED is awaiting word on whether the FCC will let
it sell noncomm-licensed WNEQ (Channel 23), or whether it will end up
keeping WNEQ and selling what's now its primary outlet,
commercial-licensed WNED-TV (Channel 17).  WNED says it has "at least
six" interested buyers for whichever station is put up for sale.

The latest rimshot into the Syracuse market will be 100.3 in Sylvan
Beach, and the FCC's been asked to approve a settlement among the
competing applicants for the channel.  Kevin O'Kane ends up with the
license.  Also in the Syracuse area, Syracuse Community Radio has
applied for an 89.9 translator in Fenner to relay its new "flagship"
station, WXXC (88.7 Truxton).  Yes, you read that right, 89.9.  NERW
suspects the folks at WRVO, 89.9 in Oswego, will file an objection to
that one real soon now.

In the Buffalo area, the powerful tourist information station in
Niagara Falls, Ontario is relocating.  CFLZ had been on 91.9 but will
be displaced by the new 92.1 allocation in Amherst and by the pending
move of CHOW Welland from 1470 to 91.7.  Its new home?  105.1 MHz.

The FCC filings brought new tides of "displacement applications" from
area low-power TV stations, including Rochester religious outlet W59BV
filing to move to channel 42.

In the North Country, we're told WYUL (94.7 Chateaugay) has been off
the air with transmitter trouble for a few weeks, which explains why 
we weren't hearing them in Montreal.

And St. Lawrence University's WSLJ (91.7 Watertown) has applied for a
translator at 88.1 in Lowville.

In the Finger Lakes, M Street reports Ithaca's WTKO (1470) has dropped
sports talk for satellite oldies as "WTKOldies."  Bath's WCIK (103.1)
has been noncommercial in practice for years; now it's applying to
change its license status to noncomm as well.

One bit of Canadian news from the fringes of our region: CKDK (103.9)
in Woodstock, Ontario has flipped formats to dance-CHR, as a partial
simulcast of "Energy 108," CING (107.9) Burlington.

*And that's it for this NERW; coming Thursday, some stray bits of news
and our thoughts on The Big Trip.  See you then!

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

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