No Subject

*It's ratings time, with Spring books out for most of the markets in
the region.  We'll start down in New York City, where the top spot 12+
is shared for the first time by a Spanish-language station, WSKQ
(97.9), which tied with perennially top-rated WLTW.  The usual
suspects fill out the top five: WQHT, WHTZ, and WCBS-FM.  In the
'burbs, WSPK stayed on top in the Poughkeepsie book, followed by a
climbing WRWD, WPDH, and WHUD.  Across the river in
Newburgh-Middletown, WSPK also dominated, followed by WHUD, WPDH/WPDA,
and WCZX/WZAD.  The Long Island market stayed status quo, with
WALK-FM, WHTZ, WXRK, and WBLI all reprising the top four from Winter.
Upstate, Ithaca's WYXL joins the 20+ share club, with more than twice
as many listeners as second-place WQNY.  Buffalo's WJYE surged from
third to first place, followed by WYRK, WBEN, and WHTT-FM.  Rochester,
Syracuse, and Albany will all be out next week.

In CONNECTICUT, WEZN dropped slightly but ended up in first place in the
Bridgeport book, followed by a sagging WICC and WEBE.  WEBE gained in
the Stamford-Norwalk book, though, rising from second to first place,
followed by New York's WFAN, WHTZ, and WCBS.  You'll have to go down
to the bottom of the list to find the market's local stations, with
WKHL the highest rated in ninth place.  Waterbury's WWYZ stayed in
first place, followed by WKSS and then an amazing performance from
WWCO, which more than doubled its ratings from the last book.  WWCO's
simulcast partner, Hartford's WDRC, is credited with a sizable ratings
gain as well, and we wonder how much of that is really WWCO listening
as well.  Danbury's WDAQ was down somewhat but still first, followed
by WEZN, WRKI, and a dipping WLAD.  In New Haven, WKCI, WPLR, and WYBC
all gained to end in first, second, and third place respectively.
WNHC's numbers were down -- but then Arbitron notes "station went dark
before end of ratings period!"  In Hartford, WRCH topped the market,
followed by WTIC(AM), a rising WWYZ, WKSS, and WTIC-FM.  And in New
London, WCTY led the market, followed by a climbing WNLC and a
dropping WQGN.

On we go to MASSACHUSETTS, where Boston looks the same as it did in
the Winter book, with WBZ leading, followed by WJMN and WMJX
(switching places 12+ from last time), WBCN, and WXKS-FM.  In
Worcester, WSRS was trailed by WAAF, WXLO, and WTAG.  Springfield's
WMAS-FM took the top spot, followed by last book's #1, WAQY-AM/FM,
then WPKX, WHYN-FM, and WHYN(AM).  WFHN stayed first in New Bedford,
with WCTK making impressive gains for second place.  On Cape Cod, WQRC
remained in first place, followed by an improving WCIB, WOCN, WXTK,
and in fifth, WFCC, perhaps the best 12+ performer of any classical
station in America.

In NEW HAMPSHIRE, Manchester's WZID is the other new member of the 20+
club this time out, not to mention the only station in the market to
make double-digits 12+.  Trailing in WZID's dust were WGIR-FM, WOKQ,
WFEA, WAAF, and WGIR(AM), which showed a big drop this time out.
(NERW wonders if Capstar's cuts just might be to blame for that one.)
On the Seacoast, the Portsmouth book found WERZ with a huge surge that
landed it in first place, followed by WHEB, WOKQ, and a declining
WTSN.  Two of Capstar's stations failed to make any showing at all;
WXHT and WTMN both registered no significant listenership.

*We promised a few new Web sites last week, so here goes:

One that we've been playing with is http://www.terraserver.com, which
is an ad for Microsoft -- but is also a database of satellite images
of Earth, and is searchable by geographic coordinates, which means
that (in theory anyway) it can yield satellite views of your favorite
tower sites.  It's still rather weak when it comes to the Northeast,
but we picked out some nifty images of West Coast tower sites.

Another one we just found out about is a TV database at
http://www.bicknell-vigo.lib.in.us/cgi-bin/tvdbcgi which will tell you
what TV stations put predicted grade A and grade B signals over any
specified point.  It's designed to give home-satellite viewers an idea
of whether they can legally receive network affiliates off the bird,
but NERW readers can no doubt come up with plenty of other uses for
it.

Some new addresses for some old favorites: Shel Swartz' WRKO history
site is about to move from http://www.lotsofun.com/wrko to
http://www.big68.org, thanks in part to a contribution from former
'RKO GM Perry Ury. (Hey, Shel...why no link to the Boston Radio
Archives?)  And Mark Roberts continues to improve his Chicago
radio pages, which are now to be found at
http://www.tezcat.com/~markrobt/amfm/index.cgi/.  

*And we'll close this week's issue with a few observations from our
road trip to Watertown, New York:

This is truly a two-owner market, with every significant signal in
town controlled either by Forever Broadcasting or Clancy-Mance.
Forever has the biggest stick in town, country WFGY (97.5), one of the
few stations in America to pull a 30+ share in recent memory.
"Froggy" and sister station WUZZ (1410) recently moved their studios
from the WUZZ transmitter site on Route 12 southeast of town to the
downtown building that also WTNY (790) and WCIZ (93.5).  WUZZ is
all-satellite, all the time, with ABC's oldies format.  It has applied
to move from its current two-tower array to WTNY's transmitter site
alongside I-81 south of Watertown.  We drove by the WTNY site and fell
in love with the classic brick transmitter building, complete with
metal railing along the roof that spells out "W-T-N-Y."  Closer
observation showed that the door is still marked with the original
WWNY calls.  The middle tower of the three-tower WTNY array still
hasn't been replaced after last winter's ice storm.  WTNY is a typical
news-talker, while WCIZ is classic rock as "Z-93."  Despite a CP to
move to 93.3 from the WFGY site, WCIZ remains on 93.5 from its
original tower north of Watertown off Route 12, and there's still no
sign of the promised new tower next to WFGY's low stick on a high
cliff east of the city.  

As for Clancy-Mance, the Econolodge where we stayed backed up to their
facility on Wealtha Avenue.  The building once housed only WATN
(1240), which is still there along with its single stick.  Today, it's
also home to WTOJ (103.1), WOTT (100.7), and WBDR (102.7)/WWLF
(106.7).  WTOJ is licensed to Carthage, but its 104.1 translator,
W281AA, is mounted on the WATN stick and is strong in most parts of
the city.  We enjoyed hearing how much morning jock John Spezzano
sounds like his brother Scott of Rochester's WPXY.  WOTT is licensed
to Henderson, about 10 miles south of Watertown, and runs oldies.  And
WBDR/WWLF are CHR "The Border," with Cape Vincent-licensed WBDR aimed
at Kingston, Ontario and Copenhagen-licensed WWLF serving Watertown.
Their bumper sticker shows "102.7" with a maple leaf and "106.7" with
a star.  

The only other stations in town (besides the public radio relays,
which we'll get to in a moment) are religious WMHI (94.7 Cape Vincent,
a relay of Syracuse's WMHR) and a 90.1 translator of WYFG in Gaffney,
S.C.  Several Kingston stations come in well, including country CFMK
(96.3), AC CFLY (98.3), and oldies CFFX ("GTO 960").  A bit of
more-careful tuning was needed to hear CHR CKLC (1380), community CFRC
(101.9), and the CBC's CBCK (107.5; Radio One) and CBBK (92.9; Radio
Two).  The local cable system brings in CKWS-TV (Channel 11; CBC) and
Ottawa's CJOH (Channel 13; CTV).

Our transmitter-site drive took us into the hills east and south of
Watertown, starting with WFRY and the WSLJ (88.9) sticks along Route
126.  WSLJ is part of the Canton-based WSLU public radio network, one
of three public radio relays in town.  WRVJ (91.7) relays Oswego's
WRVO from a state office building downtown, while WUNY (89.5)
rebroadcasts Syracuse's "Classic FM" WCNY from the WNPE (Channel 16)
public TV tower near Copenhagen.  Also out in the hills were the
WWNY-TV (Channel 7)/WTOJ tower on Route 126 (with a transmitter
building clearly marked "WWNY-TV Transmitter," and offices attached
that were apparently once the town court!) and the WWTI (Channel
50)/WWLF tower near Copenhagen.  One more TV note: WWNY's set used to
be at WBZ-TV -- remember the very blue set that was in use from 1993
until 1996?