NorthEast Radio Watch 11/20: Hartford Says Hello Pats, Goodbye WTIC

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

*The big news this week comes from CONNECTICUT's capital, where moving
vans are poised to take away the city's oldest radio station -- and to
bring in an NFL team.

This being NERW, we'll start with the radio station.  After 73 years,
Hartford's WTIC will have its main studio somewhere other than the
Insurance City beginning next year.  WTIC signed on back in 1925 from
the Travelers Insurance building on Grove Street, and remained there
until 1961, when it moved to Broadcast House on Constitution Plaza
along with WTIC-TV 3.  When the stations were sold separately in 1974,
WTIC-TV became WFSB and stayed on Constitution Plaza, and WTIC AM-FM
moved to the Gold Building at Pearl and Main Streets.  Its lease there
expires next year, and so AM 1080 and FM 96.5 are heading off to the
'burbs -- to the 10 Executive Drive, Farmington home of sister
stations WZMX and WRCH.   

As for the football team: New England viewers and listeners would had
to have been hiding in a Faraday cage all week to miss the fuss over
the Patriots' planned move from Foxboro to Hartford in 2001.  On the
broadcasting side of things, CBS looks like the big loser in this
deal, since Boston was one of the very largest markets in its AFC
deal, and the folks at CBS-owned WBZ-TV and WBCN were hoping for big
things from their Pats contracts.   Now it's not even clear whether
WBZ will have Pats telecasts for games that don't sell out in
Hartford; the Boston Globe quotes NFL sources as saying that Boston
will be in the blackout zone.  The big winner, clearly, is
Hartford's WFSB, which becomes the Pats' home-team station in three
years.  Will CBS' WTIC and WZMX step up to the plate (now THERE's a
mixed metaphor!) and make the radio bid, too?  We'll be watching...

As for the TV and radio coverage, it sounds like WEEI broke this one
on radio Wednesday, with all the stations in both markets jumping on
board by the evening newscasts.  When Pats owner Bob Kraft held his
Hartford news conference Thursday morning, WBZ-TV and WHDH cut into
their impeachment-hearings coverage (as did all three Connecticut
affiliates and Providence's WPRI and WJAR), while WCVB and WLNE stayed
with Kenneth Starr.

One more bit of Connecticut news before we move on: The folks at WTNH
in New Haven are getting around to marking their 50th anniversary (no
hurry, apparently, seeing as how they signed on in June, 1948!) and
are looking for station veterans, old film and videotape, and
newspaper clippings about WTNH and WNHC-TV.  Contact Nina Bradley at
wtnh@wtnh.com or 203-784-8807 if you can help...

*As MASSACHUSETTS reacts to the impending loss of the Pats, we note
the re-emergence of former American Radio Systems honcho Steve Dodge.
His new project, American Tower Corp., made some headlines this week
with two big acquisitions: the $336 million purchase of OmniAmerica
and the $185 million buy of Telecom Towers.  Like ATC, both companies
are big players in the little-noted but big-money world of tower
leasing.

Former WBOS GM John Laton returns to the business as GM of Metro
Networks' Boston operations.  

Remember WYDN?  The long-unbuilt Worcester noncomm on channel 48 has
received FCC permission to move the transmitter site that it still
hasn't started building.  After a series of CPs that specified first
Mt. Asnebumskit, then a site in Palmer, then Steerage Rock in
Worcester, WYDN's latest CP once again puts it at Asnebumskit.  Maybe
it'll actually get built this time...

*Down in RHODE ISLAND, Bonnie Gomes takes over as VP/GM at Back Bay's
WLKW and WWKX/WAKX.  She held the same post at formerly-Back Bay-owned
WARA in Attleboro.  And we hear the tower of WKFD (1370 Wickford) has
been torn down.  Is this, at long last, the end?

*Up in VERMONT, it's a well-deserved retirement for a fixture of
Central Vermont morning radio.  Bob Bannon started at Montpelier's
WSKI (1240) in December 1947, and began doing morning drive there in
1955.  He stayed there until 1997, when he moved his show down I-89 to
Barre and WSNO (1450), from which he did his last show on November 6.
Bannon is 83 years old.  What a career!

Another Vermont morning voice is leaving the state after a much
shorter career.  Kyle Smith's making the move from WBTZ (99.9
Plattsburgh NY - Burlington) to mornings at noncomm AAA WYEP (91.3) in
Pittsburgh.

*In MAINE, the FCC's been busy with LPTVs in Bangor.  Deleted this week
are W20BN, W22BU, W42BZ, W50BX, W58CN, and W66CL, none of which was
ever built.  Two more CPs, W39CC and W54CG, have been extended.

WBYA (101.7 Searsport) is now simulcasting the news-talk format of new
sister station WVOM (103.9 Howland).

*Just a few tidbits from NEW YORK this week: The WGNY (1220 Newburgh)
follies continue, as the station is granted a CP to move its towers.
NERW believes this grant returns the 1220 record in the FCC records to
the location that's been in use all along for WGNY's interim 1200 kHz
operation that ended last year, as well as the 1220 facility that
preceded and followed it.

Mars Hill's application for an 89.1 translator for its WMHR Syracuse
in Riverhead, Long Island, has been dismissed.

Here's the new (interim) lineup at WNEW, in the wake of Scott Muni and
Dave Herman's dismissals: Matt DeVoti 6-10am, Lisa Garvey 10-3pm, Opie
and Anthony 3-7pm (guess they're not coming back to Boston after
all...), Carol Miller 7-mid, Harris Allen overnight.

Some staff changes at WTBQ (1110) in Warwick: PD Bob Taylor becomes
Operations Coordnator, PM driver Rich Ball adds PD duties, and news
director Chris Cordani heads for the richer lands of all-news
television at WRNN in Kingston.

Another historic broadcasting name bites the dust: "Interstate
Broadcasting," the alias for the New York Times Company that's graced
the licenses of WQXR and WQEW in New York since the 1940s, is being
replaced by the "New York Times Electronic Media Company."

Upstate, we've been listening as the CBS stations in Rochester make
their studio moves.  WCMF's Brother Wease has been broadcasting from a
makeshift couch in his now-stripped studio all week...and WPXY (97.9)
sends its jocks home for the weekend while its studio equipment is
moved.  The Audiovault will be playing the songs, liners, and spots
(but no jock breaks or phone calls!) for "Shut Up And Listen Weekend."
A correction, by the way: the new main phone number after Thanksgiving
for 'CMF, 98PXY, WZNE, and WRMM will be 716-399-5700.

Rochester's "Box" affiliate is back at full (low) power.  We can
once again watch WBXO-LP on channel 15 here at NERW Central, some 
4000 feet from the Pinnacle Hill towers -- and now we're just waiting
for someone less cheap than us to actually call up and request a video
or two...

And Lowell Paxson's Batavia ("Buffalo-Rochester") Pax TV construction
permit finally has the inevitable "PX" calls.  Mark down WPXJ-TV,
instead of WAQF, for channel 51.

*On the Web: Boston Radio Archives co-editor Garrett Wollman has been
busy with a new database lookup for the FCC's TV data.  See it at:

http://www.bostonradio.org/dynamic/query-tvdb

Also coming soon to the Boston and New York Radio Archives are history
pages to correspond to each market's radio dial...stay tuned!

Back in business: Newsblues has returned to wreak havoc with news
directors' appetites everywhere...it's now on a more powerful server
at www.newsblues.com.

*And that's it for another week of NERW.  With the upcoming
Thanksgiving holiday, followed by a NERW-mobile excursion to the wilds
of Fort Wayne, Indiana and Dayton (and Mason), Ohio, we'll be on a
modified schedule.  A brief NERW will come your way sometime
Thanksgiving Day while the NERW turkey cooks (and we listen to see how
many stations are playing "Alice's Restaurant" this year), and after
that, we'll take a one-week hiatus.  NERW will return to brighten your
Fridays on December 11.  Bulletins, as we used to say on WCAP, at
once!

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

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