No Subject

We didn't spot any radio stations doing flying-turkey promotions,
thankfully, but Cincinnati offered plenty of good listening.  Jacor's
group now spreads across three floors of a hilltop office building,
including WLW, WKRC, WSAI, rocker WEBN (102.7), classic rocker WOFX
(92.5), CHR WKFS (107.1 Milford, and the "Kiss" prototype for
Rochester's WYSY/WMAX-FM, it seems), and hot AC WVMX (94.1).
Actually, they spread out beyond the St. Gregory Street building,
since WKFS and WVMX have some facilities in Jacor's Cincinnati TV
building at 1906 Highland Ave., home to WKRC-TV (Channel 12) -- AND to
competing CHR WKRQ (101.9), which is now owned by CBS.  Must be an
interesting landlord-tenant relationship, indeed...

CBS also owns oldies WGRR (103.5 Hamilton) and modern AC WYLX (97.3
Lebanon), which have studios in non-Jacor buildings.

Chancellor is the Queen City's other big radio group, led off by
country WUBE-FM (105.1) and hot country WYGY (96.5 Hamilton, with
transmitter atop the WLW stick!).  Also in that group are two sports
stations, "Bob" WBOB (1160 Florence KY) and "Bob 2" WUBE (1230).  (Not
to be outdone, Jacor runs sports on "Homer" WCKY 1360!).  And
Susquehanna runs AC WRMM (98.5) and NAC WVAE (94.9 Fairfield).

Smaller - but not neglected - are urban "Wiz" WIZF (100.9 Erlanger
KY), all-jazz (!) WNOP (740 Newport KY), and R&B oldies WCIN (1480).

There's plenty to keep NERW's dial spinning on the non-comm dial in
Cincinnati, too -- everything from share-time community programming on
WJVS and WAIF on 88.3, to standard public radio classical fare on WGUC
(90.9), to great jazz on WVXU (91.7) and its X-Star network, to pop
standards on WMKV (89.3, from the Maple Knoll Village nursing home in
Reading!), to a whole slew of little high-school stations including
WLHS (89.9 West Chester, not that they ever ID'd) and WHSS (89.5
Hamilton, which did!).  WOBO (88.7 Batavia) had more adult standards,
WAKW (93.3) had religion, and despite a recent report that it's now on
the air, we sure didn't hear WJYC (90.1 Delhi Hills).

A few more sites of note: Most of the Cincinnati FMs and TVs are on a
series of tall towers along a ridge just north of downtown, with the
most notable being the WSTR-TV (Channel 64) and WGRR tower on Winton
Road, which is a pre-stressed, curvy tower with a hole in the middle,
similar to the WBDC (Channel 50) tower in Washington DC.  WUBE (1230)
is in the city's Eden Park along the Ohio River; WCKY (1360) is in the
northwest part of town; and urban WCIN (1480) seems to have given up
its old site, now being bulldozed for a housing development.  We
couldn't find its new site, supposedly along the Ronald Reagan
Cross-County Parkway near I-75, but we could hear its signal, albeit
not very well.

Leaving Cincinnati, we caught religion on WCNW (1560 Fairfield) and
local news at 5 on WMOH (1450 Hamilton).  Our return to Fort Wayne was
by way of Richmond, Indiana, where WFMG ("Hits" 101.3) was playing all
of Alanis Morrissette's new album, WQLK (96.1) was all country, WKBV
(1490) was doing some sort of local radio-thon, and WECI (91.5) was
all over the map, like good college radio should be.  Heading up US
27, we passed Union City, where WTGR (97.5) rocks on long after its
sister AM WBNN (1030) was deleted, and Winchester, where WZZY (98.3)
was playing AC music.

The next morning, we started the long drive home to NERW-land,
stopping off to grab bumper stickers in Toledo on the way.  WTOD
(1560) is still a simulcast of country WKKO (99.9), and the two WTOD
towers flank the studios, which are also home to WRQN (93.5 Bowling
Green), which has segued from 60s oldies to 70s rock oldies.  Jacor
dominates this market, too, and a stop at 125 South Superior Street
yielded stickers for standards/sports WCWA ("Seaway" 1230), CHR WVKS
(92.5), and rock WIOT (104.7).  Also in the buildings, but without
sitckers, are news-talk WSPD (1370) and AC WRVF (101.5).  The WCWA
transmitter proved to be an undistinguished little stick next to the
railroad tracks southeast of downtown, and the final stop was out in
the town of Oregon, where the four towers of WLQR (1470, all-sports)
surround the studio buildings of WLQR, hot AC WWWM (105.5 Sylvania),
and rock WXKR (94.5 Port Clinton).  From there, it was back to I-280,
the Ohio Turnpike...and the long drive home.

We missed the call change in Cleveland, where Radio Disney's WMIH
(1260) is now WWMK, but we did stop for dinner near Ashtabula to
marvel at the live, local oldies programming on the amazingly
directional (just listen to the phasing on I-90 west of the
transmitter!) WFUN 970, "Fun Radio."  And if WVCC (101.7 Linesville
PA) had actually run a legal ID instead of dead air before the
network news, we'd now have a complete set of legal IDs from that
area.

And we'll close this out by returning to the region, where the
NERW-mobile came to rest for a few minutes in the Buffalo area, in
hopes of watching WNEQ (Channel 23) sign off at 11 PM, as they'd been
doing.  Alas, it was not to be -- as WNEQ slowly grinds towards its
eventual sale to Sinclair, it's stopped doing its own prime-time
programming.  It now seems to sign on mid-afternoon, run separately
from WNED-TV (Channel 17) for a few hours, then simulcast WNED
prime-time and sign off sometime around midnight.  We didn't stick
around to wait for it.

*That's it for this huge double issue.  Next week, we'll return to a
more manageable size, for one week, and then we'll offer our
traditional two-part Year in Review issues. Look for them around
December 25, 1998, and January 1, 1999.

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

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

End of boston-radio-interest-digest V2 #256
*******************************************