NorthEast Radio Watch 12/25: Albany Jams, and 1998 in Review Part I

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

*Welcome to the final NERW of 1998!  We'll begin with a quick look at
this week's news -- and then it's on to Part One of NERW's 1998 Year
in Review spectacular.  

*When last week's NERW went to press, there were no urban-formatted
stations in NEW YORK's Capital District...but this week there are
two.  The first to flip was WXLE (104.5 Mechanicville), which dumped
its month-old "Magic" AC format last Friday to become "Jammin'
Oldies," just like its Capstar/Chancellor sister stations in Tampa,
Dallas, Chicago, New York, and elsewhere.  So far, the new station is
running jockless.

Next to go was WPTR-FM (96.3 Voorheesville), which pulled the plug on
its low-rated hot country format to become "Jams 96-3," bringing
Albany its first commercial outlet for hip-hop and urban contemporary
music.  WPTR had been fighting a losing battle against country giant
WGNA (107.7/1460); will its relatively weak signal be less of a
drawback when it's the only station in its format?

New to the Empire State airwaves this week was WXXE (90.5 Fenner), the
first outlet of Syracuse Community Radio, which signed on for the
first time at 3:07 PM on Monday (Dec. 21).  While the station is being
heard in most of Madison County, it's not much of a contender in
Syracuse and Onondaga County just yet, thanks to co-channel stations
in Baldwinsville (high-school outlet WBXL) and Rochester (WBER).  WXXE
put out e-mail this week advising potential listeners of specific
street corners in and around Syracuse where it's audible.  You can
read more about SCR -- including its proposed translators co-channel
with nearby WRVO (89.9 Oswego) -- at their website,
<http://www.rootmedia.org/~syracomradio>.

Speaking of translators, Syracuse religious station WMHR (102.9) has
applied for one at 90.7 in Riverhead, way out at the East End of Long
Island.  And Bridgeport CT community broadcaster WPKN (89.5) had its
petition for reconsideration against translator W209BB (89.7 Port
Chester) denied this week by the FCC.  (Let's make sure we're straight
on this -- a translator rebroadcasting a religious station from,
lessee here, Abilene, Texas, takes priority over one of the few
stations in the region that actually exists solely to provide a public
service to its listening audience.  More on this coming up in our
Year-End Editorial Rant next issue...)

Speaking of things we can (and probably will) rant about, WQEW (1560
New York) is clearly in the death throes of its American Popular
Standards format.  No more jocks -- just taped liners -- and almost
every spot break includes plugs for other area stations hoping for a
piece of the audience.  Among them: standards WLUX (540 Islip), WHLI
(1100 Hempstead), WLIM (1580 Patchogue), WMTR (1250 Morristown NJ),
and WVNJ (1160 Oakland NJ), plus public radio WNYC AM-FM (820/93.9),
WFUV (90.7), and even the business-news machine that is WBBR (1130),
occupying the dial position once held by the lamented WNEW (1130), the
granddaddy of the standards format.  The end of the format comes at
midnight Sunday night, and of course we'll have tape rolling (and
tears in our eyes).

Just over the state line from Rockland County, the FCC has again
extended the construction permit for WKNJ (550 Lakeside NJ).  The 270
watt daytimer has faced a slew of problems stemming from toxic waste
near its proposed transmitter site, as well as neighborhood
opposition.  If it doesn't finish building this time out, it may not
get another extension, since the FCC reminded the station that it's
cracking down on CPs that remain unbuilt.

And on the DTV front, New York's WNBC-TV (Channel 4) had its
application granted for WNBC-DT on Channel 28.

*On we move, to VERMONT, where WKDR (1390 Burlington) will start the
New Year preparing for new owners.  The news-talker had been operating
under an LMA with Burlington Broadcasters (WBTZ/WIZN), but when
Burlington declined to exercise their option to buy WKDR, owners Louie
Manno, Jim Condon, and Mark Johnson began offering the AM to other
buyers.  The winner - for a reported $475,000 - is Ken Squier's Radio
Vermont, which also owns WDEV (550 Waterbury/96.1 Warren), classical
WCVT (101.7 Stowe), and country WLVB (93.9 Morrisville).  It should be
a good fit, since both WKDR and WDEV are among the Green Mountain
State's top radio news operations.  WKDR continued a holiday tradition
this year by broadcasting the Radio Yule Log all day Christmas, by the
way.

A correction from last week: We mixed our "Wills" up and put WXPS
(96.7)'s new tower site and city of license in the wrong location.
It's Willsboro, New York, not Williston.  And while we're at it, we'll
note that WXNT (92.1 Port Henry NY) is not exactly a simulcast with
WSYB in Rutland, although they do share some programming.  

Remember WRUT, the 107.5 in West Rutland that Brian Dodge put on the
air without proper FCC approval a few years back?  It appeared in the
FCC's public notices again this week, as the Commission returned a
1993 application to modify its facilities for being "untimely."

*Does MASSACHUSETTS need another FM station in any of its markets,
especially Cape Cod?  We wouldn't think so (especially with that 102.3
in Truro that's still unbuilt), but it won't stop the FCC from
considering a proposal to allocate 104.3 to West Tisbury as a class A
allocation.  (That's on Martha's Vineyard, by the way).

A tower grows in Newton Upper Falls: American Tower Systems is
planning to put up a new, taller tower next to the "FM128" stick on
Chestnut Street next spring.  The new stick will be topped with a
candelabra and will carry antennas for several FM stations (including
the recently-moved WCRB) and DTV.

"Joe Boxer Radio" on 1580?  That's what you'll hear in the vicinity of
Boston's Kenmore Square, according to a billboard recently put up by
the underwear company.  A Part 15 transmitter serves up ads for boxer
shorts and other goodies to anyone in a radius of several blocks...

And a correction: Bev Tilden is Chancellor's vice president for
marketing.

*Up in MAINE, there are new calls on the way to AM 900 in Brunswick,
formerly WCME, WKXA, and most recently WCLZ (not that they ever
legally ID'd it on the AM side!)  As Fuller-Jeffrey takes over the
station, it'll become WJJB, which no doubt means a simulcast with
"Sports Radio WJAB," legally known as WJAE (1440 Westbrook), can't be
far off.

*A CONNECTICUT low-power TV station has been silenced by DTV, but
don't weep for WHTX-LP (Channel 10) in Hartford.  While the new DTV
signal of WTNH-DT takes over the channel, the programming from AIN and
A1 moves down the dial to co-owned W06BL, which becomes WMLD-LP.  Read
all about, should you wish, at <http://www.tv10hartford.com>.

The Pomfret School in Pomfret has had its application for 91.1 MHz
returned.

And while the WDRC/WWCO/WSNG/WMMW "quadcast" has been running nothing
but Christmas tunes since Monday, it's not a sign of impending format
change; we're told the usual adult standards will return to the
airwaves on Monday next.

*Just a few days later, we'll all welcome in 1999, and we here at NERW
really want to hear how many stations do it with the help of the
Artist Formerly Known as Prince.  If you're at home on New Year's
Eve, we'd love to hear tape of your local stations at
midnight...whether it's Prince's "1999" playing or something else
entirely!  We'll summarize some of the results early in January, so
get those tape decks rolling...

*That's it for this week's news -- so we'll move on to the Year in
Review:

What can we say about 1998 in Northeast broadcasting?  It was the year
towers came crashing down, whether through ice, tornadoes, or
construction cranes...it was the year the FCC said it would get tough
on pirates, yet silenced almost none for good...it was the year
consolidation really hit home with format changes and layoffs...and it
was the year we all discovered how much fun could be had above 1600
kHz -- everywhere BUT the Northeast.

And since the old adage of "follow the money" is as true in
broadcasting as it is anywhere, we'll start off with a look at the
year in...

SALES: The monumental group deals of 1997 were far less common this
year, if for no other reason than that just about everything that
could be sold in 1997, was.  But the groups that focused on smaller
markets, like Pilot, Cumulus, and Citadel, still found room for
growth.  We said goodbye to some longtime group owners, including
Maine's Guy Gannett and Tryon-Seacoast, Curt Gowdy in Massachusetts,
Albany's Paul Bendat, and a little company called American Radio
Systems -- and hello to Entercom and the revived Infinity
Broadcasting.  Here's where the cash changed hands, month-by-month:

>January - Pilot Communications grows in Central New York with
WKRT/WIII Cortland, and becomes the dominant operator in northern
Maine with the $5.2 million purchase of WBPW, WQHR, WOZI, and WHRR.
Tim Martz uses the proceeds from selling those stations to buy WNCQ
and WZEA in northern New York.  Maine Broadcasting ends a long 
tradition of ownership in the Pine Tree State with the $115 million 
sale of WCSH-TV and WLBZ-TV to Gannett.  Sinclair sells Vermont's NBC
affiliates, WPTZ and WNNE, to Hicks, Muse's Sunrise Television for $72
million - and a group of radio stations, including Rochester's WBBF,
WBEE-FM, WQRV, and WKLX, to Entercom for $126.5 million.  Don Sandler 
sells WMSX (1410 Brockton MA) to Monte Bowen's Griot Communications 
for $410,000.

>FEBRUARY: Sinclair goes from seller to buyer, getting Sullivan's WUTV
and WUHF in Buffalo and Rochester.  Paxson buys upstate TV, too, in
this case the unbuilt CP for WAUP Syracuse.  Cumulus gets huge in
central Maine, picking up Tryon-Seacoast's WFAU, WABK, WKCG, WIGY, and
WCME.  Bruce James gets huge by northeast Vermont standards, adding
Northeast Kingdom Broadcasting's WSTJ/WNKV St. Johnsbury to his
cluster for $630,000.  And Boston University shells out $1.9 million
for WRCP in Providence.

>MARCH: A quieter month, with Fuller-Jeffrey spending $3.4 million for
WCLZ AM-FM in Maine, Sandab adding WOCN to its WQRC on Cape Cod for
$1.7 million, and Davis Radio selling WORC to the tastily-named
"Chowder Radio Group" in Worcester for $715,000.

>APRIL: CBS dominates the headlines, winning approval for its purchase
of American Radio Systems with an agreement to spin off most of ARS's
Boston group, leaving WRKO, WEEI, WNFT, WEGQ, and WAAF in search of a
new owner.  Capstar spins off its suburban New York group, with Long
Island's WBAB/WHFM, WBLI, and WGBB going to Cox for $48 million and
the upstate/Connecticut group of WFAS AM/FM, WAXB/WPUT and WRKI/WINE
going to Frank Washington for $15 million.  Less than a year after
entering Burlington with WEZF, Capstar adds WCPV and WXPS (and an LMA
for WEAV) for $5.25 million.  Further down the food chain, sales
included WFAD Middlebury VT (Kathryn Messner, $115,000); WNGN Hoosick
Falls NY (Auritaur); WNBZ/WSLK Saranac Lake NY (Saranac Lake Radio);
WSRO Marlboro MA (Alex Langer); WMBO Auburn NY (to Craig Fox from Salt
City, $103,000); and WCCM Lawrence MA (to Costa-Eagle from Curt Gowdy,
$400,000).

>MAY: Cumulus buys again, this time WKNE AM-FM in Keene NH for a
reported $6 million.  Robert and Shirley Wolf pick up WCFR AM-FM
Springfield VT to add to their station in Woodstock for $500,000.  And
Sinclair says it'll buy public TV WNEQ Buffalo for $33 million.

>JUNE: CBS stays in the headlines as it closes the ARS purchase on June
4.  Sinclair makes another public TV buy, offering $23 million for
WMHQ Schenectady.  Dame Media sells out to Clear Channel for $85
million, including WGY/WRVE/WHRL Schenectady-Albany and a 3 AM-3 FM
group in Utica.  The long bankruptcy saga of New Haven's WNHC ends
with a winning bid by WYBC of $775,000.

>JULY: Hicks, Muse begins streamlining its broadcast groups, merging
LIN into Chancellor and affecting New Haven's WTNH in the process.
Little FMs draw big money, with WQVR Southbridge MA bringing $2.375
million from Jeff Shapiro and WXLE Mechanicville-Albany drawing $2.6
million from Capstar.  WJKE Stillwater NY sells to TV news guy Ernie
Anastos for $900,000, dark WVIP Mt. Kisco NY is sold to nearby WGCH in
Greenwich for $675,000, Flack Broadcasting buys WLLG/WBRV in Lowville
and Boonville NY for $250,000, and Mariner finishes its collection of
Maine classical FMs with Jon LeVeen's WAVX Thomaston.

>AUGUST: You _can_ go home again, as Newburyport native Bob Fuller
proves by buying WNBP from Win Damon.  You can also spend obscene
amounts of money to instantly become a major player in Boston, as
Entercom proves by handing over $65 million (and a Tampa FM) to CBS
for WRKO, WEEI, WAAF, WEGQ, and WWTM.  Steve Silberberg spends
$500,000 for WWSR and WLFE up in St. Albans VT.  Keating Willcox
tightens his circle around Boston with the $380,000 purchase of WOON
in Woonsocket RI.  Jeff Shapiro keeps buying in central Massachusetts,
this time spending $850,000 on WCAT AM-FM Athol-Orange.  The other
half of the old WAVX-WBYA simulcast sells, as Moon Song pays $265,000
for WBYA Searsprt ME.  Big City sells its only AM station, WRKL New
City NY, to PolNet.  The big guys come out to play, too, with Capstar
merging into Chancellor in a deal valued at $4.1 billion, with a "b,"
and CBS announcing plans to spin off a minority stake in its radio and
billboard divisions under the old Infinity Broadcasting name.

>SEPTEMBER: Guy Gannett bows out of broadcasting, selling its TV group
(including WGME Portland, WGGB Springfield, and WOKR Rochester) to
Sinclair, which then spins WOKR to Ackerley.  CBS finishes selling the
old ARS properties with the $5 million sale of WNFT to Mega.  Buckley
adds a fourth station to its Connecticut standards network by paying
$630,000 for WMMW Meriden.  Rob Rudnick pays $602,800 to move from
running WNTN Newton to owning it.  Tim Martz adds to his border empire
with Jeff Shapiro's WNCQ Morrisville/WYSX Ogdensburg.  And Gramcam
donates Cape Cod's last commercial AM, WKPE Orleans, to UMass/Boston.

>OCTOBER: Nothing but big groups playing in the autumn leaves -- and
the biggest of all is Jacor's $4.4 billion purchase by Clear Channel.
Lowry Mays' group gets bigger yet by picking up WNNZ Westfield MA from
Curt and Cele Hahn.  Mega adds a second Boston station with the $4
million purchase of WBPS Dedham.  Albany Broadcasting adds WIZR/WSRD
Johnstown NY for $2.2 million, while Sinclair backs off its plans to
buy WMHQ amidst financial troubles.

>NOVEMBER: Disney/ABC lands a big fish in New York with plans to LMA
WQEW from the New York Times.  Wicks sells its broadcast group,
including the largest cluster in Binghamton, to Citadel for $77
million.  The Wolfs spin off WNBX Springfield VT to Spirit
Broadcasting.

>DECEMBER: Lowell Paxson sells stations?  Every once in a while, it
seems -- as he spins off WBPT Bridgeport CT to Cuchifritos
Communications for $22 million.  Bendat sells its Albany group (WABY
AM-FM, WKLI/WKBE) to Tele-Media of Eastern New York for $7.5 million.
Cumulus buys still more in Maine, paying Dudman $4 million for WEZQ
Bangor and WWMJ/WDEA Ellsworth.  Smaller deals include WESO
Southbridge ($175,000 to Evergreen - no relation to the old group by
the same name), WERI(AM) Westerly RI ($300,000 to become the latest
part of BU's public radio group), and WXQZ Canton NY to Tim Martz.

Some of the other trends making headlines this year (and oddly,
they're mostly the same ones as last year...):

CONSOLIDATION: This was the year the big groups sat down and began
digesting many of their acquisitions from the big mid-decade buying
sprees.  Some of the results: 

Simulcasting kept spreading within regional clusters, with Capstar
leading the way.  Manchester's WGIR reached out to the seacoast to
begin running its programming in Exeter and Rochester, and WGIR-FM did
the same with Portsmouth's WHEB-FM.  Smaller groups did it, too -- in
Maine with WCME and WKCG, in the New York suburbs with WINE and WPUT,
in Worcester County with WORC and WGFP, in Vermont with WMXR and
WCFR-FM, in northern New York with WYSX and WYUL, all over central
Connecticut with WDRC and its Buckley brethren, and all over coastal
Maine with WBQQ, WBQW, and WBQX.  Other groups kept programming their
stations individually -- but using formats shared with dozens of
co-owned stations around the country, like Jacor's "Mix" and "Kiss" in
Rochester and Chancellor/Capstar's "Jammin' Oldies" in New York and
Albany.  

Consolidation cost jobs, too, with an unusually high rate of turnover
at Capstar stations a recurring theme of NERW all summer.  Much of the
airstaff at WGIR-FM and WHEB-FM had turned over by year's end; ditto
WSRS and WTAG in Worcester (although Upton Bell, at least, landed on
his feet at WSRO/WRPT).  

The big-city groups ended 1998, in many cases, dealing with the
physical aspects of consolidation.  Boston's Greater Media group
vacated three different studio/office sites -- Prudential Tower,
Salada Tea Building, and 1200 Soldiers Field Road -- for a new home on
the "Media Row" of Morrissey Boulevard in Dorchester.  CBS made plans
to move WBMX from the ARS facility on Huntington Avenue to the former
WBOS/WSJZ studios next door to WBZ.  Entercom stayed tight at the old
ARS digs.  In Hartford, CBS announced a 1999 move that would take WTIC
AM-FM out of Hartford city limits for the first time in 75 years, to
the WZMX/WRCH offices in Farmington.  Rochester's CBS stations moved
within city limits, to an office building just a short walk from the
other two big groups in town.  And Sinclair was negotiating with
Buffalo officials to build a new waterfront studio for its 4 AMs, 2
FMs, and 2 TVs.

Public radio and children's radio weren't immune -- Boston's WBUR
added two Rhode Island AMs to its Cape Cod satellites, WUMB picked up
a Cape Cod AM, and Vermont Public Radio experimented with a second
service, while Radio Disney spread like wildfire after taking root in
Boston, adding outlets in Providence, Hartford, and at year's end, New
York City.

The losers in the consoldiation game, of course, were the quirky
little stations and their listeners, with gems like Albany's WXLE,
Rochester's WMAX/WMHX, the long-suffering WHIM in Rhode Island, and of
course WQEW in New York falling victim to the almighty dollar.

Which brings us to...

UNLICENSED RADIO: At this time last year, it looked like the FCC was
getting serious about shutting down the growing number of broadcasters
who decided they had something worth saying that wasn't being heard in
the corporate world.  Many of them, like Radio Free Allston and WDOA
in Worcester, were visited by the Commission in 1997.  But while those
visits continued in 1998, something started happening: the pirates
fought back, and refused in many cases to be silenced -- and it turned
out there wasn't much the government was willing to do to keep them
silent.

A few cases in point: In February, a group of Hispanic broadcasters in
New Haven began broadcasting on 104.5 as "La Nueva Radio Musical,"
reviving a format that disappeared in 1997 with the sale of WXCT in
Hamden.  The FCC visited in March, and again in April, and yet again
in May, but the station kept on chugging, fueled by a widely-signed
petition supporting its broadcasts and the slow progress of repeated
appeals to the repeated orders that it shut down.  An hour's drive
north, "Prayze 105" in Bloomfield was finally ordered closed by a
federal judge in September, almost two years after it began operating
as a commercial urban gospel outlet -- yet continued to transmit as it
appealed the order.  Others, like a Spanish-language 97.1 in Hartford
and numerous expanded-band foreign-language pirates in Worcester and
the Merrimack Valley, were never even visited by the FCC (although it
did shut down "WSCW" at Worcester State College, "I-97.3" in South
Portland, and a 6955 kHz shortwaver in Tewksbury).  But the lesson
many operators must have taken away from 1998 was, just keep
operating, claim victory (if need be, by citing reams of irrelevant
case law on barely-literate web pages), and wait out the slow progress
of legal LPFM -- about which, more in the year-end Rant.

THE WEATHER: The year's third big story kept hitting in one form or
another.  A January ice storm toppled towers from Bangor (WEZQ) to
Watertown (WTNY), left millions in the dark for weeks in the
St. Lawrence Valley, and created states of emergency in Quebec,
Ontario, and northern New York.  Tornadoes swept across upstate New
York in May, taking Binghamton's WIVT-TV off the air and levelling its
tower.  It wasn't the weather, but a construction crane installing the
STL tower next door at the new Greater Media studios, that punched a
hole in the roof of WLVI's Dorchester studios August 4, sending the
WB56 news crew over to Channel 5 to operate for a few days.  And the
winds of a Labor Day storm killed two people in Syracuse, while
toppling two towers at WNSS and silencing several other stations
briefly.

DIGITAL TV: The fourth big story of 1998, DTV became a reality this
fall for a handful of lucky viewers in Boston, New Haven, and New York
with the money to spend on a DTV set.  By year's end, Boston's
WCVB-DT, Marlborough's WHSH-DT, New Haven's WTNH-DT and New York's
WCBS-DT offered limited schedules of high-definition (or, in WHSH-DT's
case, digital multiplex) programming, with more stations set to follow
in 1999.  For the region's smaller markets, DTV remained mostly
wishful thinking, with stations not due to convert until 2001 or
later.

*Next week's NERW will wrap up the Year in Review, with a look at the
formats, call letters, and personalities that moved around in 1998,
the year's obituaries, and our editorial final thoughts on the year.
We'll see you later in the week!

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

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