NorthEast Radio Watch 1/1: Standards Die, Standards Live, The Year in Review Continues

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

*Happy New Year, and welcome to the first NERW of 1999.  Before we get
down to the second half of our 1998 in Review, a quick scan of the
news from this holiday week...

*NEW YORK's WQEW shut down its standards format right on schedule at
midnight Dec. 27 with little fanfare.  After a rebroadcast of their
tribute to the late Nancy LaMott, WQEW closed things out with
"Stardust" and a one-minute message from Stan Martin, then dumped into
Radio Disney with a Randy Newman tune.  (Hanson, thankfully, didn't
play until later in the hour!)  The Disney automation crashed briefly
about 15 minutes later while trying to play the legal ID.

With Disney on 1560, Long Island's WGSM (740) was released from its
contract with the Mouse and promptly went to a simulcast of co-owned
standards station WHLI (1100 Hempstead).  The two are now claiming
"35,000 Watts" of power -- too bad the math doesn't really work that
way.

Meanwhile in MASSACHUSETTS, standards returned to the airwaves with
the surprise format change at WPLM (99.1/1390) in Plymouth that dumped
the smooth jazz of "Jazzy 99.1" for a female-oriented AC/standards blend
as "Easy 99.1."  The AM still splits from the simulcast in mornings
for business talk.  Also flipping to standards was WNBP (1450
Newburyport), which unveiled its new "Legends 1450" identity Christmas
day.

Up in MAINE, we're told WJJB (900 Brunswick) is simulcasting sister FM
WCLZ (98.9) for the moment.  And we hear that WAYD (105.5 Islesboro)
will be on the air by month's end as adult standards "The Bay,"
serving communities up and down the Maine coast from Camden north to
Mount Desert Island.  It's co-owned with WQSS (102.5 Camden) and will
operate from WQSS's facilities.

One gleaning from the FCC this week in NEW HAMPSHIRE: Saga has allowed
the CP for translator W243AH (96.5 Laconia) to expire and be deleted.
NERW can't help but wonder if this has anything at all to do with
Saga's 1997 purchase of WOXF (now WQLL) in the Manchester market, a
former competitor that just happens to operate on, yes, 96.5 MHz...

CONNECTICUT's first TV station marked its 50th anniversary six months
late, with an anniversary special this week.  If you missed it, WTNH
(Channel 8) and WTNH-DT (Channel 10) will rebroadcast it January 3 at
11:30 PM.

*Tonight we're gonna party like it's...1983 all over again?  That's
what the airwaves sounded like New Year's Eve, as stations that would
ordinarily never play the Artist formerly known as Prince gave "1999"
a spin to usher in the New Year.  Our Boston-area listeners heard the
Purple One on WEGQ, WJMN, WBCN, WXLO, and WMJX (which broke format in
a big way to play it!).  Rhode Island and southeastern Mass. heard it
on WRIU, WPRO-FM, WBRU, and WFHN at midnight.  WBMX, WROR, and WXKS-FM
all hit it a few minutes after midnight.  In northern New York,
Mike Roach reports hearing it in full on CKKL Ottawa and in part on
WYSX Ogdensburg -- but U2's "New Year's Day" was more popular, being
heard on Ottawa's CHEZ and CKQB and on Brockville's CHXL (and on
Boston's WBOS and WXRV, too.)  Here in Rochester, we caught it on WZNE
and WPXY.  Just after the New Year rang in, we also caught a new TV
spot for "The Nerve" (WNVE 95.1) promising a big expansion of the
station's playlist.  Formerly a straight-ahead modern rocker, the
Jacor station is adding 70s and 80s hard rock like AC/DC and Aerosmith
to its mix.  An attempt to inflict further damage on CBS rocker WCMF
(96.5)?  Sure sounds that way...

*A few quick corrections and clarifications and then we'll get on with
the Year in Review:

The sale of WKNE (103.7/1290 Keene NH) to Cumulus never became
reality; the stations are still owned by Richard Lightfoot.  And after
being sold to Hicks, Muse/Sunrise, WPTZ and WNNE were then sold again
in 1998, becoming part of a trade that sent them to Hearst/Argyle in
exchange for WDTN (Channel 2) in Dayton OH, which Hearst had to sell
in order to acquire nearby WLWT (Channel 5) in Cincinnati.  And with
that, let's kick off the month-by-month look at...

PROGRAMMING AND CALL CHANGES

>JANUARY: Maine's WXGL began the new year by rocking out as "Galaxy
95.5."  WHIM in Warwick RI flipped to Radio Disney.  WZBZ Plattsburgh
NY was silenced by the ice storm, but returned under new ownership
with the historic WDOT calls.  In Glens Falls NY, the WBZA calls and
talk format moved up the dial from 1230 to 1410 (ex-WSTL), with 1230
becoming all-sports WMML.  Rhode Island's WWKX/WAKX dumped "Kix" for
dance-oriented "Hot 106."

>FEBRUARY: New London's WNLC(AM) went dark (for good, as it would turn
out).  Brookfield CT's WINE went classic country, simulcasting WPUT
Brewster NY.  Jacor's Rochester stations did major flipping, with WVOR
becoming hot AC "Mix 100.5" on the 12th, and AAA WMHX/WMAX-FM becoming
soft AC "Sunny 106" and smooth jazz WRCD becoming CHR "Jam'n" just
after midnight on the 18th.  Attica NY's country WBTF became modern AC
WXOX ("The Spot"), Owego NY's WEBO became an AM modern rocker, and
Mount Kisco NY's WZZN flipped from classic rock to smooth jazz.  In
Boston, WXKS(AM) picked up business talk in the mornings.  New to the
airwaves were Sound of Life's WGKR Grand Gorge and WGWR Liberty, as
well as WFNX translator W267AI in Boston.

>MARCH: Jacor's Rochester stations got new calls, with "Sunny"
WMHX/WMAX-FM becoming WISY/WYSY, while "Jam'n" WRCD became WMAX-FM.
In Westerly RI, noncomm WBLQ signed on with rock.  Nashua's WSMN went
to local talk.  On Cape Cod, AC WJCO "The Coast" stunted with
all-Chumbawamba (remember THEM?) before becoming CHR "Star" WYST.
Plenty of call sign changes: WHIM to WDYZ ("Disney"), Providence's
WRCP to WRNI under its new BU ownership, Owego's WGRG to WLTB
("LiTe"), Binghamton's WMGC(TV) to WIVT, and on the shortwave side in
Maine, WVHA to WHRA in Scotts Corners and the new calls WBCQ for Allan
Weiner up in Monticello.

>APRIL: "The Valley's AM", WTSV Claremont NH/WNHV White River Junction
VT, flipped from satellite adult standards to satellite sports talk.
Cortland's WIII goes classic rock, Attleboro's WARA becomes
leased-time WJYT, Westport NY's WMEX goes from classical to rock,
Boston's WUMB and its satellites dump the Quiet Storm at night for a
blues-based mix of music, and WLWC(TV) New Bedford-Providence dumps
UPN for the WB.  In New York, WNSR becomes WBIX to match its "Big"
nickname.  Upstate, Rochester's WBBF calls move from AM to FM, to the
oldies outlet formerly known as WKLX (the AM side will become WEZO
when the calls officially switch in may).  In the Watertown market,
WLKC became oldies WOTT, and WTOR Youngstown-Lake Ontario began
testing on 770.  WKZS Auburn became WMWX as "Mix," the dark WNLC(AM)
changed calls to WWJY, WZEA Ogdensburg NY signed on with a CHR format,
and over in Toronto, the CBC signed on its CBLA (99.1) with a gala
ceremony at noon on the 19th -- although technical problems with
several FM relays meant that CBL (740) would get a reprieve until the
end of 1999.

>MAY: Boston's WNFT went from simulcasting WAAF to R&B oldies "Touch,"
the Seacoast's WXHT went modern rock-ish, Webster MA's WXXW went from
talk to oldies as "the Bus."  Several new stations sprouted in May:
Sound of Life's WHVP Hudson NY, Barry Lunderville's "Kiss" WXXS way up
in Lancaster NH, Winslow ME's WWWA with religion (moving from WMDR
Augusta, which went to a children's religion format), "Party Radio"
WXXP on Long Island, and WCRQ Dennysville ME.  In the New York market,
leased-time WNWK became "Caliente" WCAA and WJDM's 1660 outlet became
WBAH, "Radio Unica."  Call changes: WRDM Bloomfield CT to WDZK
"Disney," and the CP for WAUP Syracuse to a Pax-compliant WSPX.
Silent this month: WIGS Gouverneur NY, for good.

>JUNE: A bankruptcy court silences WNHC New Haven temporarily.  Up in
St. Johnsbury VT, WNKV becomes WKXH, "Kix" with hot country.  Down the
river a bit, WCFR-FM Springfield starts simulcasting WMXR Woodstock.
The "Y107" trimulcast around New York city becomes a quad-cast, as
WRNJ-FM Belvidere NJ gets assimilated as WWYY (107.1).

>JULY: WZEA in Ogdensburg NY switches to its permanent format as "Yes
FM," hot AC WYSX.  WPKM Scarborough ME becomes another "W-Bach"
outlet, WBQW.  Ithaca's WTKO swaps sports for oldies.  WCME in Maine
simulcasts newly co-owned WKCG Augusta.  Call changes: WNGN Hoosick
Falls NY to WZEC, in preparation for the (still yet-to-happen)
simulcast with WBEC-FM Pittsfield MA.  The WNGN calls drop down the
dial to WNGX Argyle on 91.9.  New to the air: Country WBBI Endwell NY,
in the Binghamton market.  Gone: CKLY Lindsay ON on 910 (moved to FM),
and the never-built CP for WGKP Rensselaerville NY.

>AUGUST: Hartford's WHCN goes to hard rock.  Fire-damaged WVIP in
Mount Kisco NY comes back to life as a partial simulcast of WGCH in
Greenwich CT.  WGFP Webster begins simulcasting with WORC in
Worcester, while WGMF Watkins Glen NY switches its simulcast from
WNGZ-FM to WWLZ Horseheads NY.  New to the air: Sound of Life's WHVP
Hudson NY, Allan Weiner's WBCQ shortwave, and the Pax TV network, on
the 31st.

>SEPTEMBER: WNHC returns to the air on the 15th under WYBC's ownership
(and, a few weeks later, the WYBC(AM) calls) with a diverse format.
In tiny Cobleskill NY, standards WLAL becomes talk WXBH.  Bangor's
WWBX starts calling itself "Mix 97.1."  In New Hampshire, standards
WZNN Rochester and WMYF Exeter become WGIN and WGIP, relaying the
news-talk programming of WGIR Manchester.  WCFR(AM) Springfield VT
becomes business talk.  WYUL Chateaugay NY stops stunting after more
than a year and starts simulcasting WYSX Ogdensburg, and WRND
Manchester NH returns to the air simulcasting WEVO to keep the license
alive.  WNDS Derry NH relaunches nightly news (with legendary weather
guy Al Kaprielian) on the 28th.  Plenty of call changes: WXXW Webster
to WORC-FM, WIPX(TV) Bridgeport to WBPT-TV, WNPE-TV Watertown to
WPBS-TV, and yet-unbuilt WBDJ(TV) Waterville ME to WMPX-TV.

>OCTOBER: Hartford's WZMX broadens its classic rock format as "The
Point."  Jerry Williams does his last show for WRKO as the station
goes to Entercom ownership.  Up in Thomaston ME, WAVX joins the
"W-Bach" family as WBQX.  In New York, Stillwater's WJKE "The Jockey"
stays AC but becomes WQAR "Star."  Canandaigua's WCGR (1310) gets
leased to WASB in Brockport, going religious as WRSB.  The WCGR calls
return to their old home at the 1550 daytimer in Canandaigua, formerly
WLKA.  The oldies format on WDLC Port Jervis NY moves to the FM side
on WTSX, with WDLC going to satellite adult standards.

>NOVEMBER: Watertown NY's WCIZ moves from 93.5 to 93.3 with an
improved signal.  WMMW Meriden CT joins the WDRC(AM) standards
quasi-simulcast through the modern miracle of voice-tracking.  Ray
Flynn, former Boston mayor and Vatican ambassador, becomes a weekend
WRKO talk host.  Albany's WXLE dumps AAA for AC as "Magic" - briefly.
Call changes: WNDR Mexico NY to WVOQ, WMBO Auburn NY to WKGJ, WCFR
Springfield VT to heritage call WNBX, WKXE White River Junction VT to
WWSH-FM, and unbuilt CP WAQF Batavia to Pax-proper WPXJ-TV.  New to
the air: Sound of Life's WSSK Saratoga Springs and Syracuse Pax outlet
WSPX on the 24th.  Gone for good: WWJY, ex-WNLC, New London CT.

>DECEMBER: Jacor flips things in Rochester again, turning "Jam'n" into
"Kiss" at 5PM on the 7th, on both WMAX-FM 107.3 and ex-Sunny WYSY
106.7, which slipped unannounced into a "Jam'n" simulcast on
Nov. 25th.  Sunny remains on WISY 102.3, which keeps calling itself
"Sunny 106" for a full week after Thanksgiving until the new "Sunny
102" voicetracks are ready.  In Vermont, WXPS dumps sports talk for
hot country as "Kix" and changes COL to Willsboro NY (simulcast WEAV
Plattsburgh changes format as well).  The "VPR World Channel" makes a
debut as an interim format on WWPV Colchester VT.  In New York,
"Jammin' Oldies" takes over from "Big" on WBIX 105.1 -- and from
"Magic" on Albany's WXLE a few weeks later.  More urban sounds enter
Albany at month's end, as country WPTR-FM goes to hip-hop "Jams."
American popular standards are replaced by Radio Disney at WQEW New
York, but Radio Disney is replaced by standards at WGSM Huntingtoon.
Standards also return to WPLM Plymouth, WNBP Newburyport, and WMYF
(ex-WTMN) in Portsmouth NH, which dumps sports talk on 1380.
Pat Monteith adds another station to her WUMB empire, as WKPE(AM)
Orleans is donated and becomes WFPB(AM).  Call changes: WADN Concord
MA to WBNW, WMNM Port Henry NY to WXNT, WWXY Briarcliff Manor NY to
legendary WYNY, and WCLZ(AM) Brunswick ME to WJJB.  New on the air: 
WASB-FM Brockport NY on the 13th and WXXE Fenner NY on the 21st.

*PASSINGS: Among those who once toiled in the business, this year we
mourned:

IAN TAYLOR, veteran New Hampshire jock (12/31/98)
BERNARD SILVA, aka "MARK WILLIAMS", ex-WSRS/WTAG, WLLH, WKOX (1/26)
GORDON SWAN, longtime WBZ general manager, 92 (3/1)
FRED FRIENDLY, R.I. native and Ed Murrow's CBS producer, 82 (March)
DANNY LENNON, former WFAN (Stonington CT) and WASY owner, 49 (3/2)
T.J. MARTIN, former WAVZ morning jock (and WMEX, 1969-70) (3/8)
THOMAS O'NEIL, former RKO General chairman, 82 (3/14)
BERNIE MELTZER, longtime WOR talk host, 81 (April)
DANNY FUSCO, former WBVM Utica owner and WUTQ morning man, 76 (April)
CARL DeSUZE, legendary WBZ morning personality, 83 (4/29)
VICTOR BEST, TV anchor for WBZ and WIHS Boston, 79 (4/5)
CHARLIE HALLINAN, Binghamton radio engineer (4/22)
MIKE VENDITTI, New Jersey radio engineer (4/27)
MARTIN STONE, WVIP founder, 83 (June)
JOHN MASTERS (BURGOMASTER), WRKO news veteran (June)
"BUFFALO" BOB SMITH, Howdy Doody host and Maine radio owner, 80 (7/30)
MUTUAL RADIO NEWS, once-great news network, 60-ish (8/31, survived 
  as a ghost of its former self produced by CBS)
AL PELLEGRINO, former GM of WPOP/WIOF and WKCI, 66 (11/5)
DONN TIBBETTS, New Hampshire radio veteran, 67 (11/27)

*MY THANKS to each and every one of you who's tuned in this year with
a bit of news, gossip, a correction, a question, or a piece of
history.  NERW exists every week because of all of you, faithfully
flipping the dials everywhere from the Canadian Maritimes to Buffalo
and far beyond.  Special thanks to all of you who met up with us face
to face at club conventions, on NERW road trips, and at the NERW Lunch
in Connecticut last October.  Very special thanks, of course, go to
two people without whom this column could not exist.  GARRETT WOLLMAN
is the technical brains behind NERW, providing server space, HTML
coding, maintaining the entire Boston and Upstate New York Radio
Archives, and catching (at least some) dumb mistakes before they see
the light of e-mail.  LISA FYBUSH, aka "Mrs. NERW," continues to
patiently tolerate "five-minute" detours to tower sites that
inevitably end up taking an hour to reach on dirt paths, not to
mention a home filled with airchecks and other paraphernalia.  My
profound gratitude to both...and here's to a great New Year to you all!

*AND FINALLY...the NERW Year-End Rant.  (Opinions expressed herein are
only those of the author and not necessarily those of MIT, Software
Tool & Die, Time Warner, or Bill Kennard...)

When the year 2028 rolls around, will anybody be actively seeking
airchecks of radio in 1998?  Somehow, I doubt it.  For years, radio
people have complained loudly that it's getting too corporate, too
sterile -- but this year, somehow, it really started sounding that
way.  Need proof?  As I sit here writing this, I'm listening to an
aircheck of WVMX, Cincinnati, Jacor's "Mix 94.1."  I could easily flip
from tape to radio and listen to WVOR Rochester, Jacor's "Mix 100.5,"
and hear the same format, same liners, same everything.  (And were I
to hop in the car, I could tune in "Mix" as I drove through
Youngstown, Cleveland, Sandusky, Lima, and Dayton as well.)  

But corporate cookie-cutter radio is a symptom of the problem, not the
disease itself.  The problem lies with the state of broadcast
regulation at the end of the decade.  Here's my simple proposal to fix
eveything (humble, huh?):

1. Freeze all new translator applications.  The translator service was
once a tiny part of the FM broadcast industry -- until the FCC changed
the rules to allow noncommercial stations to feed translators by
satellite.  The idea was to let public radio stations out West provide
service to remote areas.   The reality was far uglier: "noncommercial"
religious operators in places like Twin Falls and Pensacola discovered
a nice little loophole to get their programming into hundreds of
markets around the country without requiring -- in fact, in a way that
explicity FORBADE -- a bit of local presence.  No ownership limits,
either.  The result has been an FM band increasingly cluttered with
translators, sometimes blatantly interfering with useful local
services.  Just look at poor WPKN in Bridgeport, which has been
fighting a losing battle against a translator just down I-95 in Port
Chester NY, relaying a station in Abilene, Texas on a first-adjacent
channel.  Aren't translators supposed to be a SECONDARY service?  We
thought so, too.  

Let's be explicit here: This is not a tirade against religious
broadcasting.  There are plenty of religious broadcasters who do a
fine job of serving their communities, and in some cases, entire
regions (like Sound of Life in the Hudson Valley or Family Life in
upstate New York.)  This is about that oft-forgotten phrase "public
interest, convenience, and necessity" -- remember it?  Absent some
evidence that a station imported from the other end of the country
will serve some local purpose, the limited space on the FM band ought
to be reserved for local broadcasters...which brings us to:

2. 1999 - The Year of LPFM: The current FCC is the first to show
active interest in making legal LPFM a reality, which is bound to make
for an interesting year at the Portals.  The proposals on the table
range from the status quo of no LPFM all the way to what amounts to a
recreation of the old (3 kilowatt) class A service.  What's
reasonable?  A successful LPFM service needs to balance an opening of
the airwaves to additional voices against the physical reality of a
limited FM dial.  

Let's start with the "additional voices" part.  Remember Docket 80-90?
What was supposed to be a chance to open broadcast ownership to many
new players turned into a chance for existing owners to buy out
competition and grow from 1 AM/1 FM to up to eight stations in a
market.  We can thank a deregulatory FCC for this "gift."  It wasn't
just the simple expansion of ownership limits, but an increasingly
liberal definition of "city of license."  Just a quarter-century ago,
Rochester's FM dial consisted almost exclusively of stations licensed
to, logically enough, Rochester.  A scan of today's dial will turn up:
Avon, Brighton, Honeoye Falls, Palmyra, Canandaigua, Webster, Sodus,
Brockport, and Irondequoit, just to name the stronger signals.  Where
are the studios for all these stations?  Rochester, Rochester,
Rochester, Farmington, Rochester (with a token "main studio" in
Bloomfield), Penfield, Newark, Brockport, and Rochester.  It doesn't
take a genius to see that none of these stations is aimed
predominately at listeners in its alleged "city of license" -- yet we
persist with an allocation system that turns a blind eye to this
reality.  Check out the August 27 NERW and the link to the FCC
decision on WNVE and WMAX-FM to see what I mean.  So what does all
this have to do with "diversity of voices?"  The successful clusters
work by consolidating as many station operations in one facility as
possible, thus allowing less-successful and less-powerful stations to
draw on the resources of the bigger stations.  Force a station like,
say, the 93.3 A in Avon to stand on its own -- with a real main studio
and offices actually located IN Livingston County, and a serious news
and public affairs presence devoted to Livingston County, and it could
never survive.  And if this leaves you saying, "There are too many new
FMs being authorized out there, with no good reason for being other
than an available spot on the dial, and no good way to survive other
than being bought out by a big group and operated as a rim-shot to a
larger city nearby," then I've just made my point.  

The solution?  It's too late to turn things back and force true local
origination for these little satellite rimshotters, but it's not too
late to fix the city of license problem by allowing a one-time-only
chance for rimshotters to move into a "metro" market where technically
possible.  After that, though, no more new allocations unless those
stations agree to meet the old-fashioned main studio and public
service requirements, ascertainment boards and all.  Think that might
stop the spread of 80-90 rimshotters dead?  Me too.

THAT, in turn, opens a door for LPFM -- because while a commercial
class A station can never afford to focus its energies solely on, say,
Avon NY (pop. 6283), a non-profit 100-watter just might.  

That's the "diversity of voices" part.  The physics part brings me
around to my starting point with those pesky satellite-fed
translators.  With only 100 FM channels to draw from, the band is
getting awfully crowded, not just in big cities, but out in the sticks
as well.  Long-distance FM reception used to be a normal thing; your
editor grew up listening to Buffalo and Syracuse stations as often (if
not more so) than Rochester.  Try doing that now, and all you'll get
is adjacent-channel splatter from 80-90 allocations shoehorned to
within an inch of their lives...not that it matters, because there's
nothing distinctive to hear from Buffalo or Syracuse anyway.  For an
LPFM service to have space on the dial, something's got to give.
What's it going to be?  Seems to me that the noncomm satellite
translators are not only filling exactly the sort of niches on the
dial that LPFM could use -- but they're secondary services that COULD
be bumped if the FCC had the courage.  Say it with me now..."public
interest, convenience, and necessity."  Behind transmitter shack A: A
satellite dish pulling down programming from Pensacola, Abilene, or
Twin Falls.  Behind transmitter shack B: Local folks -- maybe not very
slick, maybe not on the air 24/7 every day, maybe playing something
completely bizarre, but local.  Which one fits the letter of the FCC's
mandate better?  I know where I stand on this one.

There's one problem with this solution, of course, and it's bound to
be the biggest problem in making LPFM a viable reality -- the "not on
the air 24/7 every day" versus the scarcity of available channels.
Except in the most outlying of areas (and these days, you'd need to go
to an unnamed township in northern Maine), there's no way everyone who
wants to get an LPFM on the air will be able to have their own
frequency all day long.  Somehow, the FCC will have to divvy up the
available resources, whether through time-sharing or through power
reduction, to get everyone to fit.  I hear the free-marketers calling
from the cheap seats in the rear, "Auction 'em off!", but that seems
antithetical to the concept of a nonprofit community service.  How
about this, instead: Require applicants to demonstrate financial
ability to operate the station and to offer programming and staffing
plans.  Award the license, or time-shared portions of licenses, to
applicants whose plans are best able to provide quality local
programming to their chosen community.  Sound radical?  It's what the
FCC used to do way back when.  Which brings me to part 3 of my wish
for 1999:

3. Enforcement: Remember when the FCC had teeth?  When DJs with their
"third phones" took transmitter readings and lived in fear that an FCC
inspector would knock on the door for a surprise visit?  Assuming
today's FCC inspector could even find a station that's moved three
times in three years under three owners (hey, while I'm ranting - how
about reinstating an anti-trafficking rule, too?), he'd be likely to
find an empty studio with a PC playing voicetracks or dropping IDs
into a satellite feed and not a human in sight.  That scenario, of
course, assumes you can find an FCC inspector who's still employed.
For LPFM to work -- and for broadcasting to remain a quality service
in any form -- the FCC needs to be given the resources by Congress to
do its work properly.

That means regular inspections, both scheduled and surprise, to make
sure stations are operating at proper power levels, reducing power and
changing pattern at sundown, not throwing out spurs on other
frequencies, maintaining their tower and studio facilities, and IDing
legally.  It also means coming down hard on violators -- and by hard,
I mean license revocation without appeal for repeat offenders.  Sound
harsh?  Hey, a license is a privilege.  The rules aren't that hard to
understand.  Can't follow them?  The consequences will be made very
clear...and the result will be a little less clutter on the dial.

For LPFMs, such inspection will be particularly critical, since the
FCC would (in my dream world) be enforcing time-shares and the like
among operators who might not be terribly inclined to cooperate.  The
result of lax enforcement of local ownership requirements, transfer of
control, and failure to observe time limits will be chaos on the dial,
and one need only look at radio circa 1926 to see what THAT was like.

It might even take more than money -- it might require splitting the
Mass Media Bureau of the FCC away from the rest of the agency,
allowing the commissioners to focus on broadcasting to the exclusion
of telephony, datacasting, cable, and other unrelated areas.  (I'll
admit to some hypocrisy here: I wouldn't be above using some of the
licensing fees from ridiculously profitable areas like cellular phones
to fund my Mass Media FCC...)

The goal, in short, is to get rid of...

4. Sloppy radio: Take a spin across your local dial some weekend.
Odds are you won't have to tune too far to find any one of these:

*A station running a satellite talk show or music format with nary a
local ID, even at the hour.

*A station running a satellite talk show or music format with local
IDs running so far down in the mix they can't be heard.

*A station running a satellite talk show or music format with IDs
playing randomly in the middle of the programming.

*A station with no local spot load at all.

*A station that's been through three different calls and formats in
the past 12 months, with no promotion to alert the community to any of
them.

*A station running nothing but "CBS Radio Networks, Channel 43 -- beep
- -- CBS Radio Networks, Channel 43 -- beep" for hours at a time.

*A station that's been in dead air for hours.

You're probably laughing by now, but the aircheck cabinet here at
NERW Central has tape of all of the above, in multiple examples.  

This wouldn't have happened 20 years ago, and I think the reason, in
large part, is consolidation.  A station with a local owner is likely
to have that owner monitoring the station for a good chunk of the
day.  A station group that consists of only one or two stations can't
allow either station to fail.  In a group of 400 stations, eight to a
market, it is inevitable that some stations will fall by the wayside
(except in the very largest markets, where even the smallest stations
are worth too much to be allowed to slide downhill).  

What message do listeners take home from stations that sound just
plain lousy on the air?  For starters, even if they enjoy the
uninterrupted music, they can't enter the station in their Arbitron
books if you don't tell them who you are.  Beyond that, listeners will
lose respect for radio that sounds lousy on the air.  And the last
thing radio needs right now is for listeners to lose even more
respect for it.  This is not a problem the FCC can be expected to fix, 
even in the most pro-regulatory culture imaginable.

And that's where I'll close my year-end rant.  Whether you're just
starting out in high school or college radio, or putting on the first
licensed LPFM (and it WILL happen, although surely not in the way I've
envisioned, because the FCC's just not thinking that way these days),
or running an 80-90 drop-in with a mostly-automated format in a small
town, or programming a 50 kilowatt blowtorch in a major market, make
quality radio in 1999.  Treat every station you own as an important
broadcast voice, spend money to promote it properly (on and off the
air), make every effort to train the up-and-coming broadcasters who
will one day be YOUR station's future, play by the FCC rules (all of
them, all the time, as they're written), don't skimp on engineering
budgets, connect with your community, and HAVE FUN doing it.

Look at the stations that do -- they may not all be pulling 40% profit
shares for the boss in New York or Cincinnati, but they're making a
profit and giving something back to their communities in the process.
Be one of those stations in 1999 -- so that 30 years from now, some
young aircheck collector just might be begging for a dub of your
station "back in the good old days."

Happy New Year, everybody.

- -=Scott Fybush - NorthEast Radio Watch - (c) 1999=-

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End of boston-radio-interest-digest V2 #274
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