NorthEast Radio Watch 3/5: We Will Never Make Fun of Boston Weather Again...

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

*What could we have been thinking when we laughed at Boston's little
nor'easter last week?  How soon we forget that winter's far from
finished up here in Rochester in March, as we dig out from more than
two feet of snow that fell in just a few hours Thursday morning.  Few
broadcast effects to report from this one; a quick scan of the dial
Thursday afternoon found nobody off the air, WHAM (1180) dumping out
of the satellite (Laura Schlesinger and Rush) to offer cancellations,
storm news, and local talk, and WRSB (1310 Canandaigua) simulcasting
former sister station WCGR (1550) instead of new sister station WASB
(1590 Brockport).  Was WASB(AM) on the air?  Beats us; we were out at
the eastern edge of the county, where WAUB in Auburn dominates the
channel.  WASB-FM (105.5) was indeed on the air, with the usual
unlistenable whistles and hum on the audio.  More snow's expected this
weekend...we can hardly wait.

*We'll kick off the rest of the week's news in central MAINE, where
the country format from WKCG (101.3 Augusta) moved on schedule Monday
morning (3/1) to WCTB (93.5 Fairfield) and WCME (96.7 Boothbay Harbor)
as "Kicks Country."  That much we expected...but check this out: This
one's a physical move as well, with WKCG's jocks moving from the
WABK/WFAU studio on Northern Ave. in Gardiner to the old WCTB digs
(and WTOS/WSKW/WHQO's) on Middle Rd. in Skowhegan.  As for WCTB's old
AC "River" format, Cumulus has moved it -- and its staff -- down to
Gardiner and the 101.3 signal, where it debuted Monday morning as
"Star 101."  Morning guy Mike Violette tells the Waterville "Central
Maine Morning Sentinel" that he found out about the change with just a
day's notice, when he returned from vacation.  He says co-host Eric
Leimbach will join him on 101.3 when he returns from sick leave.

But wait...there's more!  Cumulus says it plans to sell WHQO (107.9
Skowhegan), which simulcasts the sports format of WSKW (1160
Skowhegan), by year's end.  The "Score" may not vanish from FM,
though; market manager Tim Gatz says Cumulus has another FM in the
works to carry the format.  NERW suspects WIGY (97.5 Madison) is the
likely candidate.

Moving towards Portland, we hear WCLZ-FM (98.9 Brunswick) is
mainstreaming its format as Fuller-Jeffrey moves it into new Portland
studios, taking on more of a modern AC sound -- and maybe "modern" is
the wrong word, since we hear 'CLZ listeners now get Eagles tunes,
among others, on what used to be a AAA outlet.  The most recent
playlist on the WCLZ Web site <http://www.wclz.com> doesn't look to
have been updated since December.

Call changes without explanation (yet): In the last few days, Saga has
applied to change WPOR (1490 Portland) to WBAE, and Capstar to change
WXHT (95.3 York Center) to WUBB.  More on these next week as we hear
from our Portland and Seacoast readers...

*In MASSACHUSETTS, there's a new talk lineup at WRKO (680 Boston)
following the departure of the Two Chicks (with Chick Leslie Gold
saying that she chose to leave because she was doing "all the work"):
Tai moves from his old 10-1 spot to a four hour gig from 7-11 PM
nightly.  Filling that 11-1 spot have been substitute hosts, with Andy
Moes rumored to be getting the nod for the permanent job.

Out in Worcester, Heirwaves is selling WNEB (1230) to Great Commission
Broadcasting, the company that leases time on WJLT (1060 Natick) from
Alex Langer for its Christian contemporary "J-Light" format.
Heirwaves bought WNEB from Bob Bittner in late 1997 and has been
running its own CC format as "Solid Rock 1230" since then. NERW
will be unsurprised to see J-Light move completely to 1230 from 1060
before long, based on what we've been hearing about things in Langer's
studios.

For starters, we hear that FCC agents visited the Mt. Wayte Ave. site
in Framingham Tuesday morning, and WSRO (1470 Marlborough) was off the
air for several hours afterward.  Now that WSRO is being run as a
simulcast of Langer's WRPT (650 Ashland) from Mt. Wayte, was there no
way to control the WSRO transmitter?  

But that's just the beginning.  The word from inside Langer-land is
that the remaining employees at WRPT, WSRO, and WJLT have been cut
back to 20-hour workweeks and part-time status as Langer tries to
solve his financial problems.  The plan, apparently, was to take that
1060 signal, build the CP for increased day power at the Mt. Wayte
site (since the site Langer had hoped to use in Sudbury proved
unavailable), and create a local talker for greater Boston with
talents like Upton Bell (already at WSRO/WRPT) and Jerry Williams and
the legendary WMEX call letters (available since Dennis Jackson
dropped them last month at what's now WCLX Westport NY).  So far, so
good...but we also hear that the new owners at WKOX (1200 Framingham)
no longer plan to move the 1200 signal from the Mt. Wayte site when
that station increases power...and a diplex with high-powered signals
on both 1060 and 1200 would be prohibitively expensive.  And since
WKOX owns the Mt. Wayte site and towers, while WJLT/WSRO merely leases
them, guess who gets priority?  

NERW editorializes here: The state of suburban radio west of Boston is
pretty sorry these days, and certainly a far cry from the days when
WKOX, WSRO, and 1060 (as WGTR and WTTP) all offered lots of local news
and other content to serve this affluent area.  John Garabedian, where
have you gone?  (And could this be Keating Willcox' big chance to
close his suburban circle around Boston?)  This story has grabbed the
attention of the local daily (now the only daily source of local news
in the area!), and it's one we'll continue to follow closely in the
months to come.

(And no, we don't put ALL the blame on the station owners -- if the
nice folks in Wayland and Sudbury and Framingham and Hudson are
wondering why they can no longer hear any coverage of their local
selectmens' meetings on the radio, they might ask themselves why
they've repeatedly made it impossible to build any new towers in their
communities...)

A few other Bay State tidbits: 100.1 in Southbridge has officially
changed calls from WQVR to WWFX, swapping calls with the CP on 99.5 in
La Crosse, Florida (and we note in checking FCC records that the
database still lists WWFX as the calls on 104.7 in Belfast ME, even
though they changed years ago to WEBR and then WBFB!).  The new WWFX
is also being transferred from Jeff Shapiro to Jeffrey Wilks' "WBA"
company.  Wilks is half of the old Wilks-Schwartz Communications of
WSNE and WHYN fame...

And congratulations to WBMX (98.5 Boston) PD (and Infinity programming
VP) Greg Strassell, who's getting married to Meredith McEwen next
week.

*Ducking back into NEW HAMPSHIRE for a moment: WKBR (1250 Manchester)
has apparently added Tom Leykis to its sports format from 7-10
nightly.  The University of New Hampshire at Durham is testing a TIS
on 1610 kHz.  And we're hearing about a pirate playing reggae at 88.7
in Londonderry.

*New calls for a southern VERMONT radio station this week, as WVAY
(100.7 Wilmington) drops the calls it's had since it signed on in the
late eighties to become WMTT (we're guessing "The Mountain" to go
along with sister station WRSI Greenfield MA, "The River.")  The FCC
is also listing an ownership change for WMTT and W284AB in nearby
Jamaica, from Dynacom to Border Broadcasting -- but that's all within
Jeff Shapiro's corporate family, if we're not mistaken, and the
WRSI/WVAY website shows no changes for now.  A quick check of the
station's RealAudio feed (gotta love it...) has us listening to an ID
that plays up "18 years of musical diversity" on WRSI and then mumbles
"WMTT Wilmington" at the end...

Up north at Capstar's Burlington group, three staffers said goodbye
this week.  Operations manager Ken MacKenzie leaves WEZF, WCPV, and
WXPS/WEAV to become a consultant, WEZF morning man Jon Brooks goes
across town to Hall's oldies WKOL (105.1 Plattsburgh-Burlington), and
station manager Ken Barlow is heading down I-89 to Barre, to become GM
at WSNO (1450) and WORK (107.1).  

*This can pass for a RHODE ISLAND item, we guess: We hear WJYT (1320
Attleboro MA) has been off the air the last few days...

*A CONNECTICUT TV station is still getting a new owner, just not the
one originally announced.  Paxson will now sell WBPT (Channel 43) in
Bridgeport to Shop at Home, the original sale to Cuchifritos
Communications having fallen through.  NERW is registering editorial
disappointment on this one; it's not that we were that excited about
the plans for Spanish-language home shopping, but we were hoping to
have the chance to use the words "Cuchifritos Communications" more
often in print...

While we're in Bridgeport, WICC (600) and WEBE (107.9 Westport) are
still for sale, despite a report that ML Media Partners had sold the
FM for $60 million.  And congratulations to the folks at WEZN (99.9),
WTIC (1080 Hartford), and WBBF (98.9) in Rochester NY; they're all
among the 40 finalists for the NAB's Crystal Radio Award.  

*The top NEW YORK story this week comes from the Big Apple itself,
where WKTU (103.5 Lake Success) has fired morning man Hollywood
Hamilton, after Hamilton admitted he rigged a contest in order to give
his publicist and her husband a free trip to Cancun.  Hamilton's been
telling the trades that he never planned to hide anything and intended
to clear the whole thing with Chancellor management.  No replacement
yet, and Hamilton's weekly countdown show continues.

New calls for 105.1 in New York; this year's model is WTJM (for
"Jammin' Oldies"), replacing the WBIX that went with the "Big 105.1"
format.  It'll always be WRFM in our hearts, anyway...

There's a new PD at WTSX (96.7 Port Jervis); Angela Mason moves up
from middays and APD at "The Fox" to replace Scott Edwards, who's
going to sister station WNJO (94.5 Trenton NJ).

Up in Kingston, WGHQ (920) and WBPM (94.3) go to "WGHQ/WBPM, LLC" from
Historic Hudson Valley Radio.  

In Albany, the folks at WAJZ (96.3 Voorheesville) are crying foul over
Siena College's decision to drop modern rock and take WVCR (88.3
Loudonville) to 24-hour urban contemporary.  They point out that
WVCR's faculty advisor, Buzz Brindle, is also the PD at WXLE (104.5
Mechanicville), the "Jammin' Oldies" outlet that, like WAJZ, has been
fighting for the Albany urban audience since December.  Brindle's
telling local newspapers that the format change was proposed to Siena
way back in 1997, and what's more, WVCR was until recently the only
Albany station offering any urban programming at all.  

Up north, Tim Martz is adding a seventh station to his group, with the
acquisition of WMSA (1340 Massena) from Community Broadcasting.
Coincidentally, news director Paul Haggett leaves the station to join
the Massena Chamber of Commerce.  Martz is also reported to
be interested in the unbuilt 96.1 CP in Massena, currently held by
Syracuse engineer Sinan Mimaroglu.

In the Utica market, "WOW-FM" (WOWB 105.5 Little Falls/WOWZ 97.9
Whitesboro) is looking for a new PD.  J.P. Marks has resigned to look
for work outside the business.  His last day at the rhythmic CHR is
March 19.

The Department of Justice wants to review the Syracuse market in light
of Cox's plans to sell its cluster (WSYR, WHEN, WYYY, WBBS, WWHT) to
Clear Channel.  The group now bills about 42% of market revenue,
which, when added to Pilot's 28%, makes for more concentration than
Justice would like to see in a single market.  

Speaking of Syracuse, WRDS (102.1 Phoenix) has reportedly changed
positioners from "Cool 102" to "Power 102," but the urban format
stays, still mostly satellite.  And Syracuse Community Radio is
applying for 90.3 in Skaneateles, promising yet another round of
conflict with WRVO in Oswego, which holds the CP for WRVD Syracuse on
90.3 (and whose 50kw primary is on 89.9, the same frequency SCR has
obtained for two translators in Madison and Cortland counties).

Western New York?  WCJW (1140 Warsaw) holds a CP to go to 5000 watts
day, 2300 watts critical hours from its current 1000 watts daytime,
but now Lloyd Lane has also applied for a CP for 2500 watts day.  All
three CPs are from the current WCJW two-tower site on the hill east of
town.

In the Southern Tier, we're told Elmira listeners can once again hear
religion on 96.9 from Ridgebury PA.  The old WMKB is now WREQ and is
on the air with Christian contemporary music as "Q-96.9."

And in Canada this week, there are now commercials and live jocks on
Toronto's CISS (92.5 "Kiss").  We also hear Welland's CHOW (1470) will
make the move to 91.7 this summer, which may explain why we've been
hearing tourist-info CFLZ on its new 105.1 and not on its old 91.9, at
least when tuning in from Batavia.  An Ottawa reader confirms CFGO as
the new old calls on 1200 up there.

Last but not least, there are even more labor (er, labour) problems
ahead for the CBC.  The CEP (the union that represents engineers) has
been on strike for more than two weeks.  Today, more than 81% of the
CMG (the union that represents on-air talent) also voted to endorse a
strike.  If negotiations fail, a talent strike could be called within
a week or two, which would likely mean that even the meager diet of
new shows currently appearing on CBC radio and TV would be replaced by
reruns.  Many of the CBC's hosts have been openly supporting the CEP
on-air; we heard two of them this week talking about "CBC Radio One:
Glitches and More" (a parody of One's "News.  And More."  slogan) and
"CBC Radio Unplugged".

*If we can dig out from all the additional snow that's expected this
weekend, we'll see you next Friday with more NERW...

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

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