NorthEast Radio Watch 11/19: TV Duopoly Arrives

[Scott D Fybush <fybush@world.std.com>]

*Let the duopoly races begin!  The new TV duopoly rules allow for a
minimum of eight TV owners in a market, and it seems broadcasters are
ready to move with breakneck speed to reach that limit.  Most upstate
NEW YORK markets don't have enough stations to allow for duopoly, with
one big exception.  Buffalo has nine TV voices, which was all the
opening Granite Broadcasting needed to make a $23 million offer for
WNGS (Channel 67) in Springville, the little UPN affiliate that signed
on just three years ago.  

Owners Bill Smith and Caroline Powley paid just $3,000 in fees for the
license, and just over $2 million to build the station's minimal
facilities on a Cattaraugus County hilltop, leaving them with a very
tidy profit for their work.  For Granite, buying channel 67 provides a
second voice for top-rated ABC affiliate WKBW-TV (Channel 7),
including an outlet for a 10 PM newscast, which would be Buffalo's
first.  Still to be determined is a possible technical upgrade for
WNGS, which now runs just enough power to reach a receive site south
of Buffalo that feeds the area cable systems.  WNGS has had a CP to go
full-power from a new tower just south of WKBW's Colden facility;
could it now share the channel 7 stick instead?

The sale of WNGS doesn't prevent public broadcaster WNED from finding
another buyer for WNEQ-TV (Channel 23); since it's already part of a
duopoly, channel 23 doesn't count as a separate voice by the FCC's
count.  Sinclair dropped its $33 million bid for WNEQ earlier this
year.

Also in Buffalo, we hear WHLD (1270 Niagara Falls) has relocated from
its Grand Island studio/transmitter site to 225 Delaware Avenue in
Buffalo.  A quick drive past the building after Friday night's
Springsteen concert (BRUUUUUUUUCE!) found plenty of nightclub activity
on the first floor (the building is on the corner of the Chippewa
St. entertainment district), but no conclusive signs of a radio
station upstairs.

Elsewhere in the Empire State, UPN programming now has another outlet
in Rochester.  WBGT-LP (Channel 40) has added a second transmitter,
W26BZ, at the Baker Hill site in Perinton.  NERW was hoping for a
better signal at our east side location, but (at least here in the
shadow of Pinnacle Hill), 26 looks even worse than 40!  We'll keep
waiting...

Syracuse Community Radio scored one win this week, as the FCC granted
the 90.5 Skaneateles translator SCR wanted for its WXXE (90.5 Fenner),
over the objections of several local public broadcasters.  New calls:
W213BB.  Speaking of Syracuse, Steve Medicis' excellent dial pages
have relocated.  You can now find them at
<http://cnymusic.com/broadcast>.

Up in Watertown, W66CH has new calls as well: WLOT-LP.  This UPN
affiliate calls itself "PS66" on air.  Continuing northward, there's a
new addition to the "Radio Lake Placid" family, as WIPS (1250
Ticonderoga) joins WIRD (920) and WLPW (105.5) in Lake Placid and WRGR
(102.3) in Tupper Lake.  We've spent the afternoon listening to the
Webcast at <http://radiolakeplacid.com>, complete with CBS network
audio popping up over the music, and with not quite enough time at the
top of each hour for all those legals before the news hits.  

Moving back downstate, WRNQ (92.1 Poughkeepsie) has been granted its
big move: up to the towers on the hills west of the Hudson, running
520 watts from 314 meters and a directional antenna.  Continuing
south into Westchester County, we note a call change for Mount Kisco's
WZZN (106.3), which becomes WFAF.  NERW's sources down that way tell
us the plan is to simulcast AC WFAS-FM (103.9 White Plains) -- shades 
of the "Westchester's Superstation" days when 106.3 simulcast with
Patterson's 105.5?

*Across the border into CONNECTICUT we go, though the only news of
note here is a planned DX test by Milford's WFIF.  Listen for the 1500
daytimer to test on Sunday, Jan. 9, 2000, from 12:30-12:45 AM.

Late news from Fairfield County: WEBE (107.9 Westport) has declined to
renew the contract of morning man Chris Evans, whose last show was
Friday.  Evans, a veteran of WKCI, WHYT Detroit, and WBUF Buffalo,
will stay in the area running his import business, we're told.

*One RHODE ISLAND development of note: WBUR's Rhode Island affiliate,
WRNI (1290 Providence), has applied for 91.3 in Wakefield.  Unless
they've worked out some kind of deal, this would conflict in a big
way with Providence College's WDOM (91.3 Providence) and its 120-watt
signal.  Hmmmm....

*The big development in MASSACHUSETTS is the start of testing on WMEX
(1060 Natick)'s new 40-kilowatt day signal, as confirmed to NERW by
Alex Langer himself.  Langer says the actual start of programming with
the new signal is likely to be sometime in January, giving him the
holidays to work out the kinks in the triplex with WKOX (1200
Framingham) and WJLT (650 Ashland).  

Bloomberg's morning show has migrated from WXKS (1430 Everett) to WBNW
(1120 Concord) and WPLM (1390 Plymouth), replacing the local business
show there.  WXKS returns to satellite standards in morning drive.

North of Boston, we hear WBOQ (104.9 Gloucester) is adding some
nighttime jazz to its classical format, while south of town WBOT (97.7
Brockton) has gone truly silent, with even the dead carrier
disappearing.  Wonder what's taking Radio One so long?

Out west, WARE (1250 Ware) still hasn't finished flipping formats to
Spanish tropical, with dead air and the former oldies format still
sharing time on the frequency at last account.  Meantime, WPVQ (93.9
Turners Falls) has been granted a transmitter move to the WHAI-FM
(98.3 Greenfield) site in Bernardston, accompanied by a power boost
from 2500 to 4300 watts.  (Nice going, Bob!)

*Jay Gadon is leaving his post as sales manager at WSYB (1380) and
WZRT (97.1) in Rutland, VERMONT, to go into business for himself.
Best of luck to him in his new career!

*Nothing doing in NEW HAMPSHIRE...but there's plenty in MAINE, where
Harron Communications will spend $11.8 million to buy the last
locally-owned radio group in the Portland/Lewiston-Auburn area.
Arnold Lerner's Wireless Talking Machine Company owns standards
trimulcast WLAM (870 Auburn)/WLAM-FM (106.7 North Windham)/WZOU (1470
Lewiston), country WTHT (107.5 Lewiston), and AC WMWX (99.9 Auburn).
Harron owns WMTW-TV (Channel 8) in Poland Spring; combining the TV and
radio properties will make it a much more potent force against the
market's TV operators (Gannett and Sinclair) and radio clusters
(Citadel and Saga).  

Happy 75th anniversary to Bangor's WABI (910), which marked the
occasion Friday (11/19) with the help of veteran morning man George
Hale and a special tribute on former sister station WABI-TV (Channel
5).

Also, Maine's newest public radio station now has call letters.  WMEP
will be the ID for MPBC's 90.5 in Camden.

*A new set of calls in CANADA's largest city: Toronto's Talk 640
switches from CHOG, a vestige of a long-forgotten rock format, to
"CFYI," though you'll only hear the calls mentioned on rare occasions.

We also hear the new call on Montreal's 940 will be "CKNN," a
reference to the CNN affiliation that will be running on the frequency
beginning Wednesday morning, when it replaces CIQC (600).  NERW won't
be traveling to Montreal for this one, alas...anybody planning to run
tape?

Out in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia, CIGO (1410) has won CRTC
permission to switch to 101.5 FM with 19 kilowatts.

*Around the fringes: We see Buffalo's old WLCE callsign popping up in
Philadelphia, as WYXR (104.5) dumps "Star" for "Alice."  On the other
end of the state, Clear Channel is swapping calls in New Castle, north
of Pittsburgh, as WBZY's talk format moves to 1280 from 1200, while
WKST's oldies go from 1280 to 1200.  Clear Channel's also swapping
calls and formats in the Youngstown market, where the WRTK calls that
were once in Rochester move from 1390 to 1540 in Niles, Ohio, while
the WNIO calls from Niles move to Youngstown and 1390.  Confused yet?
Reclaim your sanity by checking out the latest addition to Jim
Hawkins' excellent "Radio Room"
<http://www.exit109.com/~jimh/wsai.shtml>, in which Jim gets inside
the transmitter of Cincinnati's WSAI (1530).  It's well worth the
visit!

One more late-breaking DX note: X-band fans out there may want to
check out 1660 kHz Saturday night (11/20) after midnight ET for a
four-hour DX test from WMIB (1660) from Marco Island, Florida.  Word
has it they'll be playing '60s music with the full 10-kilowatt daytime
power.

*Which brings us to the second portion of our travelogue from the
Seattle/Vancouver/Victoria trip, in which we head north from Seattle
to British Columbia...

First, though, we stopped for the night in Bellingham, about 90
minutes north of Seattle.  All five commercial stations in town are
now under common ownership -- news-talk KGMI (790), country KIXT
(930), talk-sports KPUG (1170), "Independent Rock" KISM (92.9), and
soft AC KAFE (104.3).  The city can also hear two music AMs from Mount
Vernon, to the south: co-owned country KAPS (660) and oldies KBRC
(1430).  On the non-comm side, there's KUGS (89.3) at Western
Washington University and KZAZ (91.7), the local public radio outlet
affiliated with Washington State University's Pullman-based network.

There are also two unusual TV operations in Bellingham.  KVOS (Channel
12) used to be a CBS affiliate, but is now an independent serving a
primarily Canadian audience.  KBCB (Channel 24) runs infomercials and
multilingual programming from the International Channel.

The few miles between Bellingham and the border are occupied solely by
religious stations aimed north at Vancouver.  KCCF (1550) in Ferndale,
KLYN (106.5) in Lyndon, and KARI (550) in the border town of Blaine
are all pointed north...as were we.

Crossing the border put us in the land of Vancouver's AM transmitters,
which, like all good Canadian AMs, are located south of town and aimed
north.  Spread out through the communities of Delta and Richmond are
the directional arrays of CKBD (600, standards), CISL (650, oldies),
CBU (690, CBC Radio One, with towers right on the water's edge), CKLG
(730, hot AC "LG-73"), CKST (1040, standards), CKWX (1130, all news),
CHMB (1320, Chinese), CFUN (1410, talk), and CJVB (1470, Chinese).
The only Vancouver-area AMs that aren't in this cluster are news-talk
CKNW (980), with transmitter out in Surrey, to the west, and CKMA
(850, oldies) way out west in Abbotsford.

We didn't see any of the Vancouver TV or FM sites, since they're
clustered on Mount Seymour northeast of town, but we sure heard them.
The FM dial sounded like this:

93.7 CJJR country (sister to CKBD, owned by billboard magnate Jim
Pattison)
95.3 CKZZ CHR "Zed-95-3" (sister to CISL)
96.1 CHKG "The World 96.1," world music and Chinese (sister to CJVB)
96.9 CKKS very soft AC "Kiss," complete with JAM jingles (sister to
CKWX)
97.7 CBUF Radio-Canada French
99.3 CFOX album rock (sister to CKLG)
101.1 CFMI classic rock (sister to CKNW)
101.9 CITR University of BC, diverse
102.7 CFRO "Co-op Radio," community free-form
103.5 CHQM AC "QM-FM" (sister to CFUN)
105.7 CBU-FM CBC Radio Two

What's more noteworthy in Vancouver is a very mixed-up TV dial, the
result of all the mergers and swaps in Canadian broadcasting in recent
years.  The only stations not facing changes in the near future are
the CBC's outlets, CBUT (Channel 2) in English and CBUFT (Channel 26)
in French.  CTV programming, at least for now, is shared by two
stations owned by WIC (Western International Communications);
Vancouver-based "BCTV" (CHAN Channel 8) and Victoria-based CHEK
(Channel 6, whose logo is -- surprise -- a check mark!).  But CTV
actually owns a different Vancouver station, independent "VTV" (CIVT
Channel 32), which went on the air a few years ago under Baton
ownership before Baton bought out the CTV network.  Finally, there's
Global's Vancouver outlet, the former independent CKVU (Channel 10).
But with Global's parent company, CanWest Global, acquiring most of
WIC's TV properties (including BCTV and CHEK), something will have to
be spun off.  Logic might suggest a three-way deal in which CTV sells
off VTV and acquires CHEK and BCTV, and might further suggest CHUM
Group (which already owns CFUN and CHQM) as VTV's new owner -- but
we'll just have to wait and see...

Our thanks, by the way, to the nice folks at CBC Vancouver for a tour
of their very sizable facility downtown, which was built in 1976 and
is now undergoing a very extensive refitting to bring it into the
digital era.  Many of the building's studios are leased out on a
regular basis for the many US productions that now call Vancouver
home.

So from Vancouver, we took the ferry across to Victoria, a beautiful
European-style town whose only failing is that all its transmitters
are located on inaccessible islands offshore.  We could listen,
though...and we heard:

900 CJVI AC "AM 900"
1070 CFAX news-talk
1200 CKXM country
90.5 CBCV CBC Radio One (a relatively new outlet, just signed on last
year)
92.1 CBU-FM-1 CBC Radio Two (with its own IDs separate from Vancouver)
98.5 CIOC hot AC "Ocean" (sister to CJVI)
100.3 CKKQ rock "The Q" (sister to CKXM)
101.9 CFUV University of Victoria, diverse
103.1 CKMO Camosun College, educational and some music

This dial will change dramatically over the next year or so, as CKXM
moves to 91.3, CFAX gets a modern-rock FM sister at 107.3, and just up
the coast, CKAY in Duncan moves from 1500 to 89.7 FM.  We also heard
the stations in Nanaimo, 60 miles north: country CKEG (1570) and
rocker CKWV (102.3).

The final day of the trip found us ferrying once more, south across
the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Port Angeles, Washington.  As the ferry
docked, we saw the tower of KONP (1450) just a block away.  KONP is
news and talk, while sister KIKN (1290) runs satellite country.  The
only FM in Port Angeles is KNWP (90.1), relaying Bellingham NPR KZAZ
(91.7).

A long drive down the Olympic Peninsula in the rain took us through
Shelton (home of AC KMAS on 1030) and into Olympia itself as darkness
fell.  We took a quick drive around town and a quick spin of the dial:

680 KBRD Lacey (daytime, adult standards)
920 KAYO Olympia (this one was silent)
1240 KGY Olympia (locally-programmed AC, with studios and towers on a
spit of land protruding into the southern end of Puget Sound)
1280 KLDY Lacey ("K-Lady" classical, listener supported!)
1340 KVSN Tumwater (religious, "K-Vision")
89.3 KAOS Olympia (community freeform)
94.5 KRXY Shelton (CHR-and-then-some, with East Coast jock Phlash
Phelps now in residence doing nights)
96.1 KXXO Olympia (soft AC)
96.9 KGY-FM McCleary (satellite country)

At this point, Seattle's radio scene began taking over again as we
headed north towards the airport and our flight home, but there were
still a few "South Sound" signals that we could hear in Tacoma but not
up in Seattle:

850 KHHO Tacoma (// sports KJR 950 Seattle)
1180 KLAY Lakewood (talk/sports)
1330 KENU Enumclaw (country, operated by Green River Community
College, which also runs KGRG 89.9 Auburn)
1360 KKMO Tacoma (// religious KLFE 1590 Seattle)
1450 KSUH Puyallup (Korean, // 1230 KWYZ Everett)
1480 KLTB Lakewood (gay/lesbian, // 1490 KBRO Bremerton)
1560 KZIZ Sumner (urban mornings, Spanish afternoons)
89.9 KGHP Gig Harbor (Gig Harbor High School, better heard on a 104.5
translator, even in downtown Gig Harbor)
90.1 KUPS Tacoma (University of Puget Sound, urban)
90.9 KVTI Tacoma (Clover Park Tech. Coll., CHR "I-91")
91.7 KBTC Tacoma (Bates Tech. Coll., "classical rock")

Since it was dark, we saw no towers...just returned the rental car,
headed for SeaTac airport (in the lovely city of SeaTac, Washington!),
and flew home, wrapping up an exciting (if overly damp) week in the
Puget Sound.  We'll be back someday!

A quick correction on last week's look at Seattle: KVI (570) is indeed
a non-directional, 5-kW fulltime Class III operation, one of the very
few in America.  There was no second tower, no matter what we wrote!

*That's it for this week...back next Friday with a turkey-stuffed look
at the holiday-shortened week in NERW-land...

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

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