NorthEast Radio Watch: The Year in Review 1999, part one

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

NERW's 1999 YEAR IN REVIEW (part one)

So here we are with just a year to go until the end of the millennium,
(yes, I'm siding with the nitpickers on this one, especially since I
have to work this New Year's Eve!), and at the rate broadcasters are
going, we'll be down to two (maybe three) companies owning everything
by the time we get there. 

We'll begin our look back at the year that was with some of the trends
that made news in 1999:

-MARKET CLUSTERING: Broadcasters, the FCC, and the Justice Department
used 1999 to find out just how big they'd be allowed to go.  This was
the year when just about every big deal was accompanied by a notice of
market share review -- yet virtually none of those notices was acted
on.  That's because the broadcast groups took matters into their own
hands, shedding stations where needed to keep the government from
feeling the need to step in.

In some cases, this was a good thing, allowing the creation of new
regional groups from the assets shed by the big guys.  In our region,
the best example was Frank Washington's formation of Aurora
Broadcasting to pick up the suburban New York clusters spun off in the
Capstar/Chancellor merger.  

In many other cases, the big groups simply traded among themselves to
bring individual markets under the cap -- for instance, the trade in
which Cox picked up more than a dozen stations in New Haven,
Stamford/Norwalk, and down south from AMFM in exchange for KFI/KOST
Los Angeles.  

Beyond the mammoth conglomerates, a new breed of smaller regional
groups began to emerge in 1999 as well.  Newcomers like Vox and Conn
River created new sales opportunities by combining stations in places
like Concord, New Hampshire and Barre, Vermont, while more established
operators like Charles River Broadcasting, AAA Entertainment (formerly
Back Bay), Steve Mindich's Phoenix group, Albany Broadcasting, Tim
Martz, and Keating Willcox' Willow Farm expanded their regional reach with
additional purchases.  

The name of the game for some of the medium-sized groups was filling
in the gaps between clusters: Tele-Media picked up Concord, N.H., then
headed back towards its Albany base with purchases in Nashua, Keene,
and Brattleboro.  Mega added Lowell and Ware to its Boston and
Hartford properties.  Citadel spread north from Providence to add
Montachusett's Worcester stations and the Fuller-Jeffrey outlets in
New Hampshire and Maine, then grew again across the region by buying
Broadcasting Partners. Even public broadcasters got in the game, with
Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine all acquiring formerly-commercial
FMs for their public networks.  And a few national groups made their
first Northeast inroads: Regent, through its purchase of Forever, and
Radio One, through its purchase of WCAV Brockton.

The region said goodbye to a few more old-line groups, most notably
Fuller-Jeffrey's exit via a $63 million sale to Citadel (although
J.J. Jeffrey promptly started a small group of his own).  Also leaving
the ranks of area broadcasters: Fairbanks, Arnold Lerner, Greenfield's
Haigis family, Rhode Island's Urso family, and the Dynacom group in
Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.  Carter Broadcasting sold
most of its group, but hung on to WCRN Worcester and some LPTVs for
old times' sake.

At year's end, the FCC threw a new wrench into the clustering process
by allowing TV duopoly in the biggest markets.  Groups like the new
CBS/Viacom, NBC and Paxson, Tribune and Granite all jumped on board
with their applications (and in CBS's case, setting the stage for at
least one more radio sale in Boston).  One more TV deal of note:
Boston University closed out its short-lived TV experiment by selling
WABU and its relays to Pax TV for just $40 million, essentially stick
value for the signals.

And while no Northeast station sold for five figures or less this
year, broadcasters who wanted a station for less than they'd pay for a
house in Boston had at least a few options: WWLE Cornwall-on-Hudson,
WVKZ Schenectady, WCSS Amsterdam and WMSA Massena were among the
stations that changed hands for less than $200,000 in 1999.

Let's go to the month-by-month recap of sales:

-JANUARY: A slow start, with ADD Media's $1.06 million purchase of
Puritan's WLYN (1360 Lynn MA) the highlight.  Up in ski country, Steve
Silberberg paid $325,000 for new WVFM (105.7 Campton NH), creating a
simulcast with his WXRV Haverhill.  In Upstate New York, Forever sold
WFRG(AM) (1450 Rome) to Bible Broadcasting, while dentist Dr. George
Wolfe traded his WASB-FM (105.5 Brockport) for Canandaigua
Broadcasting's WRSB (1310 Canandaigua), which he had been leasing anyway.

-FEBRUARY: A strong month for sales in Boston's suburbs, as Fairbanks
exited the market by selling WKOX (1200 Framingham) to "B-Mass
Holdings" for $14.5 million, while Mega Broadcasting added WLLH (1400
Lowell & Lawrence) to its Spanish-language cluster for $936,000.  In
Rhode Island, Keating Willcox added to his Willow Farm group with WNRI
(1380 Woonsocket), followed by the sale of his WOON there to its local
management.  Waltham's WCRB purchased WVBI (95.9 Block Island) to add
to its classical network for $738,000. Across the border in
Connecticut, Nievezquez Productions paid $725,000 for WPRX (1120
Bristol) and ADD picked up WNTY (990 Southington) for $850,000.  Up
north in Maine, Presque Isle's little WAGM-TV (Channel 8) was sold to
Max Media.  And Clear Channel closed its upstate New York holes
between Rochester and Utica by trading with Cox for the Syracuse
cluster of WSYR, WHEN, WYYY, WBBS, and WWHT.

-MARCH: Two Worcester-area stations were sold, WNEB to Great Commission
(the WJLT folks) by Heirwaves and WWFX (the former WQVR) to Jeffrey
Wilks' "WBA" by Jeff Shapiro.  The regional groups grew a little, as
Tim Martz added WMSA Massena to his North Country cluster, Steve
Mindich paid $1.02 million to expand WFNX to Maine via Sanford's
WCDQ/WSME, Roberts Radio picked up WGHQ and WBPM in Kingston, and a
new company called "Vox Media" kicked things off by spending $1.5
million for WKXL Concord and $2.2 million for WSNO/WORK Barre.  On the
TV side, Nexstar bought Rochester's WROC from Sunrise amd Shop at Home
took over WBPT Bridgeport, after the earlier sale to Cuchifritos fell
through.  THAT was the fine print; the headline for the month was the
Hicks, Muse consolidation of Capstar into Chancellor, creating
something called -- however briefly -- "AMFM."

-APRIL: Another regional group cashed out, as J.J. Jeffrey and Doc
Fuller sold most of their Fuller-Jeffrey stations to Citadel for $63
million.  (Jeffrey kept the Portland and Brunswick AMs as the core of
a new group, Atlantic Coast).  For $66 million, a new group called
"Aurora" made a splash in Fairfield County by buying WEBE and WICC.
On the smaller scale regionally, Tim Martz added WVNC Canton to that
North Country group, Albany Broadcasting went up to ski country with a
$6.1 million purchase of WJJR and the "Cat Country" stations
(WJAN/WJEN) in Rutland, Back Bay went to Connecticut with the $2.2
million purchase of WKCD Pawcatuck, and Montachusett added WORC-FM to
its WXLO in Worcester for $3.5 million.

-MAY: Charles River Broadcasting went rockin' on the Cape, adding
WKPE-FM to its classical WFCC out there.  Aurora made its second
acquisition, paying $20 million for WFAS AM-FM in Westchester.  Closer
to Boston, KJI Broadcasting picked up $10 million for Brockton's WCAV
as urban group owner Radio One came to town.  Boston University bowed
out of its TV experiment by selling WABU-TV and its New Hampshire and
Cape Cod satellites to PaxTV for $40 million.  New Hampshire Public
Radio moved north by buying WXLQ Gorham, while Maine Public
Broadcasting did them one better by getting WHQO Skowhegan donated (an
easy way for former owner Cumulus to stay below the ownership caps).
Up in Canada, the CHUM Group added to its Ottawa holdings by
purchasing CFGO and CJMJ from Rawlco to join its CFRA and CKKL.
And after Sinclair's deal to buy WMHQ-TV Schenectady fell through,
Tribune stepped in to pay the public TV folks $18.5 million for the
station.

-JUNE: J.J. Jeffrey's new Atlantic Coast group kicked off the month
with the $1.15 million purchase of WRED Saco, quickly overshadowed by
Aurora's $11.5 million purchase of Capstar's old Danbury group (WINE,
WRKI, WAXB, and WPUT).  And for just $100,000, Ernie Anastos added
WKAJ Saratoga Springs to his WQAR up that way.

-JULY: The fireworks came from sedate little Carter Broadcasting, as
the Carberry family collected $22 million from Catholic Family Radio
for their stations in Boston, Providence, Springfield, and Portland.
Also leaving the business this month: Philip Urso, who sold WADK
Newport and WERI-FM Block Island to Astro Tele-Communications for $1.8
million.  Just across the state line, Spring Broadcasting bolstered
its New London cluster with the $1.9 million addition of WVVE
Stonington.  Keating Willcox' Willow Farm group added Brockton's WMSX for
$674,000.  Up north, Alex McEwing sold WGLY-FM Waterbury to Radio
Broadcast Services for $700,000; Sharp Broadcasting picked up WLTN
AM-FM in Littleton and Lisbon, N.H. for just $415,000; and
J.J. Jeffrey added station #4 to Atlantic Coast: WXGL Topsham, for
$1.3 million.   Out west, Tele-Media pushed into Massachusetts from
its Albany base, paying $4.65 million for Aritaur's Pittsfield combo,
WBEC AM-FM, plus WZEC in Hoosick Falls, N.Y.  This month's big-group
deal?  Entercom's buyout of Sinclair's radio properties, a whopping
$821.5 million worth.  In our area, that meant new owners for
Buffalo's WGR, WBEN, WWWS, WWKB, WKSE, and WMJQ.

-AUGUST: The Vox group doubled in size (and then some) with the
addition of the Dynacom group, running the length of the Connecticut
River Valley from White River Junction down to Greenfield.  Steve
Mindich added a third WFNX relay, paying $1.5 million for WNHQ
Peterborough.  Clark Smidt cashed out from his years in New Hampshire
ownership, selling WNNH Henniker to his new employer, Tele-Media.
Mega headed for central Massachusetts with the purchase of WARE in
(where else?) Ware.  In Upstate New York, IZ Communications paid
$188,000 for WCSS Amsterdam, Clear Channel paid $3 million to take
over the rights to buy WHCD Auburn, and Regent's $44 million buyout of
Forever meant new owners for big clusters in Watertown and Utica.

-SEPTEMBER: 28 years after they split, CBS and Viacom prepared to
reunite, although the only broadcast impact in our region was the
impending duopoly between WBZ-TV and WSBK in Boston.  Cox and AMFM
sorted out some of their cluster-size issues by trading Cox's KFI and
KOST in Los Angeles for more than a dozen AMFM properties, including
WPLR New Haven and the four-station Norwalk/Stamford group.  Deep in
the financial shadows of those big transactions, Excalibur picked up
WCVR/WWWT Randolph to pair with its Rutland group, Keating Willcox
added WGAW Gardner, Alexander Broadcasting picked up WLIR in Rockland
County, Mercury paid $535,000 for WHLD Niagara Falls to make station
#5 in Buffalo, and Tim Martz added yet another station to that North
Country group, unbuilt CP WAZV Norwood.  Across the border, Power
Broadcasting sold its stations in Ontario and Quebec to Corus, the
Group Formerly Known As Shaw.

-OCTOBER: There's something about this month -- last year, it saw
Jacor selling to Clear Channel, and this year, it was AMFM's turn to
be assimilated by Lowry Mays and company.  For $56 billion, Clear
Channel entered big markets like New York and Boston, strengthened its
hold on Albany, Hartford, and Providence, and extended tentacles
(through the AMFM-by way of Capstar-by way of Knight stations) into
Burlington, Manchester, Portsmouth, and Worcester.  And that was just
the Northeast!  Elsewhere, Citadel's $190 million purchase of
Broadcasting Partners Holdings put the company in a powerful position
in markets from Calais to Augusta to New Bedford to Buffalo.  Vox grew
again, nearly completing its collection of Concord-market stations
with WJYY, WRCI, and WNHI for $3.6 million.  Vermont Public Radio
picked up formerly-commercial WBTN AM-FM to expand into the Bennington
area.  And down in the Catskills, Charles Stewart Senior picked up
WWLE Cornwall-on-Hudson for $100,000, while DeWit Broadcasting bought
WWHW Jeffersonville from its namesake, William H. Walker.

-NOVEMBER: Just two sales, both of them clusters: Tele-Media bought
WKNE AM-FM Keene and WKVT AM-FM Brattleboro from Richard Lightfoot and
WHOB Nashua from Mario DeCarlo, while Harron paid $11.8 million to
combine its WMTW-TV with the Portland/Lewiston-Auburn group (WMWX,
WLAM AM-FM, WZOU, WTHT) from Arnold Lerner.

-DECEMBER: Winter's snows found two TV sales, as WWLP Springfield
headed from Benedek to LIN and WENY-TV Elmira went to Kevin Lilly's
Lilly Broadcasting LLC.  On the radio side, AAA Entertainment
(formerly Back Bay) jumped Long Island Sound to buy WBEA and WEHM from
H-Radio Partners.  Citadel closed the gap between Providence and New
Hampshire by spending $24.5 million to buy WXLO and WORC-FM from
Montachusett.  Conn River added WHAI AM-FM Greenfield and WMXR/WCFR-FM
just up the river in Vermont.  And for just $137,500, Ernie Anastos
took horse racing off WVKZ Schenectady and set the stage for a
simulcast with his WUAM Saratoga Springs.

*There was, of course, more to broadcasting in 1999 than just money
changing hands.  Some of the year's other noteworthy trends:

-PROGRAMMING: We've been saying it for years, but 1999 was truly the
year of FM talk, at least in Boston and New York.  Greater Media
seized the opportunity after Entercom decided to drop Imus from WEEI,
using the I-Man as the foundation of a new FM talker (albeit not, as
had been expected, at 92.9).  In New York, it was CBS's turn to lay
WNEW-FM's long-suffering rock format to rest by going all-talk.  Was
it worth it?  It's far too soon to tell, though the odds seem to favor
the Boston effort, if only because the main format competitor,
Entercom's WRKO, spent the year repeatedly shuffling its local talk
lineup to little effect.  

The rhythmic ("Jammin'") oldies format that entered the region's
airwaves in 1998 continued its march in 1999, adding Buffalo,
Rochester, Kingston, and Hartford, plus an interesting rhythmic
variant at Boston's WQSX.  Adult standards made a surprising comeback,
led by WPLM-FM Plymouth on New Year's Day and followed by new entries
in Albany, Rochester, and Portland, not to mention a post-WQEW
return to the New York market via WNSW Newark in May.  For the most
part, though, programmers played it safe in 1999, with almost every
format change and new sign-on going to country, AC, or news-talk.
(The glaring exception: Radio One's new Boston-market entry, WBOT
Brockton, the long-awaited first urban FM station in a market where
that format had been relegated to an AM daytimer for far too long.)

If any format can be said to have lost ground in 1999, it would have
to be smooth jazz.  Boston-area fans of the format lost WPLM-FM at the
end of 1998, followed by WSJZ (much to their dismay) in August.  In
Albany, the format was gone for a few weeks as WHRL dropped it and
crosstown WZMR picked it up.  Down in Mount Kisco, WZZN also dropped
smooth jazz when it became a simulcast of WFAS-FM.

-PUBLIC BROADCASTING: Maine Public Broadcasting may have had the law
on its side, but the statewide network suffered a public black eye
when it seized on the apparently-vacant 90.5 frequency to apply for a
new station in Camden.  That was the spot on the dial where WMHB at
Colby College had moved in 1981 to accomodate another new MPBC
station, and it soon emerged that WMHB didn't have the license it
thought it did for the channel.  MPBC refused to back down, and
eventually won the license for 90.5 in Camden.  WMHB found some
volunteer engineering help and ended up, at least for now, on 89.7.

Later in the fall, MPBC became the only public broadcaster in the
nation to ask voters for money for DTV conversion.  Flooding its own
airwaves -- and those of commercial stations -- with heavy-handed
messages warning that Big Bird might disappear if voters said no, MPBC
won easy approval for a $9.4 million bond issue.  Other public
broadcasters found less-expensive ways to pay for DTV conversion, with
Syracuse's WCNY and Binghamton's WSKG exploring an alliance to share
many of those costs.  (At year's end, only Boston's WGBH-DT was
anywhere close to providing actual public DTV anywhere in the region).
For public radio, it was a year for network expansion: Maine, New
Hampshire, and Vermont all added new signals in previously-unserved
areas, as did Binghamton's WSKG (via WSQA Hornell) and Rochester's
WXXI (via WJSL Houghton).  Even Buffalo's WNED found a happy ending to
its fiscal problems at its AM outlet, as the Buffalo News led a
campaign to raise the money needed to keep AM 970 on the air.

-DTV: Outside New York and Boston, DTV remained but a promise for
Northeast viewers in 1999.  New York saw one new signal (WWOR-DT)
during the year, with more to follow in 2001, while Boston's WBZ
continued work on the tower upgrade that will provide a home for the
DTV signals of WCVB, WGBH, WGBX, and WBZ itself.  Out in the
hinterlands -- and that means anything from Providence to Buffalo --
DTV remained something we read about in the trades.  Think of it as
1947 on the timeline of analog TV: it was out there, a few rich early
adopters in the big cities had it, but for the rest of us it would be
a year or two before those first test patterns came on the air.

-LPFM: Declaring 1999 "The Year of LPFM" turned out to be about as
useful as declaring the '80s "The Al Franken Decade" -- except that Al
Franken was at least funny.  For all Bill Kennard's good intentions,
the year ended without any constructive result from the Notice of
Proposed Rule-Making on the LPFM issue.  Broadcasters found every
imaginable reason to oppose the idea, Congress hewed to the will and
pocketbooks of the broadcasting lobbyists, and meantime the skirmishes
in the field and in the courts produced no useful precedent to decide
the issue.  The religious satellite networks continued to pursue their
legal brand of LPFM (aka "translators") by filling every imaginable
crevice on the band (and many unimaginable crevices) with relays for
WPCS, KAWZ, WJFM, et al.  And the listeners?  Funny, nobody heard from
the listeners in 1999... (more on this topic coming in The Rant!)

-PERSONALITIES: Remember those?  1999 was a year with no
earth-shattering defections and no big-name contract fights.  Instead,
the fights centered on non-compete agreements, as courts tested the
recent Massachusetts decision that ruled most such clauses
unenforceable.  In Rhode Island, Carolyn Fox broke hers -- briefy,
anyway -- to take over the Imus slot on WWRX (moving the I-Man to
WWBB) before former employer WPRO stepped in for the fight.  Up in
Maine, Lori Voornas tried the same thing (ironically, with support
from Citadel, the same company fighting Fox in Providence) as she
jumped from Saga's WMGX to the new WCLZ "98.9 the Point."  Albany
morning team Mason and Sheehan sued Clear Channel after being ousted
from WXCR, saying Clear Channel had hired them away from WPYX solely
to remove competition to Howard Stern on WQBK/WQBJ.  Rochester's
Brother Wease found himself being sued by several former co-workers
for sexual harassment.  

Not all the personnel moves took place in the courts, of course: Bob
Raleigh did it his way, retiring on the eve of his 65th birthday and
handing overnight duties on WBZ to Steve LeVeille, with Paul Sullivan
getting the 10-midnight hours being vacated by David Brudnoy's cutback
in his own airtime.  Across town at WRKO, mornings and evenings
were a revolving door, as the Two Chicks broke up, Tai took over
nights for a while (then left), Jay Severin did late nights from New
York for a few months (only to emerge later at WTKK-FM), Jeff Katz and
Darlene McCarthy's morning show tanked, McCarthy moved to nights with
Lori Kramer, and Andy Moes and ex-pol Peter Blute moved into
mornings.  Confused?  Imagine how the listeners felt...

Also retiring in style: "Yankee Kitchen" host Gus Saunders, after an
amazing 56-year run that started on, of all things, the Yankee
Network.  

There was some good news, for once, from the radio news front: WRKO
dropped Metro Networks to rebuild its own newsroom, led by veterans
like Rod Fritz and Worcester's Paul Tuthill.  Lowell legend Bob Ellis
parachuted safely away from the demise of English-language programming
at WLLH to land at Lawrence's WCCM, while across town, WCAP hired
Boston refugee Dave Faneuf to rebuild its once-proud (well, your
editor worked there, anyway) newsroom.  In Albany, WABY tried
all-news, but Clear Channel was poised at year-end to move production
of news at WGY (and in Syracuse at WSYR) to Rochester's WHAM. 

Speaking of Clear Channel, 1999 saw the first CHR war in which half
the jocks weren't even in the market, thanks to the modern miracle of
voicetracking at Rochester's "Kiss 107" (variously on 107.3 and 106.7
as WMAX-FM, WKGS, and WYSY, not that anyone, even the FCC, seemed to
care).  More on that, too, in the Rant.

-AND IN CANADA: The moves from AM to FM continued, with this year's
victims including CJRW (1240) Summerside, PEI; CJSS (1110) Cornwall,
ON; CKRN (1400) Rouyn-Noranda, QC; CKVL (900) Val d'Or, QC; CHOW
(1470) Welland, ON; and CKTY (1110) Sarnia, ON -- with many more to
follow next year.  Those, of course, were just the beginning; this was
also the year in which the CBC signed off the AM dial in Montreal (CBF
690 on Jan. 21, CBM 940 on May 13) and then, in an emotional moment,
in Toronto (CBL 740 on June 19).  The Montreal frequencies were filled
again by year's end, with the Dec. 14 sign-ons of CINF 690 and CINW
940, while the Toronto frequency will be awarded in January 2000.

The CBC had some other issues to deal with in 1999, most notably a
six-week strike in February and March that knocked out local
programming and sent many network shows into reruns.  CBC also
struggled with plans to establish a "Radio 3" service for younger
listeners.

On the commercial side, owners cautiously dipped a toe or two into the
waters of duopoly in markets like Ottawa and Saint John, but many were
more concerned with issues like an increase in Canadian-content music
requirements (raised to 35% for most stations) and the start of
digital radio service in Toronto and, soon, in Montreal and Windsor as
well.

*That's it for part one of the year in review...coming to your
mailboxes over the weekend will be part two, featuring our
month-by-month recap of format and call changes, the year in
obituaries, and of course the Rant.  Stay tuned!

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

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