NorthEast Radio Watch 4/7: "Quick," What's On 93.5/93.9?

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

*There's a new country station on the air in the Upper Valley market
that spans NEW HAMPSHIRE and VERMONT.  WMXR (93.9 Woodstock) and
WCFR-FM (93.5 Springfield) dropped their "Magic" AC simulcast last
weekend to become "Quickradio," a commercial-free loop of just the
hooks from 50 number-one songs from the last four decades.  

It was, of course, a stunt (borrowed from "Quick FM" on Syracuse's
WHEN-FM, circa 1996) -- and it ended Friday morning (4/7) when the
stations became "93.9, 93.5 Bob Country."  The buzz in Upper Valley
radio circles says the name is a tweak at Bob Frisch, the owner of the
market's existing country station, WXXK (100.5 Lebanon NH).  

NERW's listening to "Bob" as we write this, and it's sounding live and
local, complete with the "Turn your knob to Bob" liners originated a
few years ago at the now-defunct "Bob Country" WBOB 100.3 Minneapolis
(is there nothing new under the sun?)

"Bob" also has a new Web site <http://www.bobcountryfm.com>, and a new
studio, as owners Conn River Broadcasting move the station back to the
Vermont side of the river, where former owners Bob and Shirley Wolf
started WMXR a decade ago.  The Wolfs had moved the station to West
Lebanon, New Hampshire in 1997; now it moves to a renovated farmhouse
at 24 West Bridge Road, off Route 131 in Ascutney.

No change to the calls yet, but we wouldn't be surprised to hear one
sooner or later.  (The Bob sales staff might need a reminder about
what the calls are anyway -- the coverage map on their Web site lists
WMXR as 93.5 and WCFR as 93.9, with no mention at all of the W232AP
translator on 94.3 in West Lebanon!)

*Elsewhere in VERMONT, the long-running (19 years!) talk team of Jim
Condon and Louie Manno move from mornings to afternoons at WKDR (1390
Burlington).  The move to 3-5 PM knocks Laura Schlessinger off the
northern Vermont airwaves, and frees up morning drive at WKDR for a
new all-news block.

Across the market, we hear WXPS (96.7 Willsboro NY) is ditching
country for smooth jazz.  

Down in the Rutland market, Jay Gadon (late of WZRT/WSYB) takes on a
new role: he's now the general manager of "Express 101" (WEXP 101.5
Brandon), helping the new CHR settle in at its new Rutland studios.
Congratulations!

*On the NEW HAMPSHIRE side, we hear WBNC-FM (104.5 Conway) has
switched satellite formats from country to oldies.  No word yet on
whether the AM on 1050 also flipped.  (And if we make it up there this
summer, we'll be listening not to WBNC but to sister AAA WMWV-FM
anyway...)

*Up in MAINE, a fire ripped through the downtown Bangor home of WABI
(910) and WWBX (97.1) early Tuesday morning, forcing the stations out
of their studios and off the air for most of the day.  By the
afternoon, they had returned to the air from the WWBX mobile studio,
parked at the WABI transmitter site in Brewer, which remains the base
of operations for the stations for the time being.

The march of the satellite translators continues: Pensacola Christian
College (WPCS) applies for 88.1 in Skowhegan and another 88.1 in
Brewer.  

*The big news in MASSACHUSETTS this week?  The impending return of a
Boston radio legend to the airwaves!  The number one question we get
asked here at the Boston Radio Archives is, "What ever happened to
Larry Glick?"  The answer, until now, has been that he's retired and
has no desire to return to radio.

Thanks to WBZ's Steve LeVeille, the current occupant of Glick's old
overnight slot, we can now report that Larry Glick will be back on the
air at WBZ for one night.  Steve will be talking to Larry beginning at
midnight, Thursday April 27 into Friday April 28, presumably for as
long as Larry wants to go.  Set those tape decks now...

Down the hallway and around the corner, 17 year old Rob Pirraglia
joins oldies WODS (103.3) for weekend nights, becoming the latest
addition to Oldies 103 from WWBB (101.5 Providence).  

Who's the channel 24 LPTV one of our North Shore correspondents was
asking about?  Seems it's W24CM "Boston," running 26 kilowatts visual
from the "FM128" tower in Newton with home shopping.  Yep, that would
be first-adjacent to full power WFXT (Channel 25) -- but we'll need to
get used to that in this brave new world of DTV, won't we?

Pirate Alert: A reader is hearing someone doing gospel on 90.1 in the
Brockton area, somewhere between North Main Street and Montello.  

*Nothing doing this week in southern New England, so we move on to NEW
YORK, where it seems WEHH in Elmira Heights-Horseheads isn't quite as
dead and gone as we'd thought.

The station, silent for nearly a year already, has been granted a
boost to 5 kilowatts day, 170 watts night, directional from the Lake
Road towers of LMA sister station WELM (1410 Elmira).  One more
thing...it won't be on 1590 when it returns.  According to at least
part of the buggy FCC database, the new WEHH diplex operation will be
on 1600 kHz.  No word yet on whether the standards format that was on
the old WEHH until its tower came down will return on the new WEHH.

Up in Buffalo, Entercom made a format change Monday morning -- but
not, as rumor had it, on WWKB.  Instead, it was AC WMJQ (102.5)
dropping its "Q102" moniker for two commercial-free hours, followed at
9 AM by the debut of "Star 102," a hot AC incarnation of the format.
New calls followed later in the week: WTSS (shouldn't that be "Tsar
102"?), last seen in the region at the long-gone AM 1320 in Scranton.
The new address, by the way, for WTSS and its Entercom cousins (WGR,
WBEN, WWWS, WWKB, and WKSE) is 500 Corporate Parkway, Suite 200,
Buffalo NY 14226.  New phone: 716-843-0100.

NERW's hoping to someday see the WMJQ calls return to the Rochester
market, where they're still fondly remembered from their days in the
1970s and 80s on what's now WBEE-FM (92.5) -- which, coincidentally,
is also an Entercom station.

Vox Broadcasting just keeps buying and buying, expanding beyond its
New England base this week to buy clusters in two Empire State
markets.  As rumored, Vox is picking up the Glens Falls clusters of
Bradmark and Starview Media:

-From Bradmark: talk WBZA (1410 South Glens Falls), standards WENU
(101.7 Hudson Falls), and AC WNYQ (105.7 Queensbury, the only facility
here better than a class A).

-From Starview: sports WMML (1230 Glens Falls), country WZZM-FM (93.5
Corinth), and oldies WHTR (107.1 Hudson Falls).  WHTR was granted a CP
this week to boost power from 270 watts to 2850 watts, dropping height
from 257 meters AAT in the Luzerne Mountains west of Glens Falls to
147 meters AAT from the WZZM tower a bit to the south.

But that's not all: Vox is also heading way west to stake out a claim
to the Jamestown market, as far to the west as you can go in New York
State.  Again, the company assembles a cluster from two groups:

-From North Country Broadcasting: oldies WDOE (1410) and country WCQA
(96.5) in Dunkirk, on the shore of Lake Ontario.

-From Derrick Publishing Company: oldies WKSN (1340) and country WHUG
(101.9) in Jamestown.

And that's *still* not all: Vox is also moving across the state line
for its first Pennsylvania stations, WCED (1420) and WOWQ (102.1) in
Du Bois, along I-80 between Nowhere and West Nowhere, or Clearfield
and Clarion, if you prefer...

Whilst on the PA side of the line, we note that the standards have
vanished from their longtime home on WEJL (630 Scranton) and simulcast
WBAX (1240 Wilkes-Barre), replaced by sports from ESPN.  Standards
live on in the market on Nanticoke's WNAK (730).

In Albany, April Fools' Day came one day early on WPYX (106.5), where
the morning crew played off the rumors that the Clear Channel spinoff
would take 'PYX Spanish by...taking 'PYX Spanish.  All morning Friday
(3/31), they spun Spanish pop hits, played spots en espanol, and
finally owned up to the prank about 9:45 AM.  Sure beats claiming the
mayor's dead...

A few corrections from last week: WBDI/WBDR in the Watertown market
are owned by David Clancy, not Craig Fox.  Fox *does* own the
WOLF/WWLF stations in Syracuse, along with George Kimble.  Could there
be a fourth station joining the two AMs and one FM with Radio Disney?
Sounds that way.  Kimble's partner in the Radio Group in the Finger
Lakes, by the way, is Bob Martin, not "Jim" as we reported a few weeks
back.  (We knew better, really...)  Bob and Greg Cotterill will soon
be doing news on a new morning show, "Finger Lakes Today," to be heard
on all of the group's AM stations, WCGR (1550 Canandaigua, relayed on
WRSB 1310 there as well), WGVA (1240 Geneva), WSFW (1110 Seneca
Falls), and WAUB (1590 Auburn).  Hosts for the show, to debut in May,
will be Doug Finch and Donna Henderson.  And we hear that the new
transmitter location proposed for WLLW (99.3 Seneca Falls) will be the
site in Junius (just north of the Thruway on NY 414) occupied by the
former WLLW, now WCOV (93.7 Clyde).  (Or is it still WSFW-FM on 99.3
and WLLW on 93.7?  The FCC database isn't much help, of course...)

Translator Watch: "Family Worship Center" (aka WJFM Baton Rouge LA,
aka Jimmy Swaggart) applies for 89.9 in Bath and 90.1 in Medina.  We
hear the Medina application will be opposed by co-channel WGMC in
Greece, which has a decent signal and a loyal audience in Orleans
County -- and which is about to apply for a tower height increase
itself.  (Hmmm...out of state translator abuser vs. very local station
with jazz and unique ethnic programming...who should NERW root for?)
Down in the New York City market, the FCC has dismissed Best Media's
application for 88.1 Woodsburgh.  We're still waiting to hear from
*anyone* who has any idea who Best Media are, and why they filed such
blatantly abusive applications last year.

Jason Bereza at Hudson Valley Radio Guide checked in with some
programming notes downstate: WGNY (1220 Newburgh) returns to ABC's
satellite oldies format from AP all-news, while "The Cat" (WCTW 98.5
Catskill and WCTJ 96.1 Poughkeepsie) heads to live and local AC from
the bird feed.  Translators W231AG (94.1 Newburgh) and W293AE (106.5
Newburgh) go from relaying WBWZ (93.3 New Paltz) and WRWD-FM (107.3
Highland) to relaying religious WAWZ (99.1 Zarephath NJ), we're told.

On the Web: There are interesting new Web presences from
Rochester-market WYSL (1040 Avon) <http://www.wysl1040.com> and from
New York's WEVD (1050) <http://www.1050wevd.com>, the latter with a
live audio stream, which is nice for those of us in the null between
WEVD and Toronto's CHUM.

*Not much from CANADA this week, just a note that Power Broadcasting
is the second group to drop out of the running for 105.7 in Kingston.
Power is in the process of being sold to Corus (formerly Shaw); could
this be related?

*A few more baseball notes: The Northern League's Waterbury Spirit
will be heard again this year on WATR (1320), while the Bridgeport
Bluefish of the Atlantic League will be on WICC (600), with ten Sunday
home games in Spanish on WCUM (1450).  The Atlantic League's Nashua
Pride?  We think they're returning to WSMN (1590), but neither the
team's Web site or the station's nearly-useless site offer much help.
No evidence of radio coverage for Northern League teams in Glens Falls
(Adirondack), Catskill, Quebec, or Elmira, but Albany-Colonie's
Diamond Dogs will be heard on WABY (1400).  No radio for the Atlantic
League's new Long Island Ducks, either.  

It turns out Staten Island's WSIA (88.9) *will* carry the SI Yankees
again this year, after all.

*Finally this week, a few more notes about LPFM in the wake of all the
response last week's Rant generated:

Several of you pointed out, quite correctly, that one of the concerns
about relaxing third-adjacent protection is IBOC (in-band, on-channel)
digital radio.  Those of you who subscribe to the DX Audio Service
will have heard this month's presentation of the "buzzing" noise
generated on first-adjacent channels by the IBOC testing at New York
City's WNEW (102.7).  

Preserving spectrum for eventual IBOC use is a legitimate concern, no
doubt.  But we remain unconvinced that IBOC is the best digital
solution for US radio.  We're truly worried about the US moving away
from the Eureka system that seems to be on the verge of becoming a
global standard.  It's bad enough that channel-spacing disparities
make many digital receivers unusable in Europe and Asia for analog
radio.  It's even worse to think that the radio that works just fine
in Niagara Falls, New York could be useless for hearing the signals of
Niagara Falls, Ontario, and vice versa.  

NERW's also not convinced that IBOC solves any real pressing problems
for broadcasters and listeners.  Audio quality on FM doesn't promise
to be that much better than it already is, and there's no evidence to
suggest that listeners want to spend a few hundred dollars on a new
receiver just to hear the same 18 minutes of spots an hour that they
can already hear with their old radio -- especially when that same
money could be spent on a Sirius receiver (satellite digital radio),
with better audio quality and no commercials.

Once again, it's the status quo protecting itself for the short term,
with no ability to see the long-term picture.  We're not surprised.

*That's it for this week...see you next Friday with much more from the
wide world of radio!

---------------------NorthEast Radio Watch------------------------
                     (c)2000 Scott Fybush

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