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Just over the state line from the Catskills, WPSN (1590) in Honesdale
PA has been granted night power.  WPSN keeps its 2500 watts by day,
but builds a second tower for 200 watts directional at night.  Down US
6 in the Scranton market, we left out the *other* adult-standards
outlet remaining in the wake of the WEJL/WBAX format change to sports:
WEMR (1460 Tunkhannock) added WKJN (1440 Carbondale) to its satellite
standards programming when former sister station WKQV (1550 Pittston)
went dark a few months back.

A couple of new Web sites this week, and they're both for Fox
stations: New York's WNYW <http://www.fox5ny.com> includes a history
going back to the DuMont days.  Not to be outdone, Boston Fox O&O WFXT
is up with own new site, at <http://www.fox25.com>, albeit with no
mention of the WXNE (or WREP-TV) days.

*A new application in VERMONT: The Calvary Chapel of Twin Falls (KAWZ)
folks want to build a translator on 88.1 in Hinesburg, a few miles
southeast of Burlington.  No technical info on this one yet, but it
can't be good news for fans of WXLU (88.3 Peru NY) just across Lake
Champlain, or for viewers of Montreal's CBMT on Channel 6, either.

*In CONNECTICUT, the fight over WKCI (101.3 Hamden)'s proposed new
tower on Gaylord Mountain drags on.  The New Haven Register reports
that Hamden's mayor has said no to a requested town meeting about the
tower, pointing out that there's no legal basis for the request.
Hamden's Zoning Board of Appeals approved the tower last year.

Congratulations to Paula Messina, who moves up from sales manager to
market manager for Clear Channel's Hartford cluster.  She replaces
Robert Williams, who's on the way to Philadelphia to run Clear
Channel's group there.

*In MASSACHUSETTS, Laurindo Muniz gets the nod as GM of Mega
Broadcasting's Boston group, which includes tropical WAMG (1150) and
WLLH (1400 Lowell-Lawrence) and romantica WBPS (890 Dedham).

We hear the days are numbered for Channel 68 (WBPX)'s current home at
1660 Soldiers Field Road; the former supermarket space that was
renovated by then-WQTV a few years back is being sold to Staples,
whose original store already occupies half the building.  NERW hears
local production firm Videoline was an usuccessful bidder for the
studios.  No word yet on where WBPX is moving, or when.

"Superadio" is for sale, according to R&R Online.  The syndicator,
whose offerings include John Garabedian's "Open House Party," is being
shopped to other radio network groups and expects a buyer soon.

*From NEW HAMPSHIRE, Bob Vinikoor checks in to report that WNTK-FM
(99.7 New London) hopes to be on with its recently-granted power
increase (to 6 kilowatts) by Independence Day.  No progress yet for
Vinikoor's other CP, 50 kilowatt daytimer WQTH (720 Hanover), which
remains hung up in zoning issues.

*Not much to report from CANADA; the CRTC has approved the move of
CKMV (1490) in Grand Falls/Grand Sault (both are correct, one in
English, the other in French) New Brunswick to 95.1 FM.  CKMV is a
relay of Edmundston's CJEM, which made the move from AM to FM in 1998.

Some insight into the decisions by Affinity and Power to drop
their applications for 105.7 in Kingston: it seems both groups, which
already operate AM/FM combos in the market, are hoping to convince the
CRTC not to award any new license at all in Kingston, saying the
advertising dollars are already stretched thinly enough among the four
Canadian stations and the U.S. stations that target the market from
across the St. Lawrence.

*Finally this week, some heartening news from the FCC: The agency has
adopted a new method for deciding among competing applicants for
noncommercial radio and TV licenses.  New frequencies will be awarded
based on a point system, with strong preferences for local ownership,
local schools, and groups with no other stations.  This is bad news
for the national religious chains that have been adding an increasing
number of new primary-signal applications along with their hundreds
upon hundreds of satellite-fed translators (and it's often hard to
tell the difference, since many of the primaries are also little more
than satellite-fed clones with no significant local presence.  This is
outstanding news for stations like Boston's WUMB, which is facing a
slew of out-of-state applications for new stations at the fringes of
its 91.9 signal.  

It's also still something short of a real solution, since it forces
the local stations to go to the trouble of filing mutually-exclusive
applications for new primaries on their own fringes (like WUMB's 91.7
Stow application) in situations where the better solution would be for
no new signal to go on the air at all.  It's no great surprise,
though, from a Commission whose unstated desire seems to be to fill
every available hole on the FM dial with some sort of a signal, viable
or not, by the end of the year if not sooner.

More thoughts on that matter, especially as it pertains to LPFM, in
the weeks to come...

*That's it for this quiet week; see you next Friday!

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

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