NERW 6/3: Down it WENT...

[fybush@gwind.pair.com]

------------------------------E-MAIL EDITION-----------------------------
--------------------------NorthEast Radio Watch--------------------------
                               June 3, 2002

IN THIS ISSUE:

*NEW YORK: Tornado Wrecks WENT Tower
*CANADA: Radio-Canada Back to Work, Sans Canadiens
*MASSACHUSETTS: Dr. Laura Banned in Boston

-----------------------------by Scott Fybush-----------------------------
-------------------------<http://www.fybush.com>-------------------------

*A tornado that swept across eastern NEW YORK Friday afternoon took
down the tower of Gloversville's WENT (1340), temporarily silencing
the local voice of Fulton County. 

The National Weather Service says winds at the height of the storm
measured at least 73 miles per hour, enough to topple the 180-foot
self-supporting tower behind WENT's Gloversville studios. Crews were
at work over the weekend to repair the antenna to allow WENT to get
back on the air; a new tower will be needed for permanent use.

Elsewhere in upstate New York, the FCC approved Clear Channel's
acquisition of Ackerley, albeit with restrictions that will force the
company to spin some of its holdings in four upstate markets. 

The $800 million deal, originally announced last October, includes
Ackerley ABC affiliates WOKR(TV) Rochester, WIXT-TV Syracuse, WIVT(TV)
Binghamton, WWTI(TV) Watertown and WUTR(TV) Utica, as well as NBC
affiliates WETM-TV Elmira and WBGH-CA Binghamton, as well as TV
stations in California, Oregon and Washington and radio and billboard
interests. 

The FCC says Clear Channel will have to spin off four Utica radio
stations, two Binghamton radio stations and one radio station each in
Rochester and Syracuse to stay within its ownership limits; NERW notes
that Clear Channel also has the option to stay within those limits by
spinning the Ackerley TV stations, and we still wouldn't be surprised
to see the TV cluster spun off, with Clear Channel keeping the
billboards and Seattle radio cluster that seem to have the greater
strategic value to the company.

The FCC gave Clear Channel 12 months to divest; it also misspelled a
certain city as "Binghampton" throughout its ruling. (Perhaps a
vacation in "Worchester" might be in order?)

Speaking of Binghamton, the Sunday "Country Capsule" show that was
formerly heard on Citadel's WHWK (98.1) has moved down Vestal
Boulevard to take up new residence at Clear Channel's WBBI (107.5
Endwell), where it's heard from 7 until 10 on Sunday mornings.

Over in Jamestown, we can report $5.05 million as the price for
MediaOne's acquisition of WJTN/WWSE from the heirs of Si Goldman;
Pittsburgh broker Ray Rosenblum handled the deal.

Here in Rochester, Pinnacle Hill (the site that's home to all the
city's TV stations and several FMs) is looking a little different this
week. 

That's because a crane was up there last week removing the 22 year old
antenna of public WXXI-TV (Channel 21), which was damaged in a storm
in February.

WXXI has been operating at low power from a temporary panel antenna
halfway down the tower since then, rendering the station unviewable by
anyone more than 15 miles or so from Pinnacle Hill - not a good
situation to be in during a pledge drive! 

WXXI's partner on the tower in question, Fox affiliate WUHF (Channel
31), had to sign off while WXXI's antenna was removed. We're keeping
an eye on the temporarily one-tined candelabra from our perch a mile
away at NERW Central, and we'll let you know as soon as WXXI gets its
antenna back up and returns to full power.

(You can see pictures of this, as well as the WENT tower, at our Web
site, www.fybush.com...)

Congratulations to former upstater (and your editor's colleague at
Radio World) Peter King; the alumnus of
Rochester's WKLX (and Ithaca radio before that) has been promoted to a
fulltime staffer at CBS Radio News; he'll remain based in Florida,
where he's been a freelancer for CBS for several years.

Time Warner Cable is getting ready to launch its "Capital News 9"
all-news channel in the Albany market, and that means hiring a staff
to get things going this fall. In addition to former WNYT (Channel 13)
staffer Chris Brunner as news director, the station has named Mary
Rozak, formerly assignment manager at Fox affiliate WXXA (Channel 23)
as assistant news director. The station also has a logo - borrowed
almost exactly from its Tampa sister operation, Bay News 9!

*CONNECTICUT's "Kiss 95.7" has a new jock lineup: Diego comes aboard
from Salt Lake City to take the 6-10 PM shift at WKSS (95.7 Hartford),
following new PD Rick Vaughn (10-2) and former middayer Gina J (now
doing 2-6 PM). Nate Thomas, who had been doing evenings, now follows
Diego in the 10-1 shift.

*MASSACHUSETTS radio listeners will have to try a little harder to
find Laura Schlessinger on the radio. After bumping the Premiere
talker from mid-mornings to an 11 PM delayed broadcast, Entercom's
WRKO (680 Boston) ditched the program completely last week. 

Occupying the 11 PM - 1 AM slot, beginning tonight (June 3), will be
"VB's Pleasure Palace," a local talk show hosted by the Howie Carr
producer formerly known as "Virgin Boy." (And if you were hoping to
tune into VB over the Internet, sorry; WRKO, along with the rest of
Entercom's stations around the country, suspended its streaming audio
last week, citing the continuing questions about copyright issues.)

Barry Scott is getting busier at WODS (103.3 Boston); in addition to
his "Lost 45s" on Sundays, he's now hosting "Oldies 103.3's Saturday
Night Party," which started this past weekend in the 8-midnight slot
at the Infinity station. (Infinity also named WBMX VP/GM Mark Hannon
as "market captain" for its entire Boston cluster, which includes WBZ,
WZLX and WBCN as well.)

Boston's two big NPR affiliates will sound even more alike beginning
this week; WBUR-FM (90.9) is putting PRI's "Marketplace" back on its
weeknight schedule (the show was displaced after September 11 by
extended news coverage), slotting the business show at 6:30 PM - which
just happens to be the same time the show airs on crosstown WGBH
(89.7). WBUR and WGBH now run substantially identical programming from
6 until 8 each morning (NPR's Morning Edition) and from 5 to 7 at
night (All Things Considered, followed by Marketplace). WBUR's move
displaces the last half of the 6-7 PM hour of ATC, which is a
rebroadcast of the program's first hour (heard on WBUR from 4-5 PM).

(NERW recalls with pleasure our recent visit to Louisville, Kentucky,
where three public radio stations licensed to two separate
institutions got together a few years back to coordinate the
programming and operation of their facilities, thus providing
listeners in that fine city with three completely separate programming
options from public radio at all times. Imagine that!)

Former WHMP-FM (99.3 Northampton, now WLZX) PD Adam Wright joins Clear
Channel's Springfield cluster as director of marketing and
non-traditional revenue.

*Up in VERMONT, the FCC rescinds its grant of a channel 27 translator
at White River Junction to WMTW (Channel 8) from Maine; we don't know
why, just yet...

*One item from NEW JERSEY: after several weeks off the air, New Jersey
101.5 (WKXW-FM 101.5 Trenton/WKXW 1450 Atlantic City) afternoon team
Scott and Casey returned to the studio last week. There's still no
explanation being offered for their paid vacation, during which New
York sports talker Craig Carton handled fill-in duties. (We're
pleased, by the way, to note that our old college radio colleague
Marshall Stevenson, late of WFAS in White Plains, has joined WKXW's
news department!)

*A familiar PENNSYLVANIA voice is returning to Philadelphia's FM
airwaves. John De Bella, the longtime morning voice of WMMR (93.3),
will begin doing morning drive at classic rocker WMGK (102.9) June
10. De Bella's been off the air in Philly for a few years, since the
end of a stint at WYSP (94.1). Ironically, WMGK and WMMR are both
under the same Greater Media corporate roof these days...

On the TV side, veteran KYW-TV (Channel 3) anchor Beverly Williams is
suing the CBS station, saying she's been passed over for promotions
repeatedly over the years. Williams, who has been at KYW on and off
since 1975, is alleging race, sex and age discrimination in her suit
against the station.

Speaking of KYW, it's getting ready to launch a morning news broadcast
on UPN sister station WPSG (Channel 57) - but with content coming from
the newsroom of KYW radio (AM 1060) instead of from channel 3 down the
hall. (NERW wonders: could we eventually see WBZ radio's Jay McQuaide
doing mornings on WSBK, too?)

Up in Allentown, Cat Collins is suing Citadel's WCTO (96.1 Easton) for
$550,000. Collins, who left the station in February after just six
weeks in morning drive, alleges sexual harrassment and wrongful
termination.

Michael McKendree's Cambria Radiowerks is buying WRDD (1580 Ebensburg)
and WNCC (950 Barnesboro) from Vernal Enterprises for a reported
$320,000. The two stations, which serve the mountainous area between
Johnstown and Altoona, simulcast an oldies format.

Pittsburgh listeners have Tom Joyner in mornings again. The syndicated
urban morning show had been heard on Inner City's WURP (1550 Braddock)
until that station went dark a few months back; it's now resurfaced on
Sheridan's WAMO (860 Millvale), which had been simulcasting the
morning show from sister WAMO-FM (106.7 Beaver Falls).

On the TV side, Bob Kudzma did his last weather forecast on KDKA-TV
(Channel 2) on Friday, ending a career that started at the station in
1968. He's keeping his day job as (we kid you not!) a school bus
driver. Meanwhile, Channel 2 says it will add a 4 PM newscast this
fall, which means the station will offer national and local news
straight through from 4 until 7 PM weeknights.

*There's good news and bad news out of CANADA this week, at least
where CBC and Radio-Canada audiences in Quebec are concerned. The good
news is that programming on Radio-Canada and local Quebec CBC services
began returning to normal, now that 1,400 union workers are returning
to their jobs after a lockout that began March 23. Workers get an
immediate 2 percent salary increase; the union wasn't able to get the
CBC to agree to add more permanent jobs.

The lockout cancelled most news programming in Quebec; it also left
Radio-Canada Stanley Cup telecasts running without play-by-play
commentary. The good news is that the finals will get play-by-play;
the bad news is that these will be Radio-Canada's last Stanley Cup
games.

The Montreal Canadiens wanted Radio-Canada to commit to carrying all
82 regular-season games, in addition to the playoffs - and the
broadcaster said it couldn't commit that much airtime to the team. The
Habs then signed a deal to put their games on cable's Reseau de Sports
(RDS), which will also get rights to the Stanley Cup as part of the
deal.

While Radio-Canada loses its Saturday night "Soiree du hockey," which
dates back to the 1952 dawn of Canadian television, the
English-language "Hockey Night in Canada" remains in place on the CBC
television network. 

One more Canadian item this week, also from Quebec: Radio-Canada's
CBFX-FM-1 (104.3 Trois-Rivieres) applies to boost power from 38.4 kW
to 43 kW and move its antenna to a new tower 1.9 km northeast of its
old site, the former CKTM-TV tower near Shawinigan that was destroyed
in a plane crash in 2000. The Radio-Canada chaine culturelle outlet
has been running from a temporary antenna since the accident.

*That's it for another week; we'll see you next Monday!

-----------------------NorthEast Radio Watch------------------------
                       (c)2002 Scott Fybush
                          www.fybush.com

No redistribution permitted for commercial use, or for
noncommercial use without prior written permission.

NorthEast Radio Watch is a "shareware" publication.  Regular readers
are kindly requested to contribute towards the continued publication
of this weekly resource.  Visit <http://www.fybush.com/support.html>
for more information.

For the freshest NERW news, visit our Web edition, published Monday
mornings at <http://www.fybush.com/nerw.html>, complete with photos,
audio clips, and links.  Each week's "E-Mail edition" is distributed
to the boston-radio-interest and NERW mailing lists within 48 hours of
publication.     

To be added to the NERW mailing list, send e-mail to
<nerw-request@bostonradio.org> with the word "subscribe"
as the body of the message.  You will receive a confirmation
code to return by e-mail to begin your free subscription.
Please direct any questions about the list process to
<nerw-owner@bostonradio.org>; subscription requests and
questions sent directly to NERW cannot be acted on.

NERW is archived at the Boston Radio Archives,
<http://www.bostonradio.org/radio/bostonradio.html> and
is generally made available there about a week after
publication.  

Opinions expressed in NERW are solely those of the author
and not necessarily those of MIT or LCS.

NERW welcomes your news and contributions at
<nerw@fybush.com>.

--------------------------------------------------------------------