NERW 9/23: WKCD Jams!

[fybush@gwind.pair.com]

------------------------------E-MAIL EDITION-----------------------------
--------------------------NorthEast Radio Watch--------------------------
                           September 23, 2002

IN THIS ISSUE:

*CONNECTICUT: WKCD Goes Jammin'
*NEW JERSEY: Last Country Station to Disappear
*NEW YORK: WYOS Goes Talk

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

*A quiet week in Northeast radio and television - but there are a few
bits of news to tell you about this issue:

Southeastern CONNECTICUT (and a fair chunk of southern RHODE ISLAND as
well) heard a format flip last Thursday (Sept. 19), as the modern AC
sounds of WKCD (107.7 Pawcatuck) gave way to a harder-edged rhythmic
CHR sound on "Jammin' 107.7." The station is changing hands from AAA
Entertainment to John J. Fuller's Red Wolf Broadcasting, which also
has AC WBMW (106.5 Ledyard CT) and country WJJF (1180 Hope Valley RI)
in the neighborhood; Fuller is paying $3.75 million for WKCD, and he's
already running it under an LMA that started a few weeks ago. Expect
more news on jocks and management from WKCD, soon...

Across the Nutmeg State, Vince Cremona is leaving WEBE (107.9
Westport), the station he helped to purchase back in 1983, when it was
still WDJF. Cremona and his partners flipped the station to AC as WEBE
the following year; he stayed on as general manager as the station
(and sister AM'er WICC, the station Cremona left in 1983, then helped
to acquire six years later) changed hands to Frank Osborne's Aurora in
1999 and then, earlier this year, to Cumulus.

Cremona stayed on with Cumulus during the transition, managing its
stations in Connecticut and the New York suburbs; there's no word yet
on who'll replace him - and Cumulus is saying no further changes are
planned at the stations. (We know what that usually means, don't
we...)

*Crossing the sound to NEW YORK, Jay Diamond's time at new talker WLIE
(540 Islip) proved to be short, indeed; the former WOR talk host left
his weekend slot there (of his own volition, he says) after just a
couple of weeks.

There's a new AM station about to hit the air in the Mohawk Valley:
we've heard reports that Michael Sleezer's new WFNY (1440) in
Gloversville is testing; by next week, perhaps we'll even have a
format to tell you about!

Up north, Mars Hill Network has calls for its latest outlet: 90.1 in
Malone will be WMHQ(FM), and if those calls sound familiar, you
probably remember them from channel 45 in Schenectady, which used them
in its public TV days (it's now WEWB, Albany's WB affiliate).

It looks like Galaxy is changing the call letters at the Albany-market
stations that were once doing hot talk as WHTR-FM (93.7 Scotia) and
WHTR (1400 Albany), but there's some question about just what the new
calls actually are.

Several listeners in the market have reported hearing the new FM call
as "WKRD" (and your editor has already changed the listing on our
recently-affiliated sister site 100000watts.com to reflect that), but
others are hearing "WKRT-FM." The FCC hasn't updated its database yet,
and the "WKRT" calls are already taken...

...150 miles away in Cortland, where Citadel recently flipped WKRT
(920) from satellite oldies to a talk format. Now being heard on WKRT:
Doug Stephan mornings, followed by Mike Gallagher, Bill O'Reilly, Dave
Ramsey, Sean Hannity, Rusty Humphries, Michael Savage and Jim
Bohannon. (What's on weekends? No idea; WKRT's Web site, like so many
these days, doesn't as much as acknowledge that the station exists on
Saturdays and Sundays...)

Could WKRT soon have a sister station to the south? The Web site for
Citadel's WYOS (1360 Binghamton) disappeared recently, and the rumors
are flying that the oldies station (the former WKOP, which took the
WYOS calls and format when they moved from 104.1 FM, now "Wild" WWYL)
will soon become a sister talker to Citadel's WNBF (1290 Binghamton).

Adding fuel to the fire: WNBF just reshuffled its program schedule,
pulling Laura Schlessinger from her late-afternoon slot and replacing
her with a new local afternoon news block. So what's brewing down in
the basement on Court Street? Sounds like we may hear as early as this
week...stay tuned, right here at fybush.com, for updates!

(LATE UPDATE: Sure enough, WYOS dropped the oldies as of Monday
morning and went all-talk - more details in next week's issue!)

Up here in Rochester, we've been tuned in to WBJA (102.1 Albion), the
Calvary religious outlet that may be changing calls to WJCA any day
now. But we might never know if they do; you see, for the last few
days the only station ID being heard on 102.1 each hour is "KAWZ Twin
Falls, KRTM Temecula." We found out why when we finally heard an
actual local ID late Saturday night: the station was apparently hit by
lightning and some equipment was damaged. (Since when does that
relieve a station from legal ID requirements, we wonder?)

(LATE UPDATE, PART II: As of Monday afternoon, WBJA had indeed changed
calls to WJCA, with a legal ID coming straight outta Idaho: "KAWZ Twin
Falls, KRTM Temecula, WJCA Albion." So it's apparently easier to redo
the ID to the whole Calvary network than it is to get a local ID to
play out of Western New York. Hmmm...)

On a brighter note, we've bemoaned here many a time the absolute lack
of legal IDs on school station WBER (90.5 Rochester), and it appears
that someone at the Monroe County Board of Cooperative Educational
Services #1 finally realized the station was at risk of a decent-sized
fine (yes, we have tapes...); of late, we've heard WBER doing an ID
between 11 and 15 minutes after the hour mentioning its 15th
anniversary and saying the almost-magic words "WBER in Rochester." Get
rid of the "in" and move it to the top of the hour, and they might
actually comply with the letter and the spirit of 47 CFR 73.1201 (and
even teach the students something in the process...)

On the LPTV front, it's been an interesting week here in Rochester:
local MTV2 outlet WBXO-LP (Channel 15) has been stuck on an ID
full-screen with no other programming for days now, thereby proving
our suspicion that nobody's watching; up the dial, Tri-State Christian
TV's W42CO has switched back from the TCT satellite feed to the
somewhat different program lineup of WNYB-TV (Channel 26) in
Jamestown, received over the air at W42CO's Pinnacle Hill site.

(W42CO used to be W59BV, and it began as a WNYB off-air relay, but
eventually abandoned the off-air pickup because of severe channel 26
interference from quasi-local UPN affiliate W26BZ over in Victor. You
can still see co-channel interference lines in the W42CO signal, and
we wonder how the picture will look when UHF reception hits its
seasonal doldrums in a few months.)

One more Pinnacle note: the old AT&T microwave tower up near the
Rochester TV towers came down a few weeks ago, clearing the way for a
new tower that will be home to WUHF-DT (Channel 28) and perhaps some
of the LPTVs.

And we hope your travel plans, like ours, include a stop this Thursday
(Sept. 26) at the Turning Stone Casino in Verona (between Syracuse and
Utica) next Thursday (Sept. 26) for the Society of Broadcast
Engineers' Chapter 22 Northeast Regional Convention. This is the 30th
year for the event, which has become the biggest broadcast engineering
trade show in the region; if you're not registered yet, visit
http://www.sbe22.org/html/convention/convhome02.html to get signed up
- and don't forget to say hello to your editor!

*One PENNSYLVANIA format change to report, and it's a small one: WMAJ
(1450 State College) dropped standards for ESPN sports, formerly heard
in that sports-crazy market on weekends via crosstown WRSC (1390)/WBLF
(970 Bellefonte).

*It looks as though one of NERW's favorite NEW JERSEY AMs will be
changing format soon: we told you a few months back that Herbert
Michaels, owner of WKMB (1070 Stirling) had died, and now we can tell
you that his estate and K&M Broadcasters are selling the station to
King's Temple Ministries, Inc. for a reported $400,000.

The little 250-watt daytimer (are there any "big" 250-watt daytimers?)
was a last bastion of country music in central Jersey, and still
sounded like something out of the mid-70s the last time we listened a
few months back. We're expecting to hear religion next time...

*A quick spin around New England: in MASSACHUSETTS, the WROR (105.7
Framingham) jock reunion weekend wound down Sunday night, which likely
means a full-fledged transition to classic rock is on the way; more in
next week's issue. Down the road in Attleboro, WARL (1320) indeed went
urban as "Power 1320," serving Providence to the south. Up in NEW
HAMPSHIRE, we can report a few details of Pax's $26 million sale of
WPXB (Channel 60) in Merrimack to NBC, which will use it as a
Telemundo affiliate: NBC must change the calls within 15 days of
closing, it must give Pax half of any money it receives for vacating
the channel 60 dial position within five years of the sale; and Pax
will finish building WPXB-DT (Channel 34) before closing. And in
VERMONT, the state transportation department has been granted two more
LPFMs: 100.1 in Randolph and 105.5 in Jonesville.

*A quiet week in CANADA, too, as the CRTC gets busy with its hearings
on those new Toronto and southern Ontario applications. Up in Quebec,
Radio-Canada wants to let CFLM in La Tuque off the hook as an
affiliate, replacing it with a new relay of CBF-FM-8 (104.3
Trois-Rivieres), which would bring R-C's chaine culturelle service to
La Tuque with 11.3 kW on 103.7.

Montreal's all-news CINW (940) is mourning traffic reporter Joel
Gordon; he died Sept. 18 of cancer at age 40.

In Brantford, Ontario, religious CFWC (99.5) wants to boost power from
50 to 250 watts.

*And with the week's news out of the way, we can get down to business:
we're opening the ordering window for the Tower Site Calendar 2003.

If you liked last year's edition, you'll love this one: higher-quality
images (including Providence's WHJJ; Mount Mansfield, Vermont;
Buffalo's WBEN; KOMA in Oklahoma City; the legendary WSM, Nashville
and many more), more dates in radio history, a convenient hole for
hanging - and we'll even make sure all the dates fall on the right
days!

This year's calendar will go to press in late October, and if you
order now, you'll have yours in hand by mid-November, in plenty of
time for the holidays. And this year, you can order with your Visa,
MasterCard, Discover or American Express by using the handy link
below!

Better yet, here's an incentive to make your 2003 NERW subscription
pledge a little early: support NERW/fybush.com at the $60 level or
higher, and you'll get this lovely calendar for free! How can you go
wrong? 

To order by credit card, or to make your NERW subscription pledge by
credit card, visit <http://www.fybush.com/nerw.html>.

You can also order by mail; just send a check for $16 per calendar
(NYS residents add 8% sales tax), shipping included, to Scott Fybush,
92 Bonnie Brae Ave., Rochester NY 14618.

*And that's it for the week; we'll see you back here on Monday,
Sept. 30!

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

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