NERW 10/1: WKNJ, RIP

[fybush@gwind.pair.com]

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------------------------------E-MAIL EDITION-----------------------------
--------------------------NorthEast Radio Watch--------------------------
                             October 1, 2002

IN THIS ISSUE:

*NEW YORK/NEW JERSEY: WKNJ 550 Is Gone
*PENNSYLVANIA: Walter Annenberg Dies
*OHIO: WASN Sold at Bankruptcy

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

*It was supposed to be NEW JERSEY's newest radio station, but 14 years
after its first construction permit was granted, WKNJ (550 Lakewood)
has become radio history - without ever broadcasting so much as a
station ID.

When the FCC cancelled Steven Wendell's construction permit and
deleted the call letters last week, it ended a story that began back
in 1988, when Wendell originally proposed a station in the north
Jersey community, just south of the New York state line. Neighbors of
the proposed site on the New Jersey side of the line fought the
construction, and when the FCC began cracking down on long-unbuilt CPs
a few years ago, Wendell tried another tack to get his station built.

Changing the community of license to Harriman NY, Wendell modified the
CP to specify 250 watts, daytime only, from the existing site of WRKL
(910 New City), on US 202 in Pomona, Rockland County. But while WRKL
rebuilt its site, adding two towers for night use, WKNJ remained
unbuilt. The FCC said last winter that it would cancel the CP (which
had been renewed most recently in December 1998), but Wendell
appealed, telling the commission this year that he had been unable to
build WKNJ because engineers in the New York area had been too busy
with the World Trade Center recovery. The FCC didn't buy it, noting
that Wendell made no effort to hire engineers from outside the area,
and WKNJ is now officially gone.

(The back politics here: WKNJ's existence would have made the upgrade
of WLIE, on 540 in Islip, impossible; while the Long Island station
pushed to have WKNJ taken off life support, Wendell filed for another
540 facility, this time in Jaffrey, N.H. That application is still
pending...)

*Elsewhere in the Garden State, we're sorry to report the passing of
Howard Green, who died Sunday (Sept. 29) in Atlantic City. Green was
best known as the owner of WMGM-TV (Channel 40) in Atlantic City,
which he bought in 1977 (when it was WCMC-TV), as well as for
assembling a cluster of radio stations that included WOND (1400), WUSS
(1490), WONZ (1580 Hammonton), WTKU (98.3) and WMGM-FM (103.7). In
addition to the South Jersey stations, Green put WENY-TV (Channel 36)
in Elmira on the air in 1969, and once owned WJAB in Portland, Maine
and WMMB in Melbourne, Florida. Green was 72.

*It seems the folks in suburban Philly don't care for Hoosier humor;
WTHK (94.5 Trenton) has pulled the Indianapolis-based Bob & Tom show
off morning drive, replacing it with the "Free Beer and Hot Wings
Show" from its sister "Hawk" station, WCHR-FM (105.7 Manahawkin).

Over on the Jersey Shore, WRAT (95.9 Point Pleasant) promoted
PD/morning guy Carl Craft to operations manager.

*We'll start our NEW YORK report this week down in the tri-state area,
as well, with some management shuffling at the Pamal cluster in the
Hudson Valley that brings Jane Bartsch in from Pensacola (where she
was market manager at the Cumulus group) to be VP/GM of WHUD (100.7
Peekskill), WSPK (104.7 Poughkeepsie) and WLNA/WBNR (1420
Peekskill/1260 Beacon). Pamal also promoted Stacy Rogers from VP/sales
to VP/GM of its Albany cluster, while naming executive VP Jake Russell
as director of operations.

We have a lineup to report for new Binghamton talker WYOS (1360),
thanks to several alert readers down that way: the Citadel station
kicks off the day with Doug Stephan (5-9 AM), followed by Glenn Beck
(9-noon), Bill O'Reilly (noon-2), an hour of Dr. Dean Edell, Laura
Schlessinger (3-6 PM), Jim Cramer (6-7 PM), Tom Martino (7-10 PM),
Laura Ingraham (10 PM-midnight) and America Overnight.

Here at NERW, we pride ourselves on being thorough when it comes to
towers, so we made it a point to detour from the SBE regional
convention at Turning Stone Casino last week (a well-attended event,
by the way) to check out the newest ones in the state, and you can see
the results in the photomontage at the right.

That's WFNY (1440 Gloversville), Michael Sleezer's new station, with
two towers just a half-mile or so from Gloversville's heritage AM,
WENT (1340) and its recently rebuilt stick. These towers will soon be
sending out 800 watts by day, 500 watts at night, but despite reports
of the station testing, there was nothing on 1440 just yet as we
photographed it. (What's more, we got a flat tire!)

Rochester's first DTV signal made it to the air last week, at least in
testing mode. NBC affiliate WHEC-DT (Channel 58) is running just 38 kW
visual from Pinnacle Hill. Meanwhile, PBS outlet WXXI-TV (Channel 21)
has applied to move its DTV service from channel 16 to channel 41
whenever it signs on; considering the analog signal viewers east of
Rochester already get on 16 from WPBS in Watertown, that's a good idea
indeed...

Speaking of Watertown, its TV dial is getting a bit of a spin. UPN is
gone from LPTVs WLOT-LP (Channel 66) and WBQZ-LP (Channel 34), moved
to a tape-delayed schedule on LPTVs WNYF-LP (Channel 28, just granted
Class A status this week) and W28BC up in Massena. Meanwhile, cable
viewers who've gotten used to "WBWT," the cable-only signal on channel
31, will need to adjust their dials: it's moving to cable channel
14. (Just to confuse matters more, the Watertown Daily Times, long an
afternoon paper, moved to morning publication on Wednesday!)

In Arcade, east of Buffalo, the religious LPFM to be on 100.3 now has
a call, WNAR-LP, and a new transmitter site: it'll be just south of
the village of Arcade, practically touching the Cattaraugus-Wyoming
county line.

In Buffalo itself, a familiar voice is back on the air in morning
drive: Nicholas Picholas has rejoined Janet Snyder on the WKSE (98.5
Niagara Falls) morning show after an absence of two years, when he
crossed the border to do mornings at "Energy Radio" CING in Hamilton.

*An obituary to report in PENNSYLVANIA, but the passing of Walter
Annenberg ends a broadcast chapter that extended far beyond the
Keystone State. Annenberg's Triangle Broadcasting group was best known
for its ownership of WFIL AM-FM-TV (now WFIL 560, WIOQ 102.1 and
WPVI-TV 6) in Philadelphia, but it also included WNHC AM-FM-TV (now
WYBC 1340, WPLR 99.1 and WTNH-TV 8) in New Haven, Connecticut, WNBF
AM-FM-TV (now WNBF 1290, WAAL 99.1, WBNG-TV 12) in Binghamton,
N.Y. and WFBG AM-FM-TV (now WFBG 1290, WFGY 98.1 and WTAJ-TV 10) in
Altoona, Pennsylvania, among others. 

Annenberg's print holdings included the Philadelphia Inquirer and TV
Guide, which he founded nationally in 1953. In later years, he served
as ambassador to the Court of St. James's. He died Tuesday (Oct. 1) at
his home in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, reportedly of
pneumonia. Annenberg was 94.

*Bruce Bond is once again off the air in the Harrisburg market, after
a judge granted a restraining order at the request of Cumulus' WNNK
(104.1), which is trying to enforce a noncompete even after pulling
Bond off the afternoon shift last December. Bond returned to the air
in June on Citadel's WRKZ (102.3 Carlisle), and the lawsuits began
flying almost the same day. Bond's morning partner, "Stretch" Raback,
is doing the show solo for now...

Citadel flipped formats on two of its stations in the
Scranton./Wilkes-Barre market, dropping standards on WKJN (1440
Carbondale) and WAZL (1490 Hazleton) and replacing them - again - with
simulcasts of news-talk WARM (590 Scranton).

In Allentown, WLEV (100.7) is looking for a new morning co-host; Diane
Grey is off to Flint, Michigan and WFBE (95.1), leaving "Franceman"
solo for the moment.

Moving west, we're pleased to report that WSAJ (1340 Grove City) is
back on the air, now that its unusual horizontal "cage" antenna on the
campus of Grove City College has been repaired. WSAJ is a relic of an
earlier day of radio: it runs just 100 watts during its few hours of
weekly broadcasting (Sunday mornings and two weeknights, for an hour
at a time), keeping alive a license that was first granted in 1921!
(The college also runs fulltime religious/classical outlet WSAJ-FM on
91.1).

Down in Pittsburgh, Dave LaBrozzi is promoted to one of Clear
Channel's new regional VP of programming posts, overseeing the Clear
Channel outlets in the Steel City and nearby Wheeling. (He'd been OM
for WWSW, WBGG and WJJJ, three of Clear Channel's five Pittsburgh
stations.)

Just across the state line in the Youngstown, Ohio market, a piece of
history went on the auction block last week. Regular NERW reader (and
station broker) Ray Rosenblum was there, and he tells us WASN (1330
Campbell) fetched $175,000 from Stop 26-Riverbend, which also owns
nearby WGFT (1500 Youngstown). The station is itself a bit of history:
as WHOT, it was the big top-40 station in Youngstown in the sixties.

1330 was also a two-site operation; the five-tower night site down in
Boardman, Ohio is gone now, so the station will be effectively a
daytimer when it returns to the air. (It was last heard doing talk
under Dan Ott, before filing for bankruptcy and going up for auction.)

And over in Alliance, WZKL (92.5) dropped its mish-mosh of AC music on
Friday to return to its top 40 heritage as "Q92." Will the "WDJQ"
calls come back too? We hear a call change is pending there...and
we're waiting to see what involvement veteran CHR programmer Clarke
Ingram will have; he helped sign the station on, but was sidetracked
by a family health situation that forced him home to Pittsburgh over
the weekend.

*A veteran MASSACHUSETTS TV meteorologist is looking for work this
week. Mark Rosenthal started at WCVB (Channel 5) in Boston the year it
signed on, 1972, as a high school intern, and joined the station for
real in 1988, most recently doing weekends and filling in on
weekdays. But when WCVB added Harvey Leonard, the longtime channel 7
fixture, to its staff over the summer (not long after hiring
J.C. Monahan as an additional morning/fill-in talent), that left one
weatherman too many at 5 TV Place, with Rosenthal the odd man out. No
word yet on where he might land next...

On the radio side of things, add "oldies" to the format description of
Bob Bittner's wonderfully eclectic WJIB (740 Cambridge), which is
picking up some of the 1955-1964 era oldies that are in short supply
on the "commercial" oldies outlets like WODS. Next Sunday (Oct. 6),
Bob will launch "Solid Gold Sunday," playing the hits of the
pre-Beatles era (plus a few later ones that don't show up much on the
air these days) from 2 until 8 PM.

Ken Shelton's latest home on the Boston airwaves will be Greater
Media's WROR (105.7 Framingham), which has hired the Boston radio vet
(WBZ-FM, WCOZ, WBCN, WZLX, WBOS) for middays, where he'll be followed
by Tai and then Julie Devereaux, who moves to evenings from afternoons
at the reborn classic rocker.

Congratulations to Candy O'Terry; the WMJX (106.7) jock/APD has been
named president of the Boston/New England chapter of American Women in
Radio and Television!

Out in Springfield, Ron Osbourne makes the move up I-91 from WPLR
(99.1 New Haven), where he was doing weekends, to the night shift at
WAQY (102.1). We're also hearing (a bit late, as it turns out) that
Phil Dee has parted ways with WHYN (560). Dee, who did afternoons in
WHYN's music days, had been doing a Saturday nights oldies show on the
station, now a news-talker.

Down on the Rhode Island line, WARL (1320 Attleboro) is again looking
for a morning show. After signing a deal with rapper Luther "Luke"
Campbell of 2 Live Crew to do the show via ISDN from Miami (and
installing equipment down there, not to mention buying Campbell a
plane ticket to visit Providence and promote the show), the new urban
station says Campbell simply disappeared when it was show time,
leaving "Power 1320" without a morning show. Meanwhile, "CAB Radio,"
the syndicator affiliated with WARL parent ADD Media, has picked up
"Travel World," the Montreal-based show formerly syndicated by the
now-defunct Liberty Works, as its first national offering.

*Speaking of RHODE ISLAND and Massachusetts, we're hearing a
Providence-market FM with a better signal towards New Bedford will
soon be moving its studios across the state line and focusing its
sales and marketing on New Bedford and Fall River. Expect to "Z" more
about this one soon...

One that's more than just a well-placed rumor: Jeff Ryan, who does
swing at WWBB (101.5) in Providence and WKSS (95.7) in Hartford, is
adding another leg to his commute: he's now doing weekends way down in
Trenton at WPST (97.5).

*Just one lone CONNECTICUT note: the calls for the new experimental
station on 107.5 in Avon will be WC3XSH, as it tests whether LPFMs can
coexist with full-power stations (in this case, WCCC on 106.9) three
channels away.

*A call change in VERMONT is promising bigger changes down the road:
WKDR (1390 Burlington) has applied to become WVAA; the website of the
former talker now says "changes coming soon," while the station itself
was doing CNN Headline News over the weekend, still using the WKDR
calls. Stay tuned for more on this one...

On the FM side, Mark Abuhazzab moves up from music director to PD at
"The Point" (WNCS 104.7 Montpelier and its AAA sister stations),
replacing the long-serving Jody Peterson.

*In NEW HAMPSHIRE, there's some federal money on the way for public
broadcasting: NH Public Radio will get $47,000 to buy a new
transmitter for WEVC (107.1 Gorham), while New Hampshire Public
Television gets $1.2 million to build a new broadcast center in Keene
and to build out the rest of its digital TV network.

Cable viewers way up north won't be seeing WMPX (Channel 23) from
Waterville, MAINE; the Pax outlet was denied cable carriage in Berlin
and Lancaster, N.H., which are some 75 miles from the WMPX transmitter
at the far end of the Portland market.

Congratulations to WRKD (1450 Rockland), which marked its 50th
anniversary this week. Special programming includes a six-hour look
back on the station's history on the anniversary day, October 1.

*Up in CANADA, the CRTC is plenty busy with the ongoing hearings on
new radio licenses for Toronto; in the meantime, the CBC has applied
for a new outlet in Ville-Marie, Quebec. With 15.9 kw on 89.1, the new
Radio-Canada outlet would relay the "premiere chaine" service from
CHLM (90.7) Rouyn-Noranda; we believe it would thus free CKVM (710
Ville-Marie) from its status as one of the last privately-owned
affiliates of Radio-Canada in Quebec.

The CBC also needs a new host for the next season of "Hockey Night in
Canada." It was unable to reach agreement on a new contract with Ron
MacLean, who's hosted the Canadian institution with Don Cherry since
1987. On the radio side, the CBC named Jane Chalmers, director of
current affairs for CBC-TV, to replace Alex France as vice president
of CBC Radio, effective November 1.

Sorry to report the passing of Hamilton's first TV newscaster. Jack
Burghardt started the news department at CHCH-TV (Channel 11), moving
in 1971 to CFPL-TV (Channel 10) in London, where he was the station's
main news anchor for a decade. Burghardt then moved into politics,
serving as a member of parliament, deputy mayor and mayoral candidate
before retiring in 1994. Burghardt, who died Saturday (Sept. 28), was
73.

Over in Fort Erie, CKEY (Wild 101.1) now has a PD: Phil Becker moves
up from WJFX (107.9) in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to helm the new
Buffalo-market urban CHR, effective October 28.

And CKKW (1090) in Kitchener has rehired Ross Poll to do mornings;
Poll left the station when it flipped from oldies to sports back in
May 2001, but now that "The Team" is gone and oldies are back, so is
Poll.

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

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