NERW 12/16: Vinikoor Wins NH Tower Suit

[fybush@gwind.pair.com]

------------------------------E-MAIL EDITION-----------------------------
--------------------------NorthEast Radio Watch--------------------------
                            December 16, 2002

IN THIS ISSUE:

*NEW HAMPSHIRE: Vinikoor Wins NH Tower Suit
*CANADA: CHWO's Fulton Dies at 58
*NEW YORK: New Pinnacle Hill Tower Rises

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

*The big story this week comes from the snowy northern reaches of NEW
HAMPSHIRE - but it's a precedent that broadcasters all over the
country could soon be studying as they fight local zoning boards
standing in the way of broadcast tower construction.

Longtime NERW readers are already familiar with Bob Vinikoor's
struggles to build WQTH (720 Hanover), the construction permit he was
granted five years ago for a 50,000 watt daytime, 500 watt nighttime
signal that would be a counterpart to his existing WNTK (1020
Newport), WNTK-FM (99.7 New London) and WNBX (1480 Springfield
VT). The station would use four 266-foot towers on Etna Road in
Lebanon, in an area zoned for industrial use.

But Vinikoor ran up against a Lebanon ordinance that prohibits any
broadcast tower higher than 42 feet - and a city government that was
unwilling to accept the laws of physics (and FCC minimum efficiency
requirements) that dictate that no station operating on 720 can
possibly use a tower that short.

Several years of court battles ensued, including a setback last year
when a state trial court found in favor of the city and refused to
grant summary judgment in Vinikoor's favor.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court accepted his appeal, though, and on
September 11 Vinikoor and attorney Fred Hopengarten of Lincoln,
Mass. appeared before the court for oral arguments, with Chris Imlay,
lawyer for the Society of Broadcast Engineers, submitting a friend of
the court brief in support of Vinikoor.

The court issued its ruling on Thursday, and it's a pretty clear
victory for Vinikoor and for the radio industry in general. In
particular, the court agreed with Vinikoor that the city's laws
prohibiting a 266-foot tower are in conflict with the federal
regulations that require a tower of that height for a station on 720 -
and that simply arguing that Vinikoor is not "required by federal law"
to build the station doesn't give the city's regulations precedence.

Vinikoor's next step: returning to the trial court for an actual court
order, after which he'll be free to apply for a building permit and
build the most powerful AM signal (at least during daylight hours) in
northern New England.

*One more Granite State story: Andy Mack is the new PD/OM at oldies
WNNH (99.1 Henniker).

*The big story in MASSACHUSETTS this week was, of course, the Friday
morning resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law, and Boston's TV and radio
stations were all over it, breaking the story just before 6 AM in live
reports from Rome on WHDH-TV (Channel 7) and WBZ-TV (Channel 4) and
radio (1030). While channels 7 and WCVB (Channel 5) stayed with the
story all morning, channel 4 broke away at 9:30 for Martha Stewart, of
all things, returning to Rome at noon.

Meanwhile down in New Bedford, Edmund Dinis, owner of WJFD (97.3),
faces a $20,000 Notice of Apparent Liability from the FCC for four
morning show broadcasts on WSPR (1270 Springfield), the
Spanish-language station he sold last March. The FCC says the WSPR
morning shows included (avert your eyes if you're sensitive about such
things!) "explicit depictions of anal sex, oral sex, excretory
activities and sexual activities with a child present."

Those of less sensitive constitutions can check out the complete
complaint, transcripts and all, at the FCC's Web site; we expect Dinis
to appeal the fine and get at least a partial reduction.

It's been four months since WAAF (107.3 Worcester) pulled Rocko off
its afternoon shift, and now there's a permanent replacement. Eddie
Webb comes to the Entercom rocker from XM in Washington, where he was
PD for the "Liquid Metal" channel; before that, he worked at KUPD in
Phoenix and the old WRCX in Chicago. As for Rocko, he's still looking
for his next gig...

Sean McDonough is staying put on WWZN (1510 Boston) and behind the mic
at Boston Red Sox TV broadcasts; he passed up an offer to go to the
New York Mets next season in favor of an 80-game TV deal with the Sox,
and we're glad to see him staying with the Home Town Team.

(Speaking of staying, the Patriots signed a reported 10-year deal to
remain on Infinity's WBCN, so Pats fans can look forward to many more
years of Gil and Gino and their excellent game coverage, too!)

Up in Beverly, we hear WNSH (1570) has dropped most of its
satellite-delivered music programming in favor of local shows, some
live (including a 7-10 AM morning show with programmers Chris Williams
and Peter Ciani) and some automated. WNSH is also carrying some midday
talk and weekend ethnic programming.

*CONNECTICUT Public Broadcasting will move to a new home in Hartford
in a little over a year. The TV and radio networks are selling their
current home at 240 New Britain Avenue to neighboring Trinity College
for $10 million; they'll renovate a building on Asylum Avenue not far
from the state capital to serve as the networks' new headquarters,
with the move expected to take place in the spring of 2003.

On the commercial side, Lyn Tolan is the new news director at WFSB
(Channel 3), arriving from WFTV (Channel 9) in Orlando to replace
Deborah Johnson. Tolan is a native of Ridgefield, Connecticut and a
veteran of WLWT (Channel 5) in Cincinnati.

*Jukebox Radio is off the air in northern NEW JERSEY and Rockland
County, NEW YORK, but NERW's ears down that way report that the
oldies/infomercials format continues for now on primary WJUX (99.7
Monticello).

Why was the plug pulled on the WJUX feed to translators W232AL (94.3
Pomona NY) and W276AQ (103.1 Fort Lee NJ)? The Bergen Record reports
that Jukebox owner Gerry Turro received a letter from the FCC in
mid-November raising questions about a loan Turro made to the former
business partner who purchased the WJUX studios from him. The FCC says
the loan creates an impermissible business relationship between the
primary station and the two translators, which operate outside WJUX's
primary contour.

While Turro has won previous fights to keep the unusual translator
network (fed from studios in Dumont, N.J., near the Fort Lee
transmitter) intact, he tells the Record, "I'm sorry, I no longer feel
like fighting."

Turro and Wesley Weis, who owns WJUX, are reportedly trying to sell
the three transmitters to a noncommercial operator, which would be
able to legally operate the translators and the primary together.

Heading upstate, Jonathan Lawhead is the new general manager at
Granite's WTVH (Channel 5) in Syracuse. Lawhead comes from WXIX
(Channel 19), Fox's Cincinnati affiliate; he replaces Gary Wordlaw,
who's off to Seattle to run Viacom's KSTW (Channel 11).

Here in Rochester, a fond farewell to Doc and Katy Abraham, the "Green
Thumb" couple who've hosted the Saturday gardening show on WHAM (1180)
for an amazing fifty years! Doc and Katy, who have also written for
the local paper and were seen for many years on WOKR (Channel 13), did
their final show on WHAM this past Saturday before heading off for a
much-deserved retirement, for which we wish them the best of luck...

LATE UPDATE: After this week's NERW went up on the Web, we started to
notice some changes down the street from NERW Central on Pinnacle
Hill, home to Rochester's TV stations (and several FMs as
well). The new American Tower tower rising on Pinnacle Hill (you can
see exclusive photos at www.fybush.com!) will be home to WUHF-DT
(Channel 28) and perhaps to WUHF-TV (Channel 31) as well, relocating
from the candelabra tower at right that's also home to WXXI-TV
(Channel 21), which needs the space in order to get WXXI-DT (Channel
16, but with an application for channel 41) on the air. American Tower
also hopes to move WZNE (94.1 Brighton) and LPTVs WBXO-CA (Channel
15), WAWW-LP (Channel 38), W42CO (Channel 42) and WROH-LP (Channel 47)
from the little tower adjacent to the new stick.

And on the IBOC front, those who submitted comments about the FCC's
ruling approving Ibiquity's digital system for daytime use on the AM
band received a fat packet in the mail last week from the Glen Clark
consulting firm, which is now asking the FCC to modify its ruling to
allow IBOC use 24 hours a day, skywave or no skywave. Stay tuned on
this one; we'll be hearing more about it in the weeks to come...

*Just a few quick bits of PENNSYLVANIA news: Gary DeFrancesco, former
operations manager at WIOQ/WLCE, is the new PD at Greater Media's
struggling WMWX (95.7 Philadelphia), where he replaced Chris Ebbott on
Friday.

Up in Montrose, it seems WPEL (1250) has split from its longtime
simulcast of religious sister WPEL-FM (96.5); while the big-signal FM
(the only FM with good coverage of both Binghamton and Scranton)
continues with preaching and contemporary Christian music, the AM side
is reportedly running southern gospel.

In Shamokin, WISL (1480) made it back on the air December 3 with
oldies, just in the nick of time; over near Pittsburgh, WURP (1550
Braddock) also made it back before the one-year deadline. It's running
a loop of modern AC music, we're told...

*It's been a tough fall at Toronto's CHWO (740). Staffers and
listeners there are still mourning the October death of weekend host
(and longtime CFRB fixture) Earl Warren - and now comes word of the
passing of morning co-host Tom Fulton.

Fulton's Toronto career began back on the old CKFH (1430, now CHKT),
where he did afternoons in the seventies, later moving to CING (107.9)
in Burlington and CJRT (91.1) before landing at CHWO when it launched
on 740 two years ago.

Fulton had reportedly just stepped outside the station's Oakville
studio after the show last Monday (Dec. 9) when he suffered a massive
heart attack; he was only 58 years old.

*Other Canadian news: we have call letters for Aboriginal Voices
Radio's new Toronto signal on 106.5: mark down "CFIE" for the signal,
better known locally as "Jump FM."

The CRTC granted CHUC Cobourg's application to move from 1450 (with
8000 watts day, 1000 watts night) to 1580, with 10 kilowatts
full-time; the move should give CHUC wide coverage of the east on
what's been a very empty channel since CBJ in Chicoutimi, Quebec moved
to FM a few years ago.

Barrie religious broadcaster CJLF (100.3) has been granted an Owen
Sound relay transmitter; it'll operate on 90.1 with 75
watts. Meanwhile down in London, "Sound of Faith Broadcasting" has
been granted 10 watts on 105.9 to play contemporary Christian music.

In Ottawa, Algonquin College's CKDJ is about to get a much better
signal; it was granted a move from 96.9, where its 8 watts were
getting smothered under new classical CJLX (97.1), to 107.9 and 100
watts.

Church station CFPP in Sherbrooke, Quebec was granted a move from 89.7
to 88.1.

And heading east to New Brunswick, CFAN in Miramichi is in its final
weeks on the AM dial. The station plans to complete its move to FM (on
99.3) just after the New Year, and it's being widely heard by DXers in
the east on the AM dial in the meantime. Reports on the National Radio
Club's mailing list indicate CFAN's first choice for an FM transmitter
site didn't work, so the station tried putting its FM antenna on one
of the AM towers. That, in turn, meant going non-directional on 790
from the remaining tower, giving DXers one last chance to hear CFAN
before it leaves the AM dial for good.

*That's it for another week; those of you who ordered Tower Site
Calendars by December 15 should have them (or will be receiving them
in the next day or two; they've all been shipped now) - and if you
haven't ordered yours yet, we have plenty left; visit www.fybush.com
to learn more about the most tower-y gift of the season...

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

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