NERW 12/23: Vinikoor Plans Another Change

[fybush@gwind.pair.com]

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

IN THIS ISSUE:

*NEW HAMPSHIRE: Vinikoor Wants WNTK Back on 1010
*MASSACHUSETTS: Ed Perry Stands Up for Free Press
*CANADA: CISD Returns

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

*NEW HAMPSHIRE leading the news for a second week in a row? You bet
(or, as they might say up there, "Ayuh!") - and with the same station
owner involved this week, too!

Last week, we told you how Bob Vinikoor had won his New Hampshire
Supreme Court battle to build four 266-foot towers in Lebanon for his
new WQTH (720 Hanover).

This week, we can tell you that Vinikoor has some big plans for his
other New Hampshire AM station as well. WNTK (1020 Newport) is
currently a 10 kW daytimer, playing Americana music along with some
talk programming - but Vinikoor applied last week to move the station
down the dial to 1010 kHz, retaining the 10 kilowatt power by day and
during critical hours (when WNTK currently reduces its power on 1020)
and adding 37 watts of night service. Vinikoor's application notes
that the move will reduce interference between WNTK and Boston's WBZ
(1030).

Those with long memories may recall that WNTK is the descendant of
WCNL in Newport - which began its life as a daytimer on 1010. Back
then, 1010 was limited to 250 watts by day; Vinikoor can thank the
disappearance of the old WHWB (1000) in Rutland, Vermont for at least
part of the change on the dial that allows for higher power on 1010
these days.

And we have no idea what to make of the headline that appeared last
week in the Claremont Eagle-Times.

The article, by a Meggan Clark, says Vinikoor is planning to build six
towers in North Charlestown, N.H. for what she (and the screaming
headline) describe as a "500,000-watt" radio station!

Assuming the ghost of W8XO isn't returning to haunt the Upper Valley
airwaves (and if you get that reference, you've found the right Web
site!), we think the plan in question is really an alternate proposal
for the yet-unbuilt WQTH; the article claims Vinikoor "has already
received Federal Communications Commission (sic) to build a
500,000-watt AM frequency tower," but we certainly can't find any CP
like that in the database. (And you thought the Globe wasn't very
accurate when it came to radio...)

*Just one quick note from MAINE: Dan Priestly's new WWNZ (1400 Veazie)
wants to change transmitter sites. Priestly originally planned to
diplex WWNZ with already-operating WNZS (1340 Veazie); now he's
applying to put WWNZ's tower just across Highway 178 instead, with 810
watts by night (protecting a bunch of long-dead Quebec 1400s) and a
kilowatt by day.

*One of RHODE ISLAND's best known program directors is heading into
the holiday season without his job. Tom Holt took WWLI (105.1
Providence) to the top of the ratings with a very successful soft AC
format (you can still read all about his many accomplishments at Lite
105's Web site - complete with a "Way to go, Tom!" note at the
bottom), but that wasn't enough to spare him from a Citadel budget cut
last week.

Tony Bristol, PD of sister CHR WPRO-FM (92.3 Providence), is handling
programming duties for WWLI for now; no word yet on how Lite is
filling Holt's old midday air shift...

*A MASSACHUSETTS radio station owner took a stand for the freedom of
the press and won. Ed Perry is best known as the founder and longtime
operator of WATD (95.9 Marshfield), but it turns out he's also a news
reporter for the station when events warrant.

Back in September, he headed over to the nearby Hanover Mall one
evening to check out a report he heard on the police scanner about an
incident in the mall parking lot. When he got there, he did what any
good reporter would, taking out his tape recorder and notebook and
asking questions.

The Patriot Ledger reports a mall security guard asked Perry to hand
over the tape from his recorder, Perry refused, and Hanover police
arrested him and charged him with creating a disturbance. (His tape
recorder was later returned to his car, with the interviews erased.)

It took a few months, but all the charges (resisting arrest,
disorderly conduct, trespassing and interfering with a police officer)
have finally been dismissed, and now Perry is considering a civil suit
against the mall.

(NERW comments: Anyone who ever wondered why WATD is such a consistent
winner of RTNDA and AP awards shouldn't have any question, now...)

On the TV side, WLVI (Channel 56) has a new news director, as Tribune
moves Pamela Johnston up from assistant ND to replace Greg Caputo as
the head of the WB affiliate's news operation.

LATE UPDATE: The purchase of WSRO (1470 Marlborough) by Multicultural
Broadcasting has brought a call change with it; 1470 is now "WAZN,"
with the WSRO calls moving down the dial to Alex Langer's 650 in
Ashland, ex-WJLT. And who'll be the first Boston broadcaster to notice
that the "WCOZ" calls that once graced 94.5 are once again available,
having been dropped from AM 1300 in St. Albans, West Virginia?

And a correction to the December 3 NERW: WBUR (90.9 Boston) is not
going non-directional; it's altering its directional pattern.

*Stephanie Hindley is leaving her post as PD of Burlington, VERMONT's
"Buzz" (WBTZ 99.9 Plattsburgh NY) to head across the border to Canada.

*We'll start our NEW YORK report at the western end of the state,
where the veteran voice of Lockport is hanging up his headphones and
heading south.

J.R. Reid III began his broadcast career in Buffalo at the old WXRA
(1080) when he was still a teenager; he moved to Lockport in 1964 to
work at what was then WUSJ (1340) before shifting his attention to law
enforcement.

But after a career as a Niagara County sheriff's deputy, the call of
the airwaves again beckoned (he had been doing a weekend oldies show
even while wearing the badge), and a few years ago, Reid returned to
1340 - now WLVL - to do morning drive and sales. Reid was also serving
as vice president of the Buffalo Broadcast Pioneers. Now he's headed
into retirement (his last show was Dec. 13), and heading down to Cape
Coral, Florida...but you can expect to still see him around Lockport,
where one of his kids is buying his house!

(Another bit of WLVL news: it's losing the overnight Joey Reynolds
show early next year, as the show moves to the big signal of WWKB 1520
in Buffalo. The move puts Reynolds back on the very station that made
him famous - it was WKBW then, of course - and there are rumors afoot
that other old 'KB personalities could be headed back to 1520 as well
if the station flips to an oldies format in 2003. Stay tuned!)

Here in Rochester, construction wrapped up over the weekend on the new
American Tower tower on Pinnacle Hill, and there's already a UHF
antenna in place at the top of the stick. NERW suspects WUHF-DT
(Channel 28) will soon be applying for Special Temporary Authority and
signing on from the new tower...

Meanwhile, Family Life Radio has dropped its plans to build a
translator on 105.1 in Greece; the network already has a
Greece-licensed signal (W220DE 91.9) on the west side of Rochester,
and the 105.1 would have interfered with the east side translator
(W286AE Fairport) of Greece community station WGMC (90.1) to boot.

In Syracuse, Clear Channel flipped WXBB (105.1 DeRuyter) from a
country simulcast with WBBS (104.7 Fulton) to Christmas music last
week; we'll keep you posted on what happens next with "Sleigh 105-1."

In Albany, Clear Channel made it official by announcing that Scott
Allen Miller is the permanent afternoon host at WGY (810 Schenectady),
leaving J.R. Gach without a job. Gach left WGY's airwaves last August
under mysterious circumstances, revealing later that he was suffering
from severe mental illness.

Gach tells the Albany Times Union's Mark McGuire that he was fired by
e-mail last weekend, "with cause," meaning he won't get any severance
pay. Gach says he wants to get back on the air, preferably in the
Albany area, but he acknowledges that there are few options open to
him right now.

Moving down to New York City, Judy Ellis has a new job lined up for
March 2003, when she leaves her longtime VP/GM position at the Emmis
cluster (WQHT 97.1, WRKS 98.7 and WQCD 101.9). The Big Apple radio
veteran will join Citadel as its chief operating officer; her old job
at Emmis, meanwhile, will be filled by veteran programmer Barry Mayo.

Scott Elberg has a new job: the former VP/GM of Clear Channel's
WHTZ/WKTU is joining Hispanic Broadcasting as its VP of sales for WADO
(1280) and WCAA (105.9 Newark NJ).

WPIX (Channel 11) has been granted an auxiliary facility at the
Armstrong Tower in Alpine, N.J. (coincidentally, this week's Tower
Site of the Week); the WB affiliate will be able to use Alpine with 24
kW at 244 meters, on an antenna to be shared with WABC-TV (Channel 7)
and WNET (Channel 13).

Attention DXers: three major AM signals in the Big Apple will go
silent for a few hours next weekend, giving New York listeners a
chance to hear Toronto, Detroit and beyond. WBBR (1130) and WEVD
(1050) will both go silent from 1-4 AM on Saturday (12/28) and Sunday
(12/29), which means plenty of DXers will be staying up late Friday
and Saturday nights. WWDJ (970 Hackensack) will also be silent for at
least a portion of that time.

Out on Long Island, WGSM (740 Huntington) has been granted a power
reduction from 25 kW to 20 kW; the power change comes with a big
pattern change that will redirect WGSM's signal to head mostly west,
toward the big Asian population in Queens.

"Best Media" was granted a license to cover for new translator W208AU
(89.5 Massapequa) this week; the new signal should be relaying the
Indian programming from WCNJ (89.3 Hazlet NJ) for owner Banad
Viswanath. Best filed for dozens of translators back in 1999, many of
them with impossibly-sloppy engineering (though not quite as bad as
the applications the FCC dismissed this week for LPTVs on channel 37,
which is reserved for radio astronomy and not available for
broadcast); the Massapequa translator was originally proposed to relay
WSHU in Stamford, Connecticut.

And WDRE (98.5 Westhampton) is now operating from its new site on the
WRCN (103.9) tower, near the eastern end of the Long Island
Expressway.

*The FCC is opening the comment period for a move that will change the
face of radio in southern NEW JERSEY.

WSNJ (107.7 Bridgeton) has made no secret, ever since being sold last
year, of its desire to move closer to Philadelphia. The station first
proposed changing its allocation from a full 50 kilowatt B in
Bridgeton to a 6000 watt class A on 107.9 in Elmer. That proposal was
dismissed by the FCC last week, in favor of a second proposal
submitted a few weeks later by WSNJ's new owners.

As we reported last spring (NERW, 6/17/2002), WSNJ now wants to
relocate to 107.9 and drop down to an A - in Pennsauken, just across
the Delaware River from Philadelphia.

Public comments on the proposal will be accepted by the FCC until
February 10, with reply comments due February 25; we'll keep you
posted on the outcome.

Meanwhile, the new 90.5 religious station in Medford Lakes has call
letters: mark down WVBV(FM) for the station, which will be licensed to
the Hope Christian Church of Marlton.

*Into PENNSYLVANIA we go, just in time for Larry Kane's final
broadcasts on KYW-TV (Channel 3) tonight at 6 and 11. (We'd love to
hear from any Philly-area readers who'll be rolling tape...)

Just across the street from Channel 3, Roger LaMay handed in his
resignation last week as general manager of Fox's WTXF (Channel
29). LaMay came to Channel 29 in 1985 (when it was still WTAF) to be
the first news director at the independent station; he became GM in
1996.

Out in the Roxborough antenna farm, WOGL (98.1) has been granted a
tower move; it's being forced off the WCAU-TV (Channel 10) tower to
accommodate DTV. The Infinity oldies station will move to a newer
tower (also home to WPPX-DT and WYBE) with 9.6 kW at 338 meters, a
slight power drop and height increase from its current facility.

Up in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre market, there's yet another call
change at Citadel: this time the 95.7 facility in Olyphant flips from
WEOZ (the calls that matched its old "Z-Talk" format) to WBHD,
reflecting its new use as a simulcast of CHR WBHT (97.1 Mountain
Top). The WBHD calls have been used before in the market, on the 94.3
Carbondale that's now WCWI; it too was a WBHT relay in a previous
life. Meanwhile, Entercom country giant WGGY (101.3 Scranton) has been
granted a Hazleton booster; WGGY-2 will run 35 watts on 101.3.

And while it's not yet on the air, WZZQ (88.3 Chambersburg) has
already changed calls: it's now WZXQ. 

*And we'll wrap up this holiday week in CANADA, where a long-dark
community station is returning to the airwaves.

CISD (107.7 Iroquois) signed on in 1999 from atop the Iroquois water
tower, along the St. Lawrence Seaway south of Ottawa and east of
Cornwall. We heard it in the summer of 2000, running automated with
classic rock.

Licensed to the Seaway District High School in South Dundas, CISD
lasted just two years in its first incarnation, signing off in 2001 to
reorganize its operation.

Now it's back, as a community-run station; we're told it's testing
right now and will be back on the air full-time at the beginning of
January.

Over in Toronto, Craig's new "Toronto One" (Channel 52, with a
low-power relay on 45 in Hamilton) has been granted an extension of
time; it now has until next October 31 to sign on.

The CBC was granted three new Radio Two relays: 97.1 Owen Sound (17.5
kW), 90.7 Orillia (4.8 kW) and 104.7 Huntsville (70 kW) will all relay
CBL-FM (94.1 Toronto).

In Ottawa, Rob Mise has been named operations manager for NewCap's new
dance station on 89.9, to be called "The Planet"; Mise's resume
includes stints in Calgary and Vancouver.

Out in Nova Scotia, CJLS (1340 Yarmouth) was granted its proposed move
to FM; CJLS will go to 18 kW on 95.5, keeping its existing FM relays
in Barrington and New Tusket on Nova Scotia's western shore. And over
in Sydney, CKER (950) DJ Brian King was sentenced to six years in
prison; he held up three Cape Breton Island gas stations with a gun.

*And on that cheerful (?) note, we wish you a very happy holiday!
We'll be back here December 30 with the first part of our 2002 Year in
Review; stay tuned!

(One more note: all Tower Site Calendars ordered as of Dec. 23 have 
been shipped! Still haven't ordered yours? They're in stock at 
www.fybush.com...)

-----------------------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>.

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