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------------------------------E-MAIL EDITION-----------------------------
--------------------------NorthEast Radio Watch--------------------------
                            February 10, 2003

IN THIS ISSUE:

*NEW HAMPSHIRE: Fire Destroys Mt. Washington Transmitter
*MASSACHUSETTS: Makkay Sells Cape Stations
*CANADA: Ottawa's Hot Signs On

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

*For the first time in nearly half a century, the top of Mount
Washington, NEW HAMPSHIRE is silent as NERW goes to press late Sunday
night.

A fire Sunday afternoon destroyed the former WMTW-TV (Channel 8)
transmitter building atop the Northeast's highest peak, more than 6200
feet above sea level. While channel 8 left Mount Washington almost
exactly a year ago (NERW, 2/4/2002) for a new tall tower in Baldwin,
Maine, its transmitter building remained behind on the mountaintop,
home to generators supplying power to the entire mountaintop. The
building also continued to house the transmitter of WHOM (94.9 Mount
Washington).

The fire broke out around 4 PM, cutting off power to the Mount
Washington Observatory nearby. Four observatory staffers were in the
Sherman Adams Building that sits a few dozen yards from the WMTW
building; they were evacuated Sunday night amidst concern that
worsening weather over the next few days could leave them stranded for
several days without heat or power.

Sources tell NERW that by the time a snow tractor reached the summit
Sunday evening, the WMTW building was "burnt to a crisp," with only
the entranceway still remaining. No damage was reported to the nearby
Yankee Building (home to the transmitter and antenna of WPKQ 103.7
North Conway NH), or to the Sherman Adams Building. It's not clear at
press time whether the WHOM antenna suffered any damage.

The WMTW building was built in 1954 for the start of TV service on the
mountain, which had already become an important broadcast facility
thanks to Edwin Armstrong's FM experiments there in conjunction with
the Yankee Network, which lasted from 1938 until 1948.

WHOM's presence on the mountain dates to 1958, when 94.9 signed on as
WMTW-FM. Its two transmitters sat near the door that connected the
TV/FM transmitter room in the WMTW building to the living quarters
there. Until last summer, when WMTW-TV removed the last of its
equipment, channel 8 staffers were stationed on the mountain all year
long, working rotating shifts and living at the transmitter building
for weeks at a time. (NERW wonders whether an on-site engineer would
have caught the fire before it could have done any damage; we may
never know.)

With its transmitters destroyed, it will likely be late into spring or
early summer before WHOM can resume its broadcasts from the mountain,
which reached listeners for hundreds of miles around - south to
Boston, north well into Quebec, east to central Maine and west to Lake
Champlain and beyond. In the meantime, Citadel, which owns WHOM and
WPKQ, has moved WHOM's soft AC format to WCYI (93.9 Lewiston),
breaking the modern rock "CYY" simulcast with WCYY (94.3 Biddeford)
for the duration. We're told WHOM will apply for special temporary
authority to use the licensed auxiliary facility of Citadel's WBLM
(102.9 Portland), running 100 kilowatts at 150 meters from a site in
New Gloucester, Maine.

As for WPKQ, its transmitter and antenna are intact at the mountaintop
but lack any source of power. The observatory, which took over
responsibility for power generation on the mountain when WMTW left,
plans to attempt to get a generator to the top of the mountain on
Monday, so WPKQ's broadcasts could be restored this week, if weather
permits - a big "if" on a peak known for having some of the worst
weather in the country. (At the time the fire started, Mount
Washington was reporting temperatures of 1 degree Fahrenheit, 54 MPH
winds, blowing snow and freezing fog - and that's a good weather day
up there!)

LATE UPDATE: As of Monday afternoon, at least one Observatory staffer
has returned to the top of the mountain, and we're hearing reports
that WHOM has a signal back on 94.9 at low power. Much more to come,
throughout the week, here on fybush.com...

TUESDAY UPDATE: The first pictures from the summit since the fire are
now posted over on www.mountwashington.org - and what a sight! The
fire not only destroyed the WMTW building but also appears to have
gutted the adjacent Yankee Power Building. It appears from the photos
that the WHOM tower next to the power building is standing, but there
is no word on damage to that structure or the transmission lines on
it.

A 30 kW diesel generator made it to the summit Monday, but the power
it provides is mainly for the observatory; an added complication is
that the fuel tanks, which are located further down the slope of the
mountain and survived the fire, contain not diesel fuel (which would
freeze in the mountain's extreme conditions) but kerosene.

The word from investigators, meanwhile, is that the fire was
discovered quite early by an observatory intern and, once started, was
impossible to put out in the 50 MPH winds that day on the summit. So
even if an engineer had been there, not much would have changed, alas.

On the dial, WPKQ at 103.7 remains silent; WHOM's programming
continues to be heard via WCYI (93.9 Lewiston) - and we're hearing
interesting rumors from up north that it was that very 93.9
transmitter that may have found its way over to 94.9 for a few hours
on Monday. In any case, 94.9 is silent now.

Also silent, as it turns out, is WLOB-FM (96.3 Rumford);
J.J. Jeffrey's talk station used Mount Washington as a relay point to
get its signal from its Portland studios to its transmitter high above
Rumford. Jeffrey says he hopes to have an alternate STL path going by
Friday.

And we hear the cable feed of CKSH (Channel 9) in Sherbrooke, Quebec
is missing from the systems in Maine and southern New Hampshire that
carried it; apparently the microwave path for the Radio-Canada
outlet's signal also used Mount Washington.

*Al Makkay has sold his three FM stations on MASSACHUSETTS' Cape
Cod. CHR WRZE (96.3 Nantucket), oldies WCIB (101.9 Falmouth) and rock
WPXC (102.9 Hyannis) make up one of the biggest clusters on the Cape,
and their new owner knows more than a little about clusters. Frank
Osborn's "Qantum Communications" (no "u" there) is paying $32 million
for the three stations (WRZE and WCIB are full Class B facilities;
WPXC is an A with a pending application for B1 status). Osborn's name
should sound familiar; he ran the Aurora Communications cluster in
Connecticut and downstate New York (now part of Cumulus), and before
that ran his own Osborn Communications group, subsequently sold to
Pilot and now part of Citadel.

While we're down on the Cape, we note petitions to deny against three
LPFM applications on Martha's Vineyard: "Assembleia de Deus" apps for
93.7 in Menemsha and Oak Bluffs and "M&M Community Development" apps
for 93.7 Oak Bluff. We wonder if the latter has anything to do with
the accusations that are surfacing on several industry mailing lists
about LPFM stations violating both the letter and the spirit of the
local programming rules such stations are supposed to follow (and what
of the one-to-an-owner rule, for that matter?)

Heading back toward Boston, we note a call change at WVXN-CA (Channel
24), which becomes WFXZ-CA for reasons I can't fathom; it's still
running MTV2, as far as we can tell.

There's a new newscast coming to Boston April 1, and it should be
welcome news to the Spanish-speaking community. Entravision's WUNI
(Channel 27 Worcester) is hiring staff right now for the new 6 PM
show, which will apparently be simulcast on sister station WUVN
(Channel 18) down in Hartford. There's already local news in Spanish
on WCEA-LP (Channel 58), but the WUNI show should have a much bigger
budget and a more professional look, we'd expect.

Out in Greenfield, Phil Drumheller checked in to tell us all about his
new acquisition out there. The former WGAM (WPOE for those with very
long memories) is now WIZZ (1520), running what Phil describes as "a
unique blend of nostalgia with a mid-road pop-rock sound, spanning six
decades." Phil, better known as "Phil D." from Springfield's WHYN,
will start on the 6-9 AM shift next week. Other voices heard on WIZZ
include WHYN veteran Gary James and the rapidly-becoming-ubiquitous
(and we mean that in a good way!) Dennis Jackson. WIZZ will also carry
AP news at the top of the hour.

Springfield's WWLP-DT (Channel 11) will begin carrying NBC's
high-definition programming this week, if all goes well.

And lest there be any question about which market the new channel 51
in Pittsfield will target, the new station applied for calls last
week: WNYA(TV), which can only stand for New York - Albany...

*One quick bit of CONNECTICUT news: our congratulations to Cox Radio's
Dick Ferguson, who now gets to put "executive" in front of his "vice
president" title.

*RHODE ISLAND's CBS affiliate now has a central Massachusetts tie:
sometime this week, the switch will be thrown that will move master
control duties for WPRI (Channel 12) in Providence to the LIN hub
facility in Springfield (at WWLP-TV/DT). The Springfield hub already
controls WWLP itself, Providence's WNAC (Channel 64) and New Haven's
WTNH/WCTX.

*We'll start our NEW YORK news in Buffalo this week, where the Yankees
have a new radio home for the 2003 season. The team Red Sox fans love
to hate moves from WGR (550 Buffalo) to sports rival WNSA (107.7
Wethersfield), which gives the FM outlet a major programming hook
during the months when the Sabres (owned, at least for now, by the
Rigas family, who control cable giant Adelphia, WNSA's now-bankrupt
parent company) aren't playing. (Buffalo hockey fans might argue that
whatever the team is doing right now also doesn't constitute
"playing," but that's another story...)

NERW wonders whether Entercom will fill the void in WGR's night
schedule with the AAA Buffalo Bisons, currently heard on WGR sister
station WWKB (1520). Such a move would certainly please fans of "KB"
legend Jackson Armstrong, whose 6-10 PM shift stands to be pre-empted
for much of the summer by Bisons games otherwise.

Over at Infinity, urban WBLK (93.7 Depew) has a new PD: he's Chris
Reynolds, inbound from WDZZ (92.7) in Flint, Michigan.

A Syracuse translator is changing hands: W267AL (101.3), which relays
rocker WKRL (100.9 North Syracuse), is being sold by WKRL owner Galaxy
to "M&D Translators Inc.", whoever that is.

On the DTV front, we hear WCNY-DT (Channel 25), which has already been
doing some testing from its new Sentinel Heights tower, has next
Monday as its target date for regular programming, at which point it
will be joined by WCNY-TV's analog channel 24 signal, moving from the
WIXT (Channel 9) tower a few miles away.

Down in Port Jervis, Venture Technologies has been granted a new
LPTV. W64CW will operate with a whopping 30 watts. It'll operate from
a site just west of "downtown" Port Jervis, at the triangle where New
York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania all come together.

We can't leave New York without mentioning two New York radio
veterans. Peter King, the upstate native whose resume includes stops
in Ithaca, Rochester and Syracuse, deserves special mention this week
for his major role in CBS Radio News coverage of the Columbia
disaster. He's rapidly become one of the most knowledgeable reporters
in the business when it comes to space (he's based in central Florida,
after all), and it showed last week. And the death Wednesday (Feb. 5)
of Larry LeSueur was truly the end of an era; at 93, the CBS veteran
(1939-1963, after which he worked for the Voice of America) was the
last of "Murrow's boys," that team of reporters who invented radio
journalism as we know it while bringing the sounds of World War II to
America. 

*A NEW JERSEY radio station is silent for now; WPDQ (89.7 Freehold)
will return with a religious format once a new transmitter site can be
found, we're told.

Speaking of religious formats, WAWZ (99.1 Zarephath) relaunched last
week with a full-fledged commercial contemporary Christian format. The
renamed "Star 99.1" is aiming all its imaging 40 miles away at New
York City, even though its signal there is spotty at best; will the
format find an audience there, despite the signal? We'll bet there are
some listeners in the number one market who will seek out the
station's new sound...

*It took a few years, but the hard feelings towards Don Imus in
Scranton, PENNSYLVANIA have apparently subsided enough to return the
syndicated morning show to the air at WARM (590 Scranton).

Imus offended pretty much the entire community back in May 2000, when
he threw a temper tantrum during what was supposed to be a remote
broadcast from Scranton. A hotel operator failed to put a late-night
phone call through to the I-Man's room, and so Imus packed up at 3 AM
and headed back to New York to do his show from there, spending most
of it insulting Scranton.

WARM pulled the show that day, replacing it with local news, then with
oldies, then with local talk and most recently with Indiana's Bob and
Tom. As of last week, though, Imus is back on board the revolving door
that is WARM; we'll see whether listeners there are ready to forgive
him.

Meanwhile at the Entercom cluster, a strange little application from
WGGY (101.3 Scranton): it wants to raise the listed height above
average terrain of its antenna by about 27 meters (from 338 to 365
meters), while keeping its power at 7 kilowatts. It seems that the
height of the antenna site was never recorded properly on the original
1949 application for what was then WGBI-FM - and a 1963 modification
to the 1949 application then contained a typo that lowered the
reported height still more. Now WGGY wants to correct the error and
remain licensed with the parameters it's been using for more than half
a century anyway...

A Monday flip in Pittsburgh: Infinity re-imaged its CHR WBZZ (93.7)
today, dropping the longtime "B94" moniker in favor of "93.7 BZZ-FM."
Our ears in the Steel City say the music mix hasn't changed; expect
this to be the first salvo in what promises to be a reinvigorated CHR
war with Clear Channel's WKST-FM (Kiss 96.1)...

Also in the Pittsburgh market, Alex Langer was granted his move of
WFJY from 1470 in Portage (near Johnstown) to 660 in Wilkinsburg, a
move of some 80 miles. The new WFJY facility on 660 will run 270 watts
daytime only from one tower of the WWNL (1080 Pittsburgh) array up
north of town.

*The big news from CANADA was Friday's noontime launch of Ottawa's
newest radio station, Newcap's CIHT (89.9). The station shed its
tentative nickname of "the Planet" during its pre-launch stunting,
debuting instead as "Hot 89.9" with a format that leans much more
strongly towards urban CHR than the dance-heavy programming promised
in CRTC hearings. Does CHUM's CHR entry in the market, "Kool" CKKL
(93.9), have anything to worry about? We'll see when the next round of
BBM ratings comes out...

Down in Belleville, CJOJ (95.5) made a format change on Friday, moving
from "Hits of the 80s, 90s and today" to classic hits. The Stones'
"Start Me Up" kicked off the new format there, we're told.

Just up the road in Peterborough, CJLF (Life 100.3) from Barrie was
granted a 500-watt transmitter on 89.3 to bring its contemporary
Christian sounds to the market. CJLF also holds a grant to put a
transmitter on in Owen Sound, at 90.1.

And Milkman Unlimited reports that "Tarzan Dan" is out as afternoon
jock at Toronto's CISS (Kiss 92.5); weekender Kid Carson is filling
that shift for now.

-----------------------NorthEast Radio Watch------------------------
                       (c)2003 Scott Fybush
                          www.fybush.com

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