NERW 2/17: Cleanup on The Rock

[fybush@gwind.pair.com]

------------------------------E-MAIL EDITION-----------------------------
--------------------------NorthEast Radio Watch--------------------------
                            February 17, 2003

IN THIS ISSUE:

*NEW HAMPSHIRE: Mt. Washington Recovers from Fire
*PENNSYLVANIA: Susquehanna Buys WSOX
*NEW YORK: Bad News at WTVH, WUHF

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

(NOTE: NERW will take a week off February 24, as we're on the road
collecting more images for Tower Site of the Week. We'll post any
breaking news on fybush.com from the road, and we'll be back with a
complete new NERW March 3!)

*A week after a fire severely damaged their transmitter facilities
high atop Mount Washington, NEW HAMPSHIRE, the radio stations (and
many other users) that depended on New England's highest peak are
still struggling to get back to normal.

The former WMTW-TV transmitter building and the Yankee Power House
were completely gutted by the blaze last Sunday, which apparently
started in the exhaust system of one of the kerosene generators in the
WMTW building.

The good news is that the WHOM (94.9 Mount Washington) antenna
appears to have survived the blaze intact, as did the original 1937
Armstrong tower.

But restoring FM service from Mount Washington will still take some
time.

A generator was brought to the summit last Wednesday, three days after
the fire, restoring power to the Mount Washington Observatory - but
not providing enough power yet to allow the other services at the
summit - including New Hampshire State Police communications, the
transmitter of WPKQ (103.7 North Conway) and the studio-transmitter
link for WLOB-FM (96.3 Rumford) to resume operation.

For the moment, then, WPKQ is operating with "a few hundred watts"
from a two-bay antenna atop its studio building in downtown North
Conway, providing some service to the Mount Washington Valley but not
yet elsewhere. WHOM's programming continues to be heard over WCYI
(93.9 Lewiston), as well as on a low-powered 94.9 transmitter whose
location NERW hasn't yet determined. We hear the next step for WHOM,
until it can rebuild its destroyed transmitter facilities, will be an
antenna on the new WMTW-TV (Channel 8) tower in Baldwin, Maine.

WPKQ, whose transmitter and antenna are located in a different
building on the mountaintop, hopes to have enough power up there by
the end of this week to resume transmission from the Rock; stay tuned
for more updates right here at fybush.com!

THURSDAY UPDATE: We hear the modern rock programming from WCYY (94.3
Biddeford) returned to WCYI's airwaves Wednesday, with WHOM's AC
programming running on 94.9 with a signal that's at least adequate in
the greater Portland area. WPKQ will soon be back on the air from
Mount Washington as well...stay tuned!

*One other NEW HAMPSHIRE note: Mark "Nazzy" Nazzaro is coming back to
Concord's WJYY (105.5) after a stint on nights at WPRO-FM (92.3) in
Providence, R.I. Nazzaro will be doing mornings at WJYY alongside Kid
Cruise.

*MAINE's new Fox affiliate will have studios in Portland. The new
owners of WPFO (Channel 23) in Waterville signed a ten-year lease last
week on space at 233 Oxford Street in downtown Portland. The Pax
outlet (formerly WMPX-TV) will switch to Fox early this spring,
restoring broadcast Fox service to southern Maine a year and a half
after WPXT (Channel 51) switched to the WB.

Over at the radio side of WMTW (WMTW 870 Gorham, WLAM 1470 Lewiston,
WMTW-FM 106.7 North Windham), the plug is being pulled on Bill Nemitz
and Neila Smith's "Early Edition" morning show next month; the station
will switch to an all-news format in morning drive, presumably with a
hefty dose of the AP all-news service heard the rest of the day on the
stations.

*Just one quick note from MASSACHUSETTS this week: Willie "Tuna"
Fisher is departing mornings at WCOD (106.1 Hyannis) to go back to
Denver's KIMN (100.3) as afternoon drive jock.

*Radio People on the Move in RHODE ISLAND: at "Hot 106" WWKX (106.3
Woonsocket), DJ Buck takes over as PD from J Love; Love stays on board
as midday jock there.

*A happy 50th anniversary to CONNECTICUT's NBC affiliate: WVIT
(Channel 30) in New Britain, the former WKNB-TV, WNBC-TV and WHNB-TV,
marked its golden birthday February 11.

*It wasn't a good week, at least in the public eye, for two TV news
operations in upstate NEW YORK.

Here in Rochester, the long-expected axe fell on the local newsroom at
Sinclair-owned Fox affiliate WUHF-TV (Channel 31), as the
Maryland-based broadcaster announced that it had fired co-anchors
Christine Persichette and Sherman Burdette, sports anchor John
DiTullio, as well as three other full-time and five part-time news
staffers.

WUHF's 10 PM newscast will become part of Sinclair's "News Central"
operation, based at a new facility in Hunt Valley, Maryland. Reporter
Melanie Barnas will anchor local inserts in the broadcast, but all
national news, sports and weather will emanate from Maryland when the
new format launches March 3.

NERW's comment: We sincerely hope Sinclair is underestimating the
intelligence of Rochester viewers. Our experience suggests that local
viewers are very savvy about where their news comes from - and that
people in Rochester won't take kindly to seeing "their" news being
delivered by someone in Maryland. And we hope somebody in town snaps
up talented people like Sherman Burdette and John DiTullio soon;
DiTullio, in particular, has developed quite a local following with
his raspy sports delivery, and we can't imagine why Sinclair would
completely drop local sports coverage from its newscast.

Meanwhile in Syracuse, Granite's WTVH (Channel 5) is making headlines
in journalism circles for all the wrong reasons. The CBS affiliate
recently replaced its 5 PM newscast with a broadcast called "CNY Live"
(following closely the format developed by sister station WKBW-TV in
Buffalo for "WNY Live" last year), moving anchor Donna Adamo out of
the news department to host the show.

So far, so good...until someone noticed that the show was running
suspiciously "news-style" interviews with guests who had paid for the
privilege, which would make them advertisers - thus crossing the line
between news and sales that broadcast journalists have tried so hard
to keep sacred.

After a Syracuse Post-Standard article airing the controversy garnered
national attention in the journalism industry, WTVH managers said
they'd put bigger disclaimers on the segments. NERW wonders: can you
rebuild credibility when you've sold it away for a few dollars and a
ratings point or two?

While we're upstate, we note that Tom Langmyer, just named VP/GM of
KMOX (1120) in St. Louis, has plenty of local ties: he's a Buffalo
native and lists that city's WGR and WBEN on his resume, as well as
six years as operations manager at WSYR/WYYY in Syracuse, before
heading off to KMOX as operations director.

In Rochester, jazz station WGMC (90.1 Greece) has refiled its
application for a power boost to 15 kW; the new version of the
application tweaks the directional antenna a bit to avoid receiving
interference from WRVO (89.9) over in Oswego.

Buffalo's WFBF (89.9) has been granted a license to cover for its new
transmitter site; WFBF is now running 16 kW at 90 meters above average
terrain from a tower on Chestnut Ridge Road near North Boston.

Heading downstate, Sunrise Broadcasting will finally get to go back on
the air at AM 1200 - but not at WGNY in Newburgh, which moved from
1220 to 1200 under Special Temporary Authority in the late eighties
but eventually had to return to 1220 when the STA expired. Last week,
the FCC granted Sunrise's application for a new station on 1200 in
Kingston; the new signal will run 2000 watts day, 400 watts at night
from a five-tower array that will incorporate the existing site of
WGHQ (920) along US 9W south of Kingston.

And in New York City, viewers of WABC-TV (Channel 7) bade farewell
last week to legendary anchor Bill Beutel. The 71 year old Beutel
stepped down from the anchor chair a few years back; last week, he
retired from the station completely, after spending several years on
special assignments.

Beutel had started at WABC way back in 1962; he's also worked for the
parent network, including a stint in 1975 as host of "AM America,"
predecessor to today's "Good Morning America."

*In NEW JERSEY, WWRU (1660 Jersey City) wants to tweak its daytime
signal. It's asking the FCC to allow it to go directional with its 10
kW signal, using two towers of the WLXE (1380 New York) array in East
Rutherford, N.J. WWRU is currently non-directional by day from one
WLXE tower and directional at night from four short towers at the WLXE
site.

*A format change on the way in PENNSYLVANIA? Forever's smooth jazz
WOJZ (98.7 Pleasant Gap), just outside Williamsport, has been running
a loop of people saying "Wowie" all weekend. We hear new calls of
WOWY, and a new format, are on the way...

(UPDATE: WOWY relaunched on Monday with an oldies format.)

In Pittsburgh, there's still no sign of WBZZ (93.7) morning host John
Cline - and it looks as though he won't return to the
"John-Dave-Bubba-Shelley" morning show at the renamed "93-7BZZ."

And in the York market, we hear WSOX (96.1 Red Lion) is being sold to
Susquehanna, which owns news-talk WSBA (910 York) and AC WARM-FM
(103.3 York) in the market.

Thomas Moffitt, who's owned WSOX since its days as religious WGCB-FM
(and who continues to own religious WGCB-TV 49 and WTHM 1440 in Red
Lion) had been leasing WSOX to Brill Media, which also owned WIOV
(1240/105.1) in nearby Ephrata - but Brill's bankruptcy brought an end
to that LMA.

No word yet on whether a format change might be in order for WSOX;
much more on this in the next NERW...

*And up in CANADA, CIZN (92.9 Cambridge ON) has been granted a move to
107.5 and a power boost to 2560 watts from the current 500; the move
should help CIZN reach listeners who now hear Buffalo's WBUF on
92.9. (Hey, we predicted the interference from Buffalo's 92.9 way back
in August 1998...)

Over in Wingham, Blackburn Broadcasting (which owns CKNX 920 and
CKNX-FM 101.7 there) was denied a new station on 94.5. The CRTC says
Blackburn didn't consider the implications on the CBC's long-range
plan, which calls for using 94.5 in Wingham for a Radio-Canada
premiere chaine transmitter to serve all seven Francophones in the
region...

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

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