NERW 3/17: Harry Harrison Leaves CBS-FM

[fybush@gwind.pair.com]

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

IN THIS ISSUE:

*NEW YORK: Harrison Leaves WCBS-FM
*NEW YORK: YES, Cablevision Reach Agreement
*MASSACHUSETTS: WBOQ Sold

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

*Forty-four years after his NEW YORK radio career began, legendary
morning man Harry Harrison will make his last broadcast on WCBS-FM
(101.1 New York) this Wednesday morning, in what's being seen as
another sign of big changes coming on the Big Apple's longtime oldies
outlet.

Harrison has been a New York fixture since his days as midday man on
WMCA (570), where he was a "Good Guy" from 1959 until 1968. That year,
Harrison replaced Herb Oscar Anderson in morning drive on WABC (770),
where he would remain until 1979. In 1980, Harrison began 24 years in
morning drive on WCBS-FM, where he'd eventually be joined by other
WABC legends including Dan Ingram and Ron Lundy. 

Longtime WCBS-FM listeners have already heard some changes in the last
year or so: the disappearance of most of the pre-Beatles music from
the playlist, the dismissal of morning sports guy Phil Pepe, and the
recent departure of another WABC veteran, Dan Daniel, from middays -
so it's no wonder that the abruptness of Harrison's departure (he
announced for the first time on Friday's show that this Wednesday's
would be his last) is sparking plenty of discussion on the message
boards and beyond.

Harrison says the decision to leave WCBS-FM right now is all his - and
he's not "retiring," leaving the door open to a return to the dials at
some point. WCBS-FM hasn't named a replacement; Dan Taylor will be
doing the shift on an interim basis after Harrison's final show, which
he'll broadcast in front of a live audience at Manhattan's Museum of
Television and Radio.

Only Harry Harrison is big enough to keep this next item from being
our lead story this week: more than a year after it launched, the YES
network has finally won carriage on the Cablevision systems serving
Long Island, northern New Jersey, southern Connecticut, the Bronx,
Westchester and Rockland. 

A deal reached between Cablevision and YES last week provides at least
a little something to make both sides happy: Cablevision won't have to
make YES available on its basic tier (thus increasing cable rates for
all its subscribers), instead offering it a la carte for $1.95 or as
part of a sports tier with MSG and Fox Sports NY for $4.95 a month;
YES gets the same $2.12 per subscriber per month from Cablevision that
it's been charging other cable operators. It's a mixed bag for Yankees
fans: some of them had been getting MSG and Fox Sports without an
extra fee (they'll now have to pay for that $4.95 package, though
their basic cable rate will decrease somewhat), and anyone who wants
YES will need a set-top box to descramble the channel.

(Next week: NERW's annual look at major-league baseball broadcasts
across the region, just in time for Opening Day!)

On the DTV front, another signal is finally coming to the New York
City airwaves: WPIX-DT was seen testing last week, albeit not on its
assigned channel 33 spot. With the loss of the World Trade Center,
where most of the city's TV stations had just finished building DTV
facilities on September 11, it's been a scramble to get digital TV
back on the air - and the solution for WPIX is a low-power (125 watt)
transmitter at the Empire State Building, operating on channel 12
under special temporary authority. We'd expect WPIX-DT to return to
channel 33 whenever permanent DTV facilities for New York are
completed, whether in Bayonne, N.J. or at the Trade Center site - but
it will take a few years.

Heading upstate, there's a full airstaff in place now at Clear Channel
active rocker WWDG (105.1 DeRuyter) - but most of them aren't at the
Dog studios in Syracuse. Morning guy Bob Schmidt doubles in creative
services for sister AM stations WHEN (620) and WSYR (570); middayer
Laura Steele does her shift from WFBQ in Indianapolis; night guy Chad
Erickson is at WMRQ in Hartford, leaving only afternoon jock Scorch as
a full-time WWDG personality.

Up in Watertown, John Shatraw is the latest departure at WWNY (Channel
7), departing the station instead of trading his noon anchor shift for
weekends, as had been planned. Former WWNY morning anchor Mark Mason
has been filling in on radio for WTOJ (103.1 Carthage) morning host
Annette Miller, who's out on maternity leave.

Where are they now? Former WBEE-FM (92.5 Rochester) PD Coyote Collins
has landed on his feet in beautiful Flint, Michigan, where he's now
programming country station WFBE (95.1).

*A station sale in MASSACHUSETTS is all in the family: Marlin
Broadcasting is selling WBOQ (104.9 Gloucester) to Westport
Broadcasting for $5.8 million, but the sale really just shifts the
station from Woody Tanger to his son Doug.

WBOQ started out in the late eighties as classical "W-Bach," the
successor to Simon Geller's legendary one-man WVCA operation, but in
recent years it's become a swinging standards station.

Out on Nantucket, a Paul Christensen has asked the FCC to allocate
97.7 as a new class A frequency. Comments on the proposal are due May
5 (and we wonder what happened to John Garabedian's proposal last year
to allocate 98.7A out there?)

*We're happy to report that WHOM (94.9 Mount Washington) is back to
broadcasting from NEW HAMPSHIRE's tallest peak, as of about a week
ago. We're hearing that the WHOM signal is once again booming loudly
into Sherbrooke, Quebec, among other distant points...

*Laura Schlessinger's show is getting bumped back in MAINE's biggest
city: WGAN (560 Portland) had been running her show from 6-9 PM, but
now we hear it's being moved back to 8-10 PM to clear two hours for a
delayed broadcast of the Bill O'Reilly show from 6-8 PM.

Way down east in Calais, Maine PBS received a license to cover last
week for WMED-DT (Channel 10), which means most of the Pine Tree State
now has DTV service from Maine PBS (and those lucky Bangorites have
DTV service from all of the Big Three networks, too!)

*Just one little bit of news from PENNSYLVANIA, and it comes from
Pittsburgh: John Poister is leaving his news director position at Fox
affiliate WPGH (Channel 53) to become program director of talker WPTT
(1360 McKeesport).

*Just one little bit of news from CANADA, too: we hear CISD (107.7) in
Iroquois, Ontario is back on the air after a long absence; NERW North
Country correspondent Michael Roach heard it across the border in
Ogdensburg, N. Y., with its old IDs of "the Storm" and a pretty wide
variety of music...

*That's it for this very quiet news week...we'll be back next week
with more news and the major league baseball list!

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

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