We're back, and before we tell you all about our two weeks in England, Wales and France, there's plenty to get caught up on.
After a day of construction noises, the four stations on 107.1 (WYNY Briarcliff Manor, WWXY Hampton Bays, WWYY Belvidere NJ and WWZY Long Branch NJ) launched into their new life as "Rumba 107," playing much the same diet of Spanish hits now heard on "Mega" WSKQ (97.9 New York) and "Latino Mix" WCAA (105.9 Newark NJ).
Can the relatively weak in-city signals of the "Rumba" stations (aided slightly by the tower move at WWZY last week that now finds the station reaching Brooklyn much better from Atlantic Highlands, N.J.) compete with the strong signals of Mega and Latino Mix? Will the Belvidere (serving the Easton, PA area) and Hampton Bays signals stay with the simulcast? And what about the remaining staff at Y107, including morning guy Ray Rossi, who are now out of work, not to mention the country listeners in the big city who are again without a station? We'll keep you posted...
Elsewhere in New York City, two noncommercial FM stations are at odds over a proposal by one to improve its Manhattan signal. Bronx-based WFUV (90.7), the radio voice of Fordham University, wants to put a 600-watt booster atop the Riverside Church, using the tower once occupied by the former WRVR (106.7, now WLTW from the Empire State Building). But the application has met with opposition from WFMU (91.1 East Orange), the community-supported station across the Hudson that draws some of its best listenership in the upper Manhattan area to be served by the proposed "WFUV-2."
NERW hopes both sides can find a way to work this out, especially after we've just spent some time listening to the many signals in Paris and London that are just 0.4 MHz apart -- from the same tower, in some cases -- and get along just fine.
Speaking of WFUV, it's also still fighting to finish the tower it began constructing in the mid-nineties next to the New York Botanical Garden. The tower has been sitting half-finished for years now, hung up in a dispute with the garden over the visual impact it would have there. The latest developments: WFUV filed a revised environmental assessment last month, proposing to build the tower out to 380 feet instead of the original 480 foot height; comments on the proposal are due to the FCC June 1.
Talker WOR (710) added Bill O'Reilly to its schedule last week (denying, the whole time, gossip that claimed syndicator Westwood One was making big payments to large-market stations to get clearances for the show), then lost PD John Mainelli the next day.
Mainelli resigned from the Buckley-owned talker May 9, in what he and the station are calling an amicable departure. Mainelli had been at WOR for just a few weeks, arriving amidst high hopes that he could freshen up the aging station to compete against his old home, WABC. There's no word about Mainelli's plans, yet, nor about WOR's plans for a replacement.
More Radio People on the Move: Freddie Colon, late of WTJM (105.1, now WWPR-FM), stays within the Clear Channel family as he moves out to WALK-FM (97.5 Patchogue) to replace Dave Reed on middays. Colon's WTJM colleague, morning man Jeff Foxx, lands at WRKS (98.7) for middays, sending Mike Shannon to weekends at Kiss. And Woody Fife has departed WXRK (92.3), where he was assistant music director in addition to holding down the 10 PM to 2 AM shift on the air.
Moving up the Hudson Valley, Bill Palmeri is out at the Cumulus (formerly Aurora) cluster in Poughkeepsie after two decades; replacing him in the GM chair is Chuck Benfer, who had been general sales manager at the stations before moving down to serve as market manager of Aurora's Westchester cluster.
And we have confirmation of a story we reported before we left: WVIP (1310 Mount Kisco) has indeed been sold by Peter Baumann's Suburban Broadcasting; it's now running Spanish-language religion as a noncommercial simulcast of Radio Vision Cristiana's WWRV (1330 New York). RVC is paying a reported $1.36 million for the station.
Dennis Jackson's WRIP (97.9 Windham) is applying for a booster a few miles to the south. WRIP-1 would serve Hunter, with 35 watts from atop Colonel's Chair, a peak just north of Hunter Mountain itself. (Ironically, the original 97.9 allocation was to Jewett, adjacent to the Hunter Mountain area!)
Two new callsigns in Albany: the station on 1400 that had been known forever as WABY will become WHTR(AM), now that it's simulcasting the hot talk of WHTR-FM (93.7 Scotia); up the dial at 1460, Disney replaces the old WGNA(AM) with WDDY to match the new Radio Disney format there.
On the TV side of things, Albany Fox affiliate WXXA (Channel 23) wants to shift its DTV assignment from channel 4 to channel 7, and you've got to love the explanation: the Clear Channel station says it doesn't want to cause interference to VCRs and other devices that output to TV sets on channel 4! (That VHF high-band is widely considered superior to VHF low-band for DTV we'll accept as merely coincidental...)
The most impressive AM directional array in the Northeast could rise just a few hundred yards from the Canadian border, should Palmetto Radio Group be granted its application for a new station on 650 kHz in Mooers, N.Y. The South Carolina-based religious broadcaster wants to erect nine 150-meter towers on Orr Road, just west of Route 22 and barely a mile south of the border, to put out 50,000 watts by day and 9,000 watts by night, presumably aimed at Montreal. And no, we have no idea how this would work with the vacant (but protected internationally) 650 allocation at Pointe-Claire, just west of Montreal.
Syracuse Community Radio is at it again: with just hours to go before the expiration of its CP for translator W208AQ (89.5 Marcellus) on April 30, the SCR folks filed for a license to cover for the facility, which could be their best hope to actually put a listenable signal into Onondaga County. Only problem is, W208AQ hadn't been built yet; several NERW readers who visited the site report seeing no sign of an antenna, nor any power connections to the transmitter!
(This is not the first time SCR has done this; alert readers will recall the saga of WXXC, 88.7 in Truxton, which SCR falsely told the FCC was on the air, only to lose the license after several other area broadcasters informed the Commission otherwise. NERW's take: SCR missed several good opportunities to win the friendly cooperation of the region's existing broadcasters, and we don't see what the group hopes to gain by misleading the FCC now, especially with the scrutiny it faces from other stations in the region.)
The coming of the Bill O'Reilly show sparked a format change at Syracuse's WFBL (1050 Baldwinsville), which dropped its adult-standards format last week in favor of syndicated talk. In addition to O'Reilly, WFBL is running Sean Hannity, Dr. Joy Browne and the Dolans.
(WFBL's Web site, meanwhile, is trying to paint the station's history as extending back to the original WFBL in 1922; we know better, of course, here at NERW: that WFBL is today's WDCW on 1390, while the current WFBL is the original WSEN, dating to only 1959!)
In Binghamton, WHWK (98.1) PD Ed Walker takes on music director duties as well, as John Davison moves from MD/APD to a promotion/production role at the country station.
We didn't miss anything in Rochester radio while we were away, it seems -- and despite the rumors that O'Reilly would show up on WBBF (950), perhaps as the start of a rumored change there from an oldies FM simulcast to news-talk, WBBF(AM) was still running all-oldies at press time. On the TV front, WUHF (Channel 31) amended its channel 28 DTV application to specify the proposed American Tower mast on Pinnacle Hill instead of WUHF's current site on the WXXI-TV (Channel 21) tower.
Buffalo is getting O'Reilly, and that means Rochester listeners can tune in as well to WWKB (1520), which is running the show from noon until 3 daily (including one repeat hour), directly opposite Rush Limbaugh on sister station WBEN (930). Buffalo also has a stronger AM signal, as WXRL (1300 Lancaster) boosts its daytime power from 2395 watts to a full 5 kilowatts.
On the TV side, we note religious WNYB-TV (Channel 26) Jamestown and its Buffalo relay, W15BH, being transferred from Tri-State Christian Television to Faith Broadcasting Network. No sign thus far of a similar transfer for the third station in the chain, Rochester's W59BV, which has been running TBN programming straight from the satellite since the debut of LPTV W26BZ locally wiped out its off-air feed from Jamestown.
The Mary V. Harris Foundation's application for a new 90.7 in Williamsville has been returned to pending status, meaning it's still competing with Holy Family Communications' application for a new 90.7 in Lancaster.
On the FM side, the "Z-Rock" combo of WEOZ (95.7 Olyphant) and WAOZ (97.9 Hazleton) split as well, with WEOZ becoming "Z-Talk" and WAOZ shifting to a simulcast of new rock WBSX (93.7 Dallas). The Z-Talk lineup includes Bob and Tom, Don and Mike, Opie and Anthony, Phil Hendrie and Tom Leykis. WARM, meantime, starts its day with local host Rob Neyhard. The schedule also includes Dr. Joy Browne and Sean Hannity. WBSX, meanwhile, has been running promos announcing a move to "97.9 X," and at press time the WBSX calls have moved to 97.9, with 93.7 now identifying as WCWQ.
That, in turn, matches the new calls at two other Citadel stations: WBHD (94.3 Carbondale) is now WCWI, while WEMR-FM (107.7 Tunkhannock) is now WCWY. WBHD had been simulcasting CHR WBHT (97.1 Mountain Top), while WEMR-FM had been simulcasting AC WMGS (92.9 Scranton); speculation in the market is that WCWQ, WCWI and WCWY will all soon be doing "Cat Country," a format that had been heard on 94.3 and 93.7 a few years ago.
The moves have displaced some staffers at the stations as well; Z-Rock operations manager/PD Jules Riley becomes OM for the entire cluster (and PD for WBSX and Z-Talk), while WBSX PD Chris Lloyd goes back to PM drive duties there. In all, about ten people (including several WBSX jocks) lost their jobs at the cluster.
And Citadel's been busy away from Wilkes-Barre, too; we hear WRKZ (102.3 Carlisle, the former WHYL-FM) flipped from a simulcast of country sister WCAT-FM (106.7 Hershey, the former WRKZ) to 80s hits as "Z-102.3" last Friday.
(One more note before we leave Scranton and vicinity: WAAT (750 Olyphant) has dropped the Laura Schlessinger show.)
In Philadelphia, Michael Smerconish returned to the WPHT (1210) airwaves this week, after a falling-out with the station a few months back that took him off his afternoon shift. Smerconish's return (he's also still contributing commentaries to sister station KYW) pushes Jeff Katz from the 3-6 PM slot to 6-8 PM, where he's followed by an hour of Jim Cramer, Bill O'Reilly on tape from 9-11 PM, and then Dom Giordano (11 PM to 1 AM), Rollye James (1-3 AM) and Art Bell (3-6 AM).
Down the dial on 950, former WMGK (102.9 Philadelphia) jock Mike Bowe replaces Tom Moran in afternoon drive on WPEN; Joe Harnett, who followed Moran, also exits, though his shift is mostly filled with Phillies games for the next few months. And on WPHI (103.9 Jenkintown), last week brought the debut of "The Beat Morning Playaz," a new morning show with Jim "KJ" Kovachyk from Houston and Kim Kane.
Over in Coatesville, WCOJ (1420) VP/GM Jack Weinlein has departed.
On the TV side of things, Bethlehem's WBPH (Channel 60) wants the FCC to reconsider its DTV allocation. WBPH is currently assigned to DTV channel 59, which presents a problem for the station: because neither 59 nor 60 are within the current "core spectrum" (channels 2-51), WBPH would have to build a DTV facility on channel 59, then change channels again sometime down the road. WBPH says it's one of fewer than 20 stations with both analog and DTV allocatons "out of core;" it's now asking for DTV channel 9 instead.
WWZB (106.3 Huntingdon) changes calls to WWLY(FM); it's not clear what the new Forever ownership there is planning just yet.
The Family Worship Center withdrew dozens of translator applications around the country last week, and that included several in Pennsylvania: 91.9 in Smethport and Lewistown and 88.3 in Bloomsburg. FWC had also applied for translators in New York on 89.1 in Malone, 89.9 in Bath and 90.1 in Medina, also withdrawn.
In Pittsburgh, O'Reilly lands on WPTT (1360 McKeesport), shifting Lynn Cullen to a 10 AM to 12:45 PM slot, followed by Paul Harvey and O'Reilly, then Doug Hoerth at 3. Across town at WKST (96.1), J.J. Kincaid is inbound from KDWB in Minneapolis to replace John Trout as music director and afternoon jock.
Just outside Pittsburgh, the building on Wyngate Drive in Monroeville that housed the old WXVX (1510, now WPGR) was severely damaged by fire late last week. WPGR moved out of the building a few years back; its studios are now in downtown Pittsburgh and its transmitter is in Penn Hills.
And just across the state line in Ohio, WFXJ (107.5 North Kingsville) finally made it to the air in late April. It's classic rock as "the Fox," complete with Bob and Tom in the mornings, and we hear it reaches Erie with an adequate signal, too...
WTTM's now running ethnic fare, with plenty of Asian languages, we're told; the ESPN sports that had been on 1680 have moved to WJHR (1040 Flemington).
Greater Media is adding WJRZ (100.1 Manahawkin) to its station roster; the purchase from Atlantic Broadcasting Corporation comes with an immediate LMA, and there's no word on a purchase price.
Speaking of Greater Media, its WMTR (1250 Morristown) is filing to boost its nighttime power from 1 kilowatt (with a CP for 5 kilowatts) to 7 kilowatts. The new night facility, which would aim most of its power to the east-southeast, would use four towers instead of the current three at the WMTR studio facility.
WSNR (620 Newark) has had its application for 8200 watts day, 5000 watts night from a new seven-tower array in West Caldwell reinstated; the Sporting News flagship had to correct some minor problems in its initial application, which apparently failed to provide quite enough protection to co-channel WHEN Syracuse and WDNC Durham, N.C.
And Ibiquity, the digital IBOC folks, have applied for a 50-watt experimental AM outlet in Warren, N.J., to be used for IBOC testing both daytime and after dark. The station, to operate on 1700 kHz, would apparently be used to help resolve some of the problems that have thus far kept the IBOC standard from being approved for nighttime use.
Radio People on the Move: Mike McGowan has departed WKSS (95.7 Hartford), where he was APD and MD in addition to afternoon drive jock. Jeff Ryan, who was doing weekends at New Bedford's WFHN (107.1 Fairhaven), moves to WKSS for weekend/swing duty. Over at WWYZ (92.5 Waterbury), morning jock Neil Hedley departed on May 3, with no replacement yet named.
The Laura Schlessinger show has a new home in central Connecticut; it's the latest addition to "Notty 99," WNTY (990 Southington).
On the TV side, the shuffle that puts WPRI (Channel 12) in LIN's hands moves sister station WNAC (Channel 64) from LIN to "WNAC, L.L.C.", though both stations remained together under an LMA.
Speaking of LIN, it appears the Providence stations will join New Haven's WTNH and WCTX (also now officially in LIN hands) in being operated from a central-casting hub at LIN's WWLP in Springfield. (An alert New Haven reporter caught LIN advertising for "hub operators" at WWLP last week...)
There's a new night signal in the Bay State: WVBF (1530 Middleborough) is now testing its two-watt night authorization. Owner Steve Callahan checked in to report that reception reports are welcome!
It's too late for us to give you a heads-up about it, but we still think WHRB (95.3 Cambridge) had a neat idea for its biggest "Orgy" (TM) of the season. The "Number One Orgy" ran from May 7-10 on the Harvard-affiliated station, offering every single song (more than 900 of them) that made the top of the pop charts from 1955 until now. Neat...
Sorry to offer several obituaries: Jack Chase, veteran WBZ-TV anchorman, died April 27 at age 85. Chase's death followed closely those of his WBZ colleagues Art Amadon and Norm Macdonald, reported earlier in NERW.
Jim Rakiey, WBCN chief engineer, died April 25 at age 43. Rakiey had been WBCN's chief since 1989, after a career that included a stint at Attleboro's WARA and graduation from Curry College in Milton. Rakiey leaves a wife and two young children.
And out on Cape Cod, we're particularly sorry to report the passing of Ernie Cooper.
Ernie was known to WOMR (92.1 Provincetown) listeners as the host of "Forward March!," perhaps the only radio show anywhere dedicated solely to military marches -- but he was even better known in the DX community, where he was one of the veteran members of the National Radio Club. Cooper edited the "Musings" column of the club's DX News for decades, and logged literally thousands of AM stations from Brooklyn and, later, from Cape Cod. (He had logged 3,601 domestic AM signals from Provincetown when he last updated his achievements with the NRC in the late seventies!)
Ernie died April 28 at age 83; he's survived by partner Robert Stenger. Funeral services will be held next Monday (May 20) in Provincetown.
Dennis Jackson passed along some neat pictures of the new setup at WMEX (106.5 Farmington), which now has Gary James with a live, local morning show from new studios in downtown Rochester, N.H.
Anyone who doubts there's still a place for local small-town radio in 2002 should check out Dennis' stations to see how to combine community committment and automation to preserve a local sound even with a small staff!
Two call changes: Saga flips WXOD (98.7 Winchester) to WOQL(FM), presumably to match sister oldies outlet "Cool" WQLL (96.5 Bedford); out on the Seacoast, W26CM in Hampton Falls becomes WHDN-LP.
Burlington's ABC affiliate, WVNY (Channel 22), wants to swap its channel 16 DTV allocation for channel 13, in part to lower power costs at its mountaintop site.
The Vermont Association of Broadcasters met last month for its annual banquet, naming WCVT (101.7 Stowe) as its station of the year. The VAB also inducted two Vermont broadcasters into its Hall of Fame: Mike Donovan of Barre's WSNO/WORK and Eric Michaels of WDEV in Waterbury.
Maine PBS outlet WMED (Channel 13) in Calais wants to change its DTV allocation; it was granted a shift from DTV 15 to DTV 10, reducing power bills at its site in Meddybemps, Maine. (And yes, we've been to Meddybemps...)
WQSS (102.5 Camden) was officially transferred from Gopher Hill to Clear Channel; the company is moving most of its Bangor-area stations to a new group facility in the Target Industrial Park near the Bangor airport.
And WPOR-FM (101.9 Portland) is now officially WPOR(FM). Just thought you'd like to know.
In Ontario, the service will relay CJBC-FM (90.3 Toronto) from new transmitters in Windsor (107.9, 3360 watts, also reaching Detroit) and Paris (89.9, 7140 watts).
Montréal's CBFX (100.7) will be relayed over a new 72 kilowatt transmitter on 91.1 on Mont Laurier. Québec's CBVX (100.9) will get new relays at La Malbaie (91.5, 960 watts) and Baie St-Paul (88.9, 350 watts). Rimouski's CBRX (101.5) will be relayed at Matane (107.5, 31.7 kW), Sept-Iles (96.1, 84.8 kW) and Rivière-du-Loup (90.7, 56.9 kW), while Chicoutimi's CBJX (100.9) will be relayed at Dolbeau (90.9, 37.2 kW).
In the Maritimes, CBAL (98.3 Moncton NB) will get new relays at Fredericton (88.1, 78.5 kW, also serving Saint John) and Edmundston (94.3, 100 kW), while a new chaine culturelle service will operate from Halifax on 91.5 (77.5 kW) with relays at Charlottetown, P.E.I (88.9, 32.85 kW) and St. John's, Newfoundland (101.9, 90.2 kW).
The CBC also won permission to expand its English Radio One service in Quebec, beating out Radio Communautaire Missisquoi to win permission to build a 3400-watt signal at 101.9 in Cowansville. The Missisquoi group had hoped to provide local English-language programming to the region of English-speakers in southern Quebec, but was unable to find an alternate frequency to use.
It appears a new tower has gone up to replace the CKTM tower near Trois-Rivières that was destroyed when it was struck by a small plane in April 2001. CKTM (Channel 13) and CFKM (Channel 16) have both asked the CRTC to change their power levels to reflect the construction of the new tower. (CKTM jumps from 162.5 kW to 164.4 kW, CFKM from 115.6 to 169.5 kW visual.)
Another AM bites the dust: CFVM (1220 Amqui QC) has applied to move to FM, where it would run on 99.9 with 23.8 kW.
Out in Prince Edward Island, Jack McGaw Consulting wants to put a 37-watt tourism information station on the air at the Confederation Bridge (which links PEI and New Brunswick); the station would provide traffic and weather information at 93.9 on the dial.
In Ottawa, the city declared "CFRA Day" May 3 to mark the 55th anniversary of the station, which signed on at 560 on the dial May 3, 1947 and now operates at 580 as the capital city's news-talk voice.
In Toronto, airport-information station CFYZ (1280) wants a power boost. CFYZ is already well heard with 25 watts day, 99 watts night; it wants a boost to 400 watts day, 150 watts after dark.
And out in Chatham, CKUE and CKSY swapped dial positions on May 3; CKUE moved to the stronger 95.1 spot as "The Rock 95.1," while CKSY is now offering its AC format at 94.3.
Whew! It's good to be home, but catching up can be time-consuming -- so we'll wait until next week to tell you all about everything we saw and heard across the pond.