When the FCC cancelled Steven Wendell's construction permit and deleted the call letters last week, it ended a story that began back in 1988, when Wendell originally proposed a station in the north Jersey community, just south of the New York state line. Neighbors of the proposed site on the New Jersey side of the line fought the construction, and when the FCC began cracking down on long-unbuilt CPs a few years ago, Wendell tried another tack to get his station built.
Changing the community of license to Harriman NY, Wendell modified the CP to specify 250 watts, daytime only, from the existing site of WRKL (910 New City), on US 202 in Pomona, Rockland County. But while WRKL rebuilt its site, adding two towers for night use, WKNJ remained unbuilt. The FCC said last winter that it would cancel the CP (which had been renewed most recently in December 1998), but Wendell appealed, telling the commission this year that he had been unable to build WKNJ because engineers in the New York area had been too busy with the World Trade Center recovery. The FCC didn't buy it, noting that Wendell made no effort to hire engineers from outside the area, and WKNJ is now officially gone.
(The back politics here: WKNJ's existence would have made the upgrade of WLIE, on 540 in Islip, impossible; while the Long Island station pushed to have WKNJ taken off life support, Wendell filed for another 540 facility, this time in Jaffrey, N.H. That application is still pending....)
It seems the folks in suburban Philly don't care for Hoosier humor; WTHK (94.5 Trenton) has pulled the Indianapolis-based Bob & Tom show off morning drive, replacing it with the "Free Beer and Hot Wings Show" from its sister "Hawk" station, WCHR-FM (105.7 Manahawkin).
Over on the Jersey Shore, WRAT (95.9 Point Pleasant) promoted PD/morning guy Carl Craft to operations manager.
We have a lineup to report for new Binghamton talker WYOS (1360), thanks to several alert readers down that way: the Citadel station kicks off the day with Doug Stephan (5-9 AM), followed by Glenn Beck (9-noon), Bill O'Reilly (noon-2), an hour of Dr. Dean Edell, Laura Schlessinger (3-6 PM), Jim Cramer (6-7 PM), Tom Martino (7-10 PM), Laura Ingraham (10 PM-midnight) and America Overnight.
Here at NERW, we pride ourselves on being thorough when it comes to towers, so we made it a point to detour from the SBE regional convention at Turning Stone Casino last week (a well-attended event, by the way) to check out the newest ones in the state -- WFNY (1440 Gloversville), Michael Sleezer's new station, with two towers just a half-mile or so from Gloversville's heritage AM, WENT (1340) and its recently rebuilt stick. These towers will soon be sending out 800 watts by day, 500 watts at night, but despite reports of the station testing, there was nothing on 1440 just yet as we photographed it. (What's more, we got a flat tire!)
Rochester's first DTV signal made it to the air last week, at least in testing mode. NBC affiliate WHEC-DT (Channel 58) is running just 38 kW visual from Pinnacle Hill. Meanwhile, PBS outlet WXXI-TV (Channel 21) has applied to move its DTV service from channel 16 to channel 41 whenever it signs on; considering the analog signal viewers east of Rochester already get on 16 from WPBS in Watertown, that's a good idea indeed....
Speaking of Watertown, its TV dial is getting a bit of a spin. UPN is gone from LPTVs WLOT-LP (Channel 66) and WBQZ-LP (Channel 34), moved to a tape-delayed schedule on LPTVs WNYF-LP (Channel 28, just granted Class A status this week) and W28BC up in Massena. Meanwhile, cable viewers who've gotten used to "WBWT," the cable-only signal on channel 31, will need to adjust their dials: it's moving to cable channel 14. (Just to confuse matters more, the Watertown Daily Times, long an afternoon paper, moved to morning publication on Wednesday!)
In Arcade, east of Buffalo, the religious LPFM to be on 100.3 now has a call, WNAR-LP, and a new transmitter site: it'll be just south of the village of Arcade, practically touching the Cattaraugus-Wyoming county line.
In Buffalo itself, a familiar voice is back on the air in morning drive: Nicholas Picholas has rejoined Janet Snyder on the WKSE (98.5 Niagara Falls) morning show after an absence of two years, when he crossed the border to do mornings at "Energy Radio" CING in Hamilton.
Annenberg's print holdings included the Philadelphia Inquirer and TV Guide, which he founded nationally in 1953. In later years, he served as ambassador to the Court of St. James's. He died Tuesday (Oct. 1) at his home in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, reportedly of pneumonia. Annenberg was 94.
Citadel flipped formats on two of its stations in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre market, dropping standards on WKJN (1440 Carbondale) and WAZL (1490 Hazleton) and replacing them -- again -- with simulcasts of news-talk WARM (590 Scranton).
In Allentown, WLEV (100.7) is looking for a new morning co-host; Diane Grey is off to Flint, Michigan and WFBE (95.1), leaving "Franceman" solo for the moment.
Moving west, we're pleased to report that WSAJ (1340 Grove City) is back on the air, now that its unusual horizontal "cage" antenna on the campus of Grove City College has been repaired. WSAJ is a relic of an earlier day of radio: it runs just 100 watts during its few hours of weekly broadcasting (Sunday mornings and two weeknights, for an hour at a time), keeping alive a license that was first granted in 1921! (The college also runs fulltime religious/classical outlet WSAJ-FM on 91.1).
Down in Pittsburgh, Dave LaBrozzi is promoted to one of Clear Channel's new regional VP of programming posts, overseeing the Clear Channel outlets in the Steel City and nearby Wheeling. (He'd been OM for WWSW, WBGG and WJJJ, three of Clear Channel's five Pittsburgh stations.)
1330 was also a two-site operation; the five-tower night site down in Boardman, Ohio is gone now, so the station will be effectively a daytimer when it returns to the air. (It was last heard doing talk under Dan Ott, before filing for bankruptcy and going up for auction.)
And over in Alliance, WZKL (92.5) dropped its mish-mosh of AC music on Friday to return to its top 40 heritage as "Q92." Will the "WDJQ" calls come back too? We hear a call change is pending there...and we're waiting to see what involvement veteran CHR programmer Clarke Ingram will have; he helped sign the station on, but was sidetracked by a family health situation that forced him home to Pittsburgh over the weekend.
On the radio side of things, add "oldies" to the format description of Bob Bittner's wonderfully eclectic WJIB (740 Cambridge), which is picking up some of the 1955-1964 era oldies that are in short supply on the "commercial" oldies outlets like WODS. Next Sunday (Oct. 6), Bob will launch "Solid Gold Sunday," playing the hits of the pre-Beatles era (plus a few later ones that don't show up much on the air these days) from 2 until 8 PM.
Ken Shelton's latest home on the Boston airwaves will be Greater Media's WROR (105.7 Framingham), which has hired the Boston radio vet (WBZ-FM, WCOZ, WBCN, WZLX, WBOS) for middays, where he'll be followed by Tai and then Julie Devereaux, who moves to evenings from afternoons at the reborn classic rocker.
Congratulations to Candy O'Terry; the WMJX (106.7) jock/APD has been named president of the Boston/New England chapter of American Women in Radio and Television!
Out in Springfield, Ron Osbourne makes the move up I-91 from WPLR (99.1 New Haven), where he was doing weekends, to the night shift at WAQY (102.1). We're also hearing (a bit late, as it turns out) that Phil Dee has parted ways with WHYN (560). Dee, who did afternoons in WHYN's music days, had been doing a Saturday nights oldies show on the station, now a news-talker.
Down on the Rhode Island line, WARL (1320 Attleboro) is again looking for a morning show. After signing a deal with rapper Luther "Luke" Campbell of 2 Live Crew to do the show via ISDN from Miami (and installing equipment down there, not to mention buying Campbell a plane ticket to visit Providence and promote the show), the new urban station says Campbell simply disappeared when it was show time, leaving "Power 1320" without a morning show. Meanwhile, "CAB Radio," the syndicator affiliated with WARL parent ADD Media, has picked up "Travel World," the Montreal-based show formerly syndicated by the now-defunct Liberty Works, as its first national offering.
One that's more than just a well-placed rumor: Jeff Ryan, who does swing at WWBB (101.5) in Providence and WKSS (95.7) in Hartford, is adding another leg to his commute: he's now doing weekends way down in Trenton at WPST (97.5).
On the FM side, Mark Abuhazzab moves up from music director to PD at "The Point" (WNCS 104.7 Montpelier and its AAA sister stations), replacing the long-serving Jody Peterson.
Congratulations to WRKD (1450 Rockland), which marked its 50th anniversary this week. Special programming includes a six-hour look back on the station's history on the anniversary day, October 1.
The CBC also needs a new host for the next season of "Hockey Night in Canada." It was unable to reach agreement on a new contract with Ron MacLean, who's hosted the Canadian institution with Don Cherry since 1987. On the radio side, the CBC named Jane Chalmers, director of current affairs for CBC-TV, to replace Alex France as vice president of CBC Radio, effective November 1.
Sorry to report the passing of Hamilton's first TV newscaster. Jack Burghardt started the news department at CHCH-TV (Channel 11), moving in 1971 to CFPL-TV (Channel 10) in London, where he was the station's main news anchor for a decade. Burghardt then moved into politics, serving as a member of parliament, deputy mayor and mayoral candidate before retiring in 1994. Burghardt, who died Saturday (Sept. 28), was 73.
Over in Fort Erie, CKEY (Wild 101.1) now has a PD: Phil Becker moves up from WJFX (107.9) in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to helm the new Buffalo-market urban CHR, effective October 28.
And CKKW (1090) in Kitchener has rehired Ross Poll to do mornings; Poll left the station when it flipped from oldies to sports back in May 2001, but now that "The Team" is gone and oldies are back, so is Poll.