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.
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!
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.
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."
(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....
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 premiére chaîne transmitter to serve all seven Francophones in the region....