Sy Dressner's Greater Hartford Communications Corp. has owned WCCC for 28 years, and now Dressner says it's time to bring in some younger owners with fresh ideas. Dressner turned down several offers from the big groups and turned to Marlin Broadcasting, the family group that owns classical WBOQ (104.9 Gloucester MA) and WTMI (93.1 Miami FL). It's not Marlin's first time in the Hartford market; the company owned WKSS (95.7) from 1980 until 1983.
What's in store for the rock and roll format at WCCC? Marlin says it's committed to keeping WCCC-FM rocking, and it's locked into a three-year contract with Howard Stern in morning drive. On the AM side, the West Hartford-licensed daytimer on 1290 could end up with a new format when Marlin takes over in early 1998. No purchase price has been announced.
The Spanish-language overnight programming on WNRB (1510 Boston) has vanished, apparently the first casualty as WNRB gets ready to become a One-on-One sports outlet.
Two web sites we've been enjoying: At http://www.lotsofun.com/wrko you'll find Shel Swartz's always-growing tribute to Boston's WRKO and its top-40 glory days. And at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/3514 is Peter George's All-band DX page, now home to the "UHF Graveyard," an on-line tribute to long-forgotten stations like WJZB/WWOR Worcester, WNET Providence, and WRLP Greenfield.
The late Norm Nathan has not been forgotten; in fact, he'll be honored this winter with a compilation called "Sounds in the Night - A Norm Nathan Retrospective." It's being assembled right now by Norm's family and former colleagues, and is expected to be available shortly after Thanksgiving. We'll have complete details on NERW within a few weeks.
In the meantime, the financially-troubled Normandy had been LMA'ing WYLR out as a country station. That LMA has ended, and now former Normandy executive David Covey and his Entertronics company have taken over operations of WYLR. Covey has been stunting with an AOR format on the station, but local insiders say it's likely WYLR will end up competing with the "K100" hot AC simulcast of WKBE (100.3 Warrensburg) and WKLI (100.9 Albany). Covey plans to buy WYLR and sister station WWSC (1450) as soon as the license issue is settled. Entertronics already owns oldies WCKM (98.5 Lake George).
As expected, the 107.1 trimulcast surrounding New York City has applied to boost power. Here's how the Odyssey Broadcasting "Y107" stations plan to grow: WWXY in Briarcliff Manor would jump from 890 watts to 1.9 kW, WWVY in Hampton Bays, L.I. would double from 3 to 6 kW, and down in New Jersey, WWZY Long Branch would get a boost from 2.3 to 4.7 kW, helping to fill in some of the dead zones between the various Y107 transmitters.
Translator news...W239AC are the calls for the just-granted 95.7 in Middletown; no word yet on just what it'll be translating. And religious WZXV (99.7 Palmyra) has been granted a translator to the southwest in Dansville. W246AP will be the calls for that one on 97.1. WZXV is part of the Calvary Chapel satellite network; check out their site at http://www.calvarychapel.com/csn for coverage maps of all the many, many Calvary stations and translators around the country.
And that wraps things up for another week; we'll be back next Thursday with more NorthEast Radio News -- and, weather permitting, a look at radio in the Williamsport, Pennsylvania area. See you then!