An upstate NEW YORK radio station is making the move to a newfrequency. Watertown's WCIZ (93.5) began telling its listeners lastweek to get ready to adjust their dials to 93.3, and NERW's ears up inthe North Country tell us the change has now happened. The classichits station known as "Z93" jumps from 4000 to 6000 watts with thechange, and moves from a tower north of Watertown to a site sharedwith sister station WFRY (97.5) in the hills east of town.
Meantime in the Buffalo area, WHLD (1270 Niagara Falls) wants to moveits transmitter some 30 miles south. The ethnic outlet is currently5000 watts day, 144 watts night from a two-tower array on GrandIsland, halfway between Buffalo and Niagara Falls. An applicationfiled this week with the FCC would move WHLD to the WNED (970) site inHamburg, on the shore of Lake Erie south of Buffalo. WHLD's new5000/143 watt DA-1 operation would blanket Buffalo and Niagara Fallsby day, and would be fairly solid in the ethnic neighborhoods onBuffalo's south side at night as well. Could a city of licensechange, perhaps to Hamburg, Lackawanna, or Orchard Park, be next?
Craig Fox is making some call-letter changes at his central New Yorkstations. WNDR (103.9 Mexico) has applied for WVOQ, presumably tomatch simulcast partner WVOA (105.1 DeRuyter), and WMBO (1340 Auburn)has applied for WKGJ -- and we have NO idea what that stands for!WMBO's been simulcasting WOLF (1490) Syracuse and WOLF-FM (96.7)Oswego. Continuing the lupine theme, WOLF-TV in Scranton,Pennsylvania also has new calls -- it's returned to the "WSWB" thatwas on its construction permit years ago (and which later spent yearson the CP for channel 64 there, now a Pax TV outlet). The WOLF-TVcalls move to the sister station on channel 56 in Hazleton, until nowknown as WWLF. And Fox isn't letting his heritage calls disappear inCentral New York -- his W60BY Syracuse becomes WMBO-LP, and W18ALbecomes WNDR-LP.
In the Rochester area, Jacor has filed formal applications to shuffletransmitter sites for WNVE (95.1 Honeoye Falls) and WMAX-FM (107.3South Bristol). As expected, "the Nerve" files to move its 50,000watts from Bristol Mountain some 30 miles north to Baker Hill inPerinton, within sight of downtown Rochester, while "Jam'n 107" fleesfrom Bloomfield up to Bristol Mountain, where its whopping 650 wattswill barely reach Rochester on a good day (but should cover thecentral Finger Lakes quite nicely). NERW wonders whether areshuffling of some of Jacor's Rochester-area formats will follow,both to accomodate the new coverage areas and to account for thestill-unbuilt CP for 102.1 Albion.
WYLF (850 Penn Yan) has applied for reinstatement of its CP fornighttime flea power.
The Syracuse Community Radio folks have won a CP for 89.9 in Fenner,New York, for a translator rebroadcasting yet-unbuilt WXXC (88.7Truxton). It's an interesting CP for two reasons; first, because SCRalready has a CP for a broadcaster in Fenner, WXXE (90.5), and second,because 89.9 is co-channel with WRVO in Oswego, a full class B NPRaffiliate barely 60 miles away. NERW wonders whether SCR will use theconstruction of this translator as a bargaining chip to get WRVO todrop its objections to some of SCR's plans to squeeze a new signalinto Syracuse.
In other translator news, St. Lawrence University's WSLJ (88.9Watertown) will soon be heard over a new translator in nearbyLowville, W201CB on 88.1. And in TV news up that way, veteran WWTI(Channel 50) reporter John Moore has been named assignment editor atthe Watertown ABC affiliate. Moore's been with the station sinceits 1988 debut as WFYF.
Continuing up the St. Lawrence, the student station at SUNY Potsdamhas a new slogan. WAIH (90.3) replaces "Your station, your music,your way" (often followed with an on-air "Want fries with that?") withthe much more concise "The Way." Wonder if they play Fastball twicean hour?
And down on Long Island, there's a new general manager at WRCN (103.9Riverhead. Stephen Hobbs was once the GM at Boston's WKLB-FM.
Brockton's WCAV (97.7) wants to move north; it's applied to move fromits current facility alongside route 24 south of the city to a150-meter tower on North Quincy Street, at the northern edge ofBrockton (and, of course, a few miles closer in to Boston). WCAVwould go from its current 3000 watts at 84 meters AAT to 2700 watts at150 meters AAT. Also moving is WCRB (102.5 Waltham), which has beengranted FCC approval to move across the highway from the WBZ-TV towerin Needham to the FM128 tower in Newton.
Natick's WJLT (1060) has won FCC approval to boost power to 40kilowatts daytime from its current transmitter site in Framingham(shared with WKOX and WRPT).
Changes are imminent at Mega Broadcasting's new acquisitions inBoston, as 10 staffers get the boot at WBPS (890 Dedham), which willsoon drop its multilingual format for Spanish. Also going Spanish isWNFT (1150 Boston. Mega says the two stations will target differentdemographics within Boston's diverse Hispanic community. Mega takescontrol of the stations December 1. (NERW notes that WNFT's temporaryformat of R&B oldies never even got mentioned in theGlobe's article this week about urban radio in Boston,while the other paper, usually much more accurate, somehow put WBPS on"850".)
Anniversary time: Congratulations to WCRB, which celebrates 50 yearsof classical radio in Boston next week. NERW notes that while theWCRB format is 50 years old, that history includes two stations --WCRB (AM) 1330, which had a diverse format from its inception in 1948until going all-classical a few years later, and WCRB-FM, whichdebuted in 1954 and carried the classical torch after the AM changedcalls, formats, and eventually owners in the late seventies.) Andcongrats as well to UMass Amherst's WMUA (91.1), which is gettingready for its half-century next year. WMUA is asking station veteransto drop a line to wmua50@stuaf.umass.edu to be added to a database offormer staffers -- and to be invited to the station's anniversaryparty next June 3. WMUA's also on the web -- check it out athttp://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~wmua (and even listen to the station inRealAudio!)
WBZ (1030) decided its all-news image was more important than itssports commitments this year, so unlike past Election Days, theTuesday night Bruins game was hurriedly moved to WESX (1230 Salem) andWJDA (1300 Quincy), leaving 'BZ free and clear for non-stop reports onthe Cellucci-Harshbarger race and the rest of the elections action.NERW wonders why none of CBS' FM signals were considered suitable forone night of Bruins...
Corrections and clarifications from last week: The WFNX staffer whowas concealing the salami in the WBMX lobby was Angie C., not JulieKramer. WMJX (106.7)'s new website is at www.magic1067.com, with noperiod in the frequency. And no matter what our folks in Chicago weretelling us, we should have known better than to think Chancellor wouldpull Ed McMann off Kiss 108 during a ratings book. His appearance onthe company's new "Jammin' Oldies 103.5" (ex-WRCX) in the Windy Cityis via the miracle of voice-tracking and ISDN...all from the comfort ofMedford.
What's this about WZLX luring Mark Parenteau back to Boston from NewYork's WAXQ? More next week...
Way up north, WWLR (91.5 Lyndonville) returned to the air at fullpower (3 kilowatts) Tuesday morning. "Impact 91.5" had been sufferingsome transmitter problems; glad to see them back on the air!
Hartford LPTV W05CF gets new calls; they're WMLD-LP.
In an effort to repair its troubled image in the New Havencommunity, WYBC (94.3/1340) is considering establishing a communityrelations board. WYBC came in for some bad press when it purchasedbankrupt urban outlet WNHC (1340) and changed its format, and for evenmore bad press when a weekend host resigned from the station, claimingit reneged on its promise to move the time-slot of her Saturday morningshow.
This just in: Al Pellegrino, who served as general manager of WPOP(1410 Hartford) and WIOF (104.1 Waterbury) for 22 years, starting in1974, died Thursday at his East Haven home. Pellegrino had alsoserved as executive vice president of Merv Griffin's broadcastinggroup, and as founding general manager of WKCI (101.3 Hamden).Pellegrino had been ill for several years. He was 66 years old.Memorial contributions may be made to the Albert Bernard PellegrinoScholarship Fund, Sacred Heart Academy, 265 Benham St., Hamden CT06514.
And that's it for this (fairly quiet) week...see you next Friday!