North East RadioWatch: May 15, 1997

Changes in the Morning

by Scott Fybush

• We'll start this mid-May NERW with the latest from Boston's morning drive circus: Talker WRKO has hired "Morning Guy Tai" from modern rock WFNX (101.7) as the station's new morning co-host. He'll join Marjorie Clapprood in morning drive, replacing the departed Pat Whitley. The new "Clapprood and Company" morning show will debut next Monday at 5:30; it will be shortened by an hour to make room for an extra hour of Dr. Laura Schlessinger at 9 AM. WRKO program director Kevin Straley is defending his unorthodox choice, saying Tai (whose real name is Tom Irwin) is eager to move to the talk arena from his days as a rock jock.

  Elsewhere in Massachusetts, Ware's WARE (1250) has reportedly ended its simulcast with country WQVR (100.1 Southbridge) to pick up Westwood One's adult standards format. And M Street claims Lowell's WLLH (1400) has added jazz overnights -- anyone in the Merrimack Valley want to confirm that?

• One of CONNECTICUT's best known morning teams has been given the boot from Hartford's WHCN (105.9). Mike Picozzi and Gary Lee Horn, known on air as "Picozzi and the Horn," were fired after their show last Thursday. Starting on Monday, WHCN replaced them with the Bob and Tom Show out of Indianapolis, which is syndicated by WHCN's owner, SFX Broadcasting. Picozzi and Horn had been together on WHCN for more than a decade. We're also told WLIS (1420) in Old Saybrook CT is simulcasting WMRD (1150 Middletown) most of the day.

• From RHODE ISLAND comes word of new call letters for the erstwhile WPJB-FM (102.7 Narragansett Pier). Now that the station is owned by Back Bay Broadcasting and simulcasting WWKX ("Kix 106") Woonsocket, it's going by WAKX(FM).

• In NEW HAMPSHIRE news, we learn that Fuller-Jeffrey Broadcasting wants to build auxiliary sites for its Mount Washington stations, WHOM (94.9 Mt. Washington) and WPKQ (103.7 Berlin), presumably to keep the stations on the air should the mountaintop transmitters fail in the winter months, when it's awfully hard to get up to New England's tallest peak to fix them.

  We also mourn the passing of Talbot Hood, former owner of Keene's WKBK, who died May 2 at age 71. Hood joined WKBK as program director in 1959, and eventually became part-owner before retiring in 1991.

  From the FCC comes word that religious WLMW (90.7 Manchester) has been granted permission to put its transmitter atop Uncanoonuc Mountain in Goffstown, where Manchester's other FMs are located. The new CP for WLMW calls for 15 watts directional from 869 feet above average terrain. WLMW is not yet on the air from any facility.

• From MAINE comes some call letter confusion in the Bangor market, where WWFX (104.7 Belfast) isn't going to become WEBR after all. Instead, the station now known as "the Bear" will be WBFB, a set of calls that was last seen in Rochester NY some 22 years ago, on the classical FM at 92.5 that's today's country WBEE-FM. We're also trying to comprehend why someone (and no, we don't know who just yet) would want 10 kilowatts day, 1 kilowatt night on 830 kHz in "Lorring, Maine," way up there in Aroostook County where several other AMs have gone dark in the last decade. In any event, someone has filed an application for just that facility, with transmitter site just north of Caribou, Maine.

• Here in NEW YORK, there are new calls for Buffalo's "Alice @ 92.9." The former WSJZ is now WLCE. And an historic set of Rochester AM calls, WPXN, will soon resurface in the Big Apple. With Lowell Paxson's purchase of WBIS (Channel 31) in New York, the station will dump its locally-produced business, news, and sports programming for Paxson's infomercials within a few months, and become WPXN(TV). Channel 31 was noncommercial WNYC-TV until just last year, when the City of New York sold it for $207 million. (The WPXN calls, by the way, were on the 1280 signal once known as WVET and WROC, later as WPXY and WKQG, and today as WHTK). Paxson owns or controls several New England stations, including WHAI-TV (Chanel 43) Bridgeport CT, WHCT (Channel 18) Hartford, WHRC (Channel 46) Norwell MA, WGOT (Channel 60) Merrimack NH, and W54CN Boston. His stated intent is to ally himself with programmers to create a seventh TV network in the US.

  More sale news: Kingston NY's WKNY (1490) and WDSP (96.9 Arlington NY) have been sold by CHET-5 Broadcasting to Crystal Communications, which already owns WEOK (1390 Poughkeepsie), WALL (1340 Middletown), WCZX (97.7 Hyde Park), WRRV (92.7 Middletown), and WPDH (101.5 Poughkeepsie). WDSP dropped its simulcast of AAA WDST (100.1 Woodstock) this week in favor of simulcasting WRRV's modern rock. WDST is now CHET-5's only broadcast property in the Hudson Valley.

  WODZ-FM (96.1 Rome-Utica) has applied for a power increase and a change of transmitter location; we'll know more on that in a week or so. Up at WYLR (95.9 Glens Falls), PM drive jock Brian Cortez has been promoted to Production Director. And the religious Family Life Radio network has applied for a translator on 102.7 in Geneva, relaying WCIY (88.9) Canandaigua. Another religious broadcaster, WHVP (91.1 Hudson), has applied to increase power to 360 watts from a tower site near the Massachusetts state line, between Spencertown and Green River NY. WHVP isn't on the air yet; they've asked for an extension of time to build.

  In Auburn NY, Salt City Communications is paying $1,685,000 for oldies WMBO (1340) and AAA-ish WPCX (106.9) (Hey, Broadcasting & Cable magazine, it hasn't been country for nearly a year!) from Great Scott Broadcasting. Salt City recently sold WXCD (now WLTI, 105.9) Syracuse to Pilot Communications.

  Way up north in Plattsburgh, veteran broadcaster Gordie Little has departed WIRY (1340) after 36 years with the station. Little began at WIRY as a disc jockey, and later served as news director, morning show host, and program director.

• Zing corner: Can anyone figure out what planet the editors of Rolling Stone magazine get their radio signals from? The latest issue makes the interesting claim that Rhode Island's WDGE (99.7) has abandoned modern rock for dance music. Uh, no...but their simulcast, WDGF (100.3 Middletown), did.

  We'll also launch a mild zing towards West 43rd Street in New York, where the editors of the New York Times somehow seem to have misheard the call letters of Lowell Paxson's Florida TV stations. "WPBS" and "WTBX"?!?!?! How about WPBF (Channel 25 Tequesta) and WTVX (Channel 34 Fort Pierce)?

• A well-known name in New England Radio is now on line. Check out the web site of Ed Brouder, New Hampshire's best-known aircheck collector and the author of Granite and Ether, the recent book about NH radio (not to mention morning guy at WZID/WFEA in Manchester!)

• We'll close by congratulating one of our best friends here at NERW, Tom Taylor, longtime editor of INSIDE RADIO. Starting next week, Tom will become the editor of the M Street Journal, the weekly digest of all things radio. We're looking forward to seeing what the combination of Tom's talents and the weekly Journal will look like; best of luck, Tom!