North East RadioWatch: June 9, 2000

Laquidara Says "Aloha!"

by Scott Fybush

• How much does it cost to move a Big Mattress 6000 miles west? Expect a MASSACHUSETTS moving company to get a phone call soon, as veteran Boston morning man Charles Laquidara gets ready to leave the Hub and join his wife and family in Maui.

  Laquidara is still best known for nearly a quarter-century at WBCN (104.1), where he all but defined "underground" FM radio, then rode the station to establishment success hosting 'BCN's "Big Mattress" morning show (and filling in at times as alter ego Duane Glasscock).

  In 1996 (ironically, on April Fools' Day), Laquidara's show moved to Infinity sister station WZLX (100.7), replaced by Howard Stern in a sign of WBCN's move towards a mix of modern rock and talk.

  Laquidara, 62, says he's making the move out of Boston to be closer to his wife, who's recovered from a bout with cancer last year.

  Replacing him sometime this fall on WZLX will be comedian Steve Sweeney and "Tai" (aka Tom Irwin), who faced off against Laquidara in the early '90s as morning host at WFNX, then spent a few years at WRKO (680) before losing that gig last year.

• Elsewhere in the Bay State, it's a new format for Citadel's WORC-FM (98.9 Webster), which ditched classic rock May 26 to become "Oldies 98.9," thus returning to a format it had used for four years as WXXW. The move gets 98.9 out of the way of Citadel's other classic rocker, WWFX (100.1 Southbridge) in the Worcester market. Speaking of that market, we're reminded that WESO (970 Southbridge), WWFX's former sister station, flipped from oldies to (mostly satellite) country late last year.

  On the TV front, congratulations to Candy Altman, who's finally received her long-expected promotion from news director at WCVB (Channel 5) in Boston to "group news executive" for parent company Hearst-Argyle. The company decided last year to stop using outside consultants and instead use its own talent across the group.

  And set those VCRs: Hot on the heels of New York's "WB11 Morning News" (at WPIX) this past week, WLVI (Channel 56) launches its entry Monday morning (June 12).

• Our loyal readers in NEW HAMPSHIRE tell us WBNC (1050 Conway) has been off the air since last Friday (June 2). No great loss, we guess, since its oldies format is also heard on WBNC-FM (104.5 Conway). We're hoping to point the NERW-mobile that way very soon to check things out for ourselves.

• Last week, NERW was first to report that Clear Channel wouldn't be allowed to buy four of the upstate NEW YORK properties it had hoped to acquire from Straus Media. Now we can tell you where they're going instead. Concord Media, which has stepped in to buy other "over-the-cap" properties spun off from Clear Channel deals, will get WCKL (560) and WCTW (98.5) in Catskill and WHUC (1230) and WTHK (93.5) in Hudson. Clear Channel couldn't take those four because they're considered part of the Albany market, where the company's already at the limit (and in fact had to spin WTRY (980 Troy) to Concord a few months back).

  Clear Channel is still pushing forward with the remaining six stations in the Straus group (WELV-WTHN Ellenville, WKIP-WRNQ-WTND Poughkeepsie, and WRKW Saugerties), and now we're hearing a rumor that CC is also sniffing around the Roberts Radio properties in Poughkeepsie and Kingston for future acquisitions...

  The Clear Channel group in Binghamton is getting a new operations manager. Al Brock, former PD at oldies WWBB (101.5 Providence), will take over programming duties for AC WMXW (103.3 Vestal), in addition to overseeing sports WENE (1430 Endicott), classic rock WKGB (92.5 Susquehanna PA), CHR WMRV (105.7 Endicott), and country WBBI (107.5 Endwell).

  To the north, we note that Ed Levine's Radio Group stations are being reorganized under a new name: Alta Communications. The group includes standards WTLA (1200 North Syracuse), WTLB (1310 Utica), WSGO (1440 Oswego); classic rock WTKW (99.5 Bridgeport), WTKV (105.5 Oswego), WRCK (107.3 Utica); and active rock WKRL (100.9 North Syracuse), WKLL (94.9 Frankfort), and WKRH (106.5 Minetto).

  Our condolences to the folks at WRVO public radio (WRVO 89.9 Oswego, WRVD 90.3 Syracuse, WRVJ 91.7 Watertown, WRVN 91.9 Utica) on the death June 3 of founder William D. Shigley. While recent WRVO listeners might have known him only as the host of "Reader's Corner," Shigley was the man who built WRVO from its start as a 10-watt class D operation in 1969 and led the station until his retirement a few years ago. Read a tribute to Shigley at <http://www.wrvo.org/deskmemo.html>.

  Thanks to the ol' day job, your editor spent pretty much the whole week in Lockport, north of Buffalo, and here's what we found:

  • Buffalo's WWKB (1520) has a new format, again. Since January, it's been relaying CHR WKSE (98.5 Niagara Falls); as of this week, it's business talk (none of it local), in addition to the leased talk on weekends, Bisons baseball, and overnight trucking programs.

  • Lockport's WLVL (1340) does a lot of local programming for a little graveyarder -- all morning, in fact, with local talk, "Tradio," and then into satellite land after noon.

  • Niagara Falls' WHLD (1270) does some standards in the morning and old-time radio late mornings before the leased-time ethnic kicks in.

  • What's that we heard on 93.5? No IDs, an unusual mix of progressive rock, and a signal that doesn't go anywhere beyond downtown Lockport. At first we thought it might be a test of the (yet to be assigned) Toronto signal; now we think it was a pirate.

• From CANADA this week: The CRTC has granted the CBC's applications in Sudbury, allowing construction to start on 90.1 (CBC Radio Two) and 90.9 (La chaîne culturelle). We wonder whether the CBC will reuse the call signs that were assigned to those construction permits the first time around, before CBC budget cuts killed the project circa 1986. If so, CBBS would be on 90.1, CBOS on 90.9.

  Also up north, Christian contemporary CHIM (102.3 Timmins) is getting a relay in North Bay, three hours to the south. The 50-watt transmitter will operate on 92.5.

  In Hamilton, McMaster University's CFMU (93.3) is dropping power from 250 to 166 watts. The station expects to get a better signal, though, as it moves its antenna to the higher tower of CIOI (101.5) a few kilometers away on the Mohawk College campus.

  Out in New Brunswick, they're shuffling licences at co-owned CJCJ (920 Woodstock) and CIKX (93.5 Grand Falls). The stations share their programming, but CIKX runs its own ads. Now CJCJ is giving up one of its two low-power AM relays, and turning the other into a relay of CIKX. Gone, soon, will be CJCJ-1 (1140) in Perth-Andover; CJCJ tells the CRTC it isn't needed since it serves the same area where CIKX has been operating for the last two years. CJCJ's other 40-watt relay, CJCJ-2 (990) in Plaster Rock, will presumably become CIXK-1 as it relays that set of ads instead of Woodstock's. (NERW wonders why CJCJ and CJCJ-2 haven't moved to FM yet?)

  And one correction: That application for a new French-language community station on 98.3 is in Windsor, Quebec -- not Windsor, Ontario.

That's it for another week; see you in 7!