And while it looked a little iffy (and sparked a new battle between Savidge and Bryant), WWJS made it back to the airwaves last Wednesday (Oct. 23), according to NERW North Country bureau chief Michael Roach. Actually, WWJS would have been back a few days earlier -- but, Roach reports, Bryant hired workers to go to the WWJS transmitter site east of town on Champion Hill (also home to WWNY-TV and WTOJ 103.1) to remove, yes, the transmitter!
But the mess has caught the attention of Watertown's other broadcasters, and in stepped David Mance, owner of WTOJ (as well as WBDI/WBDR, WATN and WOTT), who's letting Savidge use one of his auxiliary transmitters for the moment. Expect another round (or three or six) of lawsuits, including one in which Bryant is apparently claiming that he owns the WWJS call letters! (NERW notes: there's no trademark on "WWJS," and nobody actually owns call letters, according to established case law.)
(One more quick note from Watertown: Fox outlet WNYF-LP on channel 28 has become WNYF-CA as it gains Class A status, and that means simulcaster W28BC in Massena can now become...WNYF-LP!)
But Sunrise didn't give up, and now its application for a new station on 1200 in Kingston, some 40 miles north of Newburgh, has been accepted for filing at the FCC. The new 1200 would run 2000 watts day from two towers and 400 watts night from five towers, which would require a rebuild of the existing WGHQ (920) site off Route 9W just south of Kingston.
Down on Long Island, the FCC gave official approval to the takeover of WLIW (Channel 21) in Garden City by the Educational Broadcasting Corporation, parent of New York City PBS outlet WNET (Channel 13, Newark NJ). WLIW's parent, the Long Island Educational Television Corporation, had sought the merger to handle the cost of the DTV conversion; both stations will now be able to better coordinate their programming schedules, they say. (They're already sharing a common master control room in Manhattan.)
While we're out Long Island way, we note that WBZO (103.1 Bay Shore) has moved to its new facilities, on the other tower of what's now the two-tower array of WLIE (540 Islip). WBZO moves up (from 285 feet to 462 feet), drops power (from 3000 to 1550 watts) and drops the directional antenna that it had been using.
Judy Ellis is moving on from Emmis after an amazing 17-year run at the company's New York City cluster, most recently as VP/general manager of WQHT (97.1), WRKS (98.7) and WQCD (101.9). Ellis was already with WQHT (then on 103.5) when Emmis bought the station in 1986. Emmis hasn't announced a replacement for Ellis, who will stay through the end of her contract next February.
Heading upstate, it's been 25 years since WSUL (98.3) became Monticello's first local radio station (though the Catskills community has long had service from WVOS just up the road in Liberty), and the standalone FM will be celebrating next weekend with 57 hours of special retrospective programming, beginning on Friday afternoon, November 1. Congratulations!
There's word from Albany that public radio WAMC (90.3) has cancelled its locally-produced "Environment Show," which was syndicated to a mix of about 150 noncommercial and commercial stations around the country. NERW hears that host Greg Dahlman will stay with WAMC as a news reporter, while producer Bob Barret is out; "Living on Earth" will replace the show in its WAMC timeslots.
Here in Rochester, jazz institution WGMC (90.1 Greece) has modified its application for a power boost, in a way that will bring more signal to the jazz-friendly east side of town. The station, now running 1050 watts at just 46 feet, already has a pending application for 15 kW at 138 feet with a directional antenna; the modification will let out that directional pattern in a pretty big way, so that down here at NERW Central we'll hear the equivalent of about 8 kW instead of 1 kW, which should help cut through all the RF hash from nearby Pinnacle Hill.
A couple of TV notes: we've seen local Fox affiliate WUHF-TV (Channel 31) taking advantage of some cost-cutting possibilities from parent Sinclair on weekend nights, using a weather forecast from the company's new centralized news facility in Maryland in place of a local forecaster. No mispronunciations, yet, but we wonder why they couldn't at least use WUHF's own graphics package instead of something so noticeably different. Down the dial, local wags have already been ringing the changes on the new slogan at WHEC-TV (Channel 10). "Digging for answers, reporting them first" is the official version; we're partial to "Digging through press releases, rehashing them first" ourselves....
Finally, we note that the FCC has approved the transfer of Sabre Communications' properties in New York, Pennsylvania and Indiana to Backyard Broadcasting; in New York, that includes the Elmira/Corning cluster (WWLZ 820 Horseheads, WGMF 1490 Watkins Glen, WPGI 100.9 Horseheads, WNGZ 104.9 Montour Falls, WNKI 106.1 Corning) and Olean's WHDL 1450 and WPIG-FM 95.7.
Just down the road in Avis, WQBR (99.9) applies to boost its antenna from 823 feet to 1052 feet, dropping power from 900 watts to 570 watts and moving to a new tower just a bit northeast of its current location. Now if we could ever hear them do a legal ID....
While we're up that way (and can you tell it's been a slow week in the Keystone State?), we note a new translator for ABC affiliate WNEP (Channel 16) in Scranton: W40BS in Renovo will run with 200 watts. Also granted this week was a new TBN LPTV: W67BZ in Mansfield will be a 2 kW station.
"JC Radio Inc." has been granted a license to cover for translator W215BG (90.9 Milford).
And our buddy Dave Hughes down at http://DCRTV.com/ reports the death on October 19 of Ed Lincoln, who was a disk jockey on WSBA (910 York) for some 35 years. WSBA is looking for a newsperson, too, to replace Steve Fermier, who's headed south to Baltimore to do news at WBAL (1090).
Pete Falconi has parted ways with Worcester's WXLO (104.5 Fitchburg), where he was PD and operations manager for the Citadel cluster. We hear Tuesday (10/29) will be his last day there, with no replacement yet named.
Now that Mike Elder is settling in as PD at WRKO (680 Boston), he's bringing in his own crew from his last post at WLS in Chicago: former WLS producer Rich Carberry is following Elder to Boston to be executive producer at WRKO.
Where are they now?: Former WODS PD Rick Shockley was back in the trades this week; he's taking a new gig as PD at Infinity AC outlet WEAT-FM (104.3) in West Palm Beach, Florida.
And on the TV side, WWLP-DT (Channel 11) in Springfield took air this week, running 1.95 kW from the WWLP-TV (Channel 22) tower high atop Provin Mountain.
More DTV developments: WNNE (Channel 31) in White River Junction has been at low power for a couple of weeks, and we're told it's because of DTV installation up at the station's Mount Ascutney transmitter site. The NBC affiliate should be back to full power early this week, we're told.
The Congressionally-mandated tests of third-adjacent FM interference will get underway soon in several cities, including Brunswick (and Avon, Connecticut, too.) WC4XSH will be the call on the 97.3 in Brunswick, which will operate between 10 and 100 watts to test interference to WCME (96.7 Boothbay Harbor) from potential third-adjacent LPFMs. According to this week's Radio World, the tests could last for as little as three days, with listeners in the market notified through newspaper and radio ads and a number provided to call in any reports of FM interference.
And Jeff Marks, late of the News 12 Networks in the New York market, is moving to Portland to head up "NewsInME," a service that will provide news inserts and newscasts to stations in the Pine Tree State.
Rex Murphy on TV? That's the promise the CBC is making as it buys the "Country Canada" digital cable network from Corus for C$1.2 million. In addition to ratcheting up the amount of Canadian content on the network to 80%, the CBC says it will put Murphy's "Cross-Country Checkup" weekend talk show on TV as part of the channel's offerings.
And in Belleville, Ontario, CJOJ (95.5) has been granted a move 25 kilometers west of its present site, to a new tower near Oak Lake. CJOJ will drop power from 50 kW to 42 kW, but will end up with a better signal over Trenton (not to mention across the lake to Rochester) when it's all done.