LATE UPDATE: The last big radio story of 2002 turns out to be the sale of Big City's four 107.1 signals covering most of the New York suburbs. The buyer, announced early on the morning of New Year's Eve, is Nassau -- already a big player in those suburban areas. Nassau will pay $43 million for WYNY (107.1 Briarcliff Manor) in Westchester County (where Nassau tried to buy many of the stations that are now in the Cumulus cluster about two years ago), WWXY (107.1 Hampton Bays) at the tip of Long Island (where Nassau owns nothing), WWYY (107.1 Belvidere NJ) serving the Poconos (where Nassau already has a base with WSBG/WVPO/WILT) and WWZY (107.1 Long Branch NJ) on the Jersey Shore. NERW expects a couple of the stations to be spun....
Yet for decades, WAWZ has changed its sound almost not at all, running a blend of preachers and religious music that would have sounded right at home in the mid-1960s.
But now change is coming to this sleepy corner of the metropolitan FM dial, and quickly: WAWZ's owner, Pillar of Fire, has pulled the plug on most of the preaching (and most of WAWZ's local news programming, too), flipping the station to full-time contemporary Christian music. By the end of February, WAWZ will begin accepting advertising and cease soliciting listener donations.
A play to keep Salem from launching its very successful "Fish" format in the market? Just a recognition that it's not 1965 anymore? We'll keep you posted as the changes at WAWZ play out in the new year.
Down on the AM dial, the jocks on WKMB (1070 Stirling) are saying their goodbyes this week; the station's wonderfully diverse country format disappears New Year's Day, to be replaced by gospel under its new ownership. We understand WKMB's airstaff will stay in place for the new format, at least for now.
Down in Reading, WRAW (1340) flipped from satellite standards to satellite oldies, while over in the Pittsburgh market, the talk format launched on WURP (1550 Braddock) with a lineup that includes Don Imus, G. Gordon Liddy and Don & Mike. (And while the Radiowerks folks from WBZV 1400 in Loretto are running WURP, we understand their planned purchase of WNCC 950/WHPA 93.5 in Barnesboro and WRDD 1580 in Ebensburg, north of Johnstown, has hit some snags; WHPA has dropped the modern rock "Point" format it was running under an LMA, returning to AC as "The Heart.")
And one TV note: Pittsburgh's WQED will announce sometime next month who's won the bidding for WQEX (Channel 16), the old secondary PBS station that's being sold off as a commercial outlet. Will this sale finally go through? Stay tuned...
Suppose Mike Doyle, general manager of Entercom's ratings behemoth WBEE-FM (92.5) was listening? He needn't have worried too much; after just two days of "Country 107.3," with a 10-song playlist and one choppily-cut jingle, the real new format on Clear Channel's rimshotter debuted last Friday at 5: classic rock "107.3 the Fox."
(NERW notes that this is the second time Clear Channel has toyed with country as a stunt on 107.3; before the station took on the rhythmic oldies "Cool 107" identity that just disappeared around Thanksgiving, it spent two hours as "Big Cow 107.3," playing country and baiting WBEE.)
Down the Thruway in Syracuse, Clear Channel rimshotter WXBB (105.1 DeRuyter) had flipped to holiday tunes a few weeks back; on Christmas it went to an all-Barking Dogs format as "Canine 105" before relaunching as "New Rock 105, the Dog."
This one's a head-on challenge to Galaxy's "K-Rock" WKRL (100.9 North Syracuse), albeit on a signal that doesn't do well in the city itself, or even in the close-in suburbs. Look for new calls on this one sometime next week: WWDG.
Steve Medicis (of CNYMedia.com fame) tipped us off to another post-Christmas change: Utica-market WRFM (93.5 Remsen) flipped out of holiday music and away from soft AC "Warm," heading to the other end of the thermometer as "Cool 93.5." WRFM -- make that WUCL now, Steve says -- is now playing songs from the 60s and 70s, but don't call it "oldies" -- at least, that's not what they're calling it on the air, especially against competitor "Oldiez 96," WODZ (96.1 Rome).
Down in New York City, "Dandy" Dan Daniel does his last weekday shift on WCBS-FM (101.1) Tuesday, capping a run of more than three decades on the Big Apple's airwaves, beginning back in the "Good Guy" days at WMCA (570). Dan Taylor will take over the 9-noon shift, while ol' Triple D takes a few months off, returning to CBS-FM's weekend schedule in the spring.
(And speaking of classic jocks and classic stations, the rumors of a WKBW revival continue in Buffalo; Hank Nevins has departed Citadel's WHTT and is reportedly headed over to Entercom after the New Year...)
And we're sorry to report the death of the original "Hillbilly at Harvard," Brian Sinclair, who's hosted that Saturday-morning mountain music fixture on WHRB (95.3 Cambridge) for 36 years. Sinclair was suffering from leukemia; he died Saturday (Dec. 28) at the age of 62. His cohost, "Cousin" Lynn Joiner, will continue the show.
You can't keep stunting with all-Christmas after December 25, of course -- so WQSO is now playing "All New Year's, All The Time," which means lots of Auld Lang Syne for the Seacoast; expect a new format any day now, though.
Redhead came to CFXJ, where he was a partner in owner Milestone Communications, from a career that included a long stint as vice president and assistant general manager at "Radio 1540 Ltd.," the parent company of ethnic broadcaster CHIN (100.7/1540). Redhead, a native of Trinidad, is survived by his wife, Lenore, as well as two sons and four grandchildren.