Catholic Family Radio gets flagship WROL (950) in Boston, WACE (730 Chicopee) in the Springfield market, WRIB (1220) in Providence, and Maine cluster WLOB (1310 Portland) and WLLB AM-FM (790/96.3 Rumford), while Carter hangs on to WCRN (830 Worcester) and LPTVs W34BL Leicester, Mass. and WLOB-LP (Channel 45) Portland.
Carberry, who was raised in a Catholic orphanage in Leicester, says Catholic Family Radio was the best choice for the future of his network. "Catholic Family Radio has the resources to take our format and content to the next level," he says, noting that CFR has already lined up former Vatican ambassador and Boston mayor Ray Flynn for his own daily talk show.
While Carberry remains involved with CFR, he's also starting a new media venture, Northstar Media Group, with his son Kurt. The new group's flagship, WCRN, has already applied for a major power boost -- from 7000 watts by day to 50,000 -- with no change in its directional pattern. Night power (5 kilowatts) would remain the same for now.
Nasty storms earlier this week knocked several Bay State stations off the air. Lowell's WCAP (980) was off for much of the night Tuesday after the power failed at its transmitter site, with WFNX (101.7 Lynn) suffering similar problems Monday night. We're told all's back to nornal now.
The All-Star Game comes to Fenway Park Tuesday night, and with it the media. Look for just about every local TV sportscaster out at FanFest or at the park all weekend...and on the radio side, all of WEEI's local programming will originate from one or the other site through Tuesday night, while One-on-One Sports' Peter Brown originates his show from Fenway on Monday and Tuesday afternoons (heard in Boston on WNRB 1510 from 2-6 PM).
Downstate, listeners to the smooth jazz sounds of WZZN (106.3 Mount Kisco) were surprised to hear "the Breeze" disappear Monday, replaced with a simulcast of hot AC WFAS-FM (103.9 White Plains). But it wasn't a format change prompted by the stations' new owners -- it was an act of engineering desperation prompted by a storm that fried the satellite receiver at WZZN! The simulcast only lasted a day or so while a new receiver was procured, and everything's back to normal at WZZN.
We hear WWHW (102.1 Jeffersonville) has replaced its National Weather Service simulcast with a series of random music beds...anything, we suppose, to keep the transmitter warm until the station can be sold?
Up in Chateaugay, the FCC has returned St. Lawrence University's application for a new station on 88.1. The WSLU folks have already submitted a petition for reconsideration.
Moving west, we've been remiss in failing to note the latest change at Clear Channel's Rochester group: the "Jammin' Oldies" station on 107.3 is now calling itself "Cool 107.3" -- albeit, for once, without the "$50,000 if you can name our radio station" contest. It's too bad, really...we were all ready to flood them with the usual "Cool," "Magic," "Mega," and "Jammin'" entries!
Down the hall at the Euclid Building, we hear WHAM (1180) newsguy Dave McKinley is about to make the move to TV, and at the former WHAM-TV (now WROC-TV 8) no less! Congratulations to Dave...and we suspect WHAM news director Randy Gorbman would be very interested in some tapes and resumes right about now...
And as long as we're on this Clear Channel theme, we note that the radio body-snatchers have snared another victim, this time out in Des Moines, where cool little AAA station KKDM (107.5) found itself being bought by Clear Channel this week -- and, within hours, converted to the same prefab CHR "Kiss 107" format heard in Rochester on WKGS (106.7 Irondequoit), in Cincinnati on WKFS (107.1 Milford)...well, you get the picture. We've been watching the old WKRP reruns on Nick at Nite all week, and it's amazing how prescient the writers were, at least in that one episode where Venus Flytrap almost gets hired away by the all-automated station...hey, they even got the "Cincinnati" part right!
Buffalo radio veteran Harv Moore ("The Boy Next Door") is going full-time at WHTT (104.1). He'll hold down the noon-3 PM shift weekdays.
And just over the state line in PENNSYLVANIA, there are a bunch of call and format changes to report in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre market, most of them involving the Citadel mega-group: WKQV (1550 Pittston) and WEMR (1460 Tunkhannock) switch from One-on-One Sports to Music of Your Life; WCDL (1440 Carbondale) changes calls to WKJN but keeps its simulcast with news-talk WARM (590 Scranton); rock simulcast "The Bear" (WZMT 97.9 Hazleton/WKQV-FM 95.7 Olyphant) takes on new calls WXBE and WXAR, respectively (get it -- "BE" and "AR" = "BEAR"?); and over in Mount Pocono, WILT (960) is being sold to Nassau Broadcasting in nearby New Jersey, ending its LMA with and simulcast of WILK (980 Wilkes-Barre).
The CBC continues to try to replace the coverage of now-defunct CBL (740), with the latest application involving a new FM station in Wingham on 100.9. The 11,800 watt station will fill a coverage gap between the 93.5 in London (also an occasional Rochester catch now that CBCP Peterborough has moved to 98.7) and the 98.7 up in Owen Sound. NERW will be in Wingham later this month; expect an update then on how well the CBC's signal does - or doesn't - get in to the area.
Speaking of replacing coverage lost by ill-conceived moves to FM, the CBC has also been granted a power increase for CBME (88.5 Montreal), from 4000 to 16,900 watts. Reception on Montreal's West Island will no doubt improve, but Stateside listeners who used to enjoy the 50,000 watts of CBM (940) are unlikely to notice much improvement.
And the CRTC is taking applications for new stations in Kingston, Ontario. A check of the database shows an open class A channel on 105.7, so we guess that's where any new station would end up.
That's it for a short holiday week...we'll see you next Friday with much more!