Posts Tagged ‘WCTL’

Warren County welcomes The Light

WYVL/Youngsville-Warren

Listeners in the Warren-Youngsville area got a sweetheart deal last week as a new station appeared on the dial.

It’s 88.5 WYVL “The Light”, and the programming originates from the Waterford studios of Inspiration Time, Inc., the owner of Christian AC WCTL. GM Ron Raymond says that the 88.5 signal was the baby of the late Bill Baker:

Youngsville, PA radio station WTMV-FM re-launched on Valentine’s Day 2011 as 88.5 WYVL “The Light.” The station programs Contemporary Christian Music and will soon also be heard at 100.7 FM in the Warren, PA area. The 100-watt non-commercial radio station was acquired by Inspiration Time, Inc. (ITI) after the passing of its founder, the Rev. Bill Baker. The Baker family has a long history with ITI, dating back to the beginnings of WCTL-FM in the mid 1960s.

The station is totally regionally-programmed and plans on making a significant impact on the local community. And that’s good news in this era of flipping on the satellite and calling it a day.

Deep Background for December 2010

Wow…it’s December already?!?

That means we made it through sweeps, through “Bristol-gate” on Dancing With The Stars, while the networks are hoping for a royal wedding smack dab in the middle of May 2011 Nielsens. The overloaded Thanksgiving newspaper is already in the recycling bin, and Classy 100 and WCTL are “bells-to-the-walls” all Christmas.

If you want to talk about what’s under the tree in Erie media, leave a comment below, send along an e-mail, or shout out on Twitter @pressandtower.

Embrace the ho-ho-ho chaos!

Football Friday nights light up Erie newsrooms

“In Virginia, high school football is a way of life. It’s bigger than Christmas Day.” ~ Sheryl Yoast, Remember The Titans

This fall, replace “In Virginia” with “For Erie media.”

Erie’s newspaper, television and radio stations are attacking tonight’s launch of the high school football season with an unprecedented investment of resources.

District 10 Kickoff 2010

Cover of District 10 Kickoff 2010 published by the Erie Times-News

Actually, the work started months ago, as the Erie Times-News sports and special project divisions joined forces on the 112-page Kickoff magazine. Billed as “packed with information on each team in D-10 and McDowell, the first-of-its-kind publication promises to fulfill every District 10 football junkie’s needs!” Ingeniously, the magazine is being distributed far beyond the newspaper’s normal delivery footprint at Country Fair stores and costs $5.00. There is even a Facebook fan page of the mag.

So that regular subscribers don’t feel left out, the ETN on Thursday published their special high school football preview issue of the weekly Varsity tabloid, with another 48 pages of schedules, rankings and predictions. All of this data is also available on GoErie.com, where they will again provide ongoing scores and commentary Friday nights via their live blog, on the Varsity page of the site.

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Can $400K get you an FM station in Erie?

Rick Snavely is willing to try.

The NorthEast Radio Watch reports today what the FCC released Friday (HT to P&T faithful commenter Jim Griffey) that the non-profit that Snavely runs, Family Life Ministries, Inc. is purchasing WNAE-FM/Clarendon, PA from Iorio Broadcasting for $400,000 in a sale that is contingent upon FLM successfully achieving a community of license transfer from Clarendon to Wattsburg, PA to broadcast the commercial Class A at 102.7 FM.

This would be FLM’s first full-power signal in the Erie market, where they currently operate translators in Erie and Corry, and will be constructing a new NCE station in Cambridge Springs. The Clarendon purchase is part of an overall strategy to blanket Northwest PA with the Family Life Network’s “middle-of-the-road” Christian format of music and teaching. The map below from the ministry’s website illustrates the concept.

Family Life Network

Family Life Network

As Scott Fybush reports, the petition to move for WNAE-FM has yet to be filed. As Jim Griffey indicated in his comment, this development can only mean more competition for local Christian AC WCTL/106.3.

We’ll keep you updated as more news develops.

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/cdbsmenu.hts?context=25&appn=101373351&formid=314&fac_num=164188

Cambridge Springs to get new Family Life Network FM

New Family Life Network station in Cambridge Springs, PA

New Family Life Network station in Cambridge Springs, PA

After a complicated and far-flung settlement agreement that stretched across nearly 100 miles of Lake Erie shoreline, the big winner of the October 2007 Non-Commercial/Educational filing window for our area appears to be Family Life Ministries of Bath NY.

The Christian broadcasting and arts ministry, which owns stations and translators across the “twin-tiers” of NY & PA from Erie to Binghamton, has applied for a 8,000 watt B1 on 89.9 FM, WERG/Gannon’s old frequency. In addition, as part of the settlement, FLN will get a new directional B1 in Silver Creek, NY on the Chautauqua/Erie County NY border to more effectively cover the Buffalo south towns.

Also clear from the settlement is that Erie will get a new NCE FM at 89.5. However we don’t know who will be victorious once the FCC works out the elaborate point system for the still mutually-exclusive stations.

The big local losers in this settlement, who would have shut out on points anyway, include LECOM, the Seventh Day Adventist church, Greg Schlueter’s Vision IDX Catholic programming, and Inspiration Time/WCTL. I’ll try to get reaction from the winners and losers of this highly competitive quest of spectrum in later posts.

You can read my original coverage of this filing window and download who the original filers were within 50 Km of Erie on my Radio Free JoJo blog.

Erie media remembers Albion tornado 25 years later

It just might be the singular defining event in modern Erie media history.

May 31, 1985: the Albion tornado.

Today local media people are remembering the devastating scene, and the soaring spirit of a community.

First, my story: I was working the evening air shift at WDOE/Dunkirk, NY when the weather radio and AP wire went berserk with tornado warnings for the region. We were giving regular updates, although our listening area in Northern Chautauqua County was not affected as much as the rest of the region. I called into WJET radio where I had worked part-time to get a report on the destruction in Albion as well as the Union City/Corry area.

This morning the Erie Times-News did an anniversary report, and Val Myers weighed in on the memories of that day. 106.3 WCTL had a special Memorial Day edition of its morning show remembering the tornadoes.  WJET/WFXP shows archive video of the worst weather event in Erie history and talked to survivors and NOAA weather forecasters, and WSEE’s Scott Bremner remembers the day.

Earlier this year, Tony Victor who was a reporter at WJET-TV remembered on P&T becoming a journalist/first-responder:

Bob Neely and I drove up on Cranesville only to see it raining down attic insulation from when the tornado actually hit. Many of the news crews were pressed into EMS duties, holding IVs for rescue crews while photogs rolled.

When I say that the Albion tornado was a defining event, I mean that the media response to our public service mandate definitely changed after that day. Soon after WSEE purchased an expensive radar tower, the first in Erie. The master Emergency Broadcast Plan was totally revised in the subsequent years. And no one would take another tornado warning for granted.

If you wish to read an excellent synopsis of all of the events of that day 25 years ago, go to pahighways.com for Jeff Kitsko’s account.

I’d like to hear your remembrances of the Albion tornado.

Fall ratings: Connoisseur strengthens Erie radio domination

The twice yearly ratings horse race between Star 104 and Classy 100 has turned into a yawner.

The Fall 2009 Arbitron ratings released Friday afternoon confirms the amazingly strong hold that the Connoisseur Media cluster has over Erie radio listeners. Although it’s lead 12+ has softened, WRTS/Star 104 continues as Erie’s most listened to broadcast radio station. Meanwhile the flagship station for the Citadel group in Erie, WXKC/Classy 100 has continued its slide in share of audience over at least five books to be ranked fourth.

The big winner of the Fall was WTWF/93.9 The Wolf who garnered their best book ever, good for second place. Rounding out Connie Media’s top stations was WXBB/Bob FM, who scored their best book since they debuted in 2007.

Been a long time since we rock and rolled the ratings. WRKT/Rocket 101 and WQHZ/Z-102.3 have taken what was 17 shares of listenership two years ago and grinded it down to 11. It looks like Rocket especially hasn’t put the jets onto expanding its base.

As far as AM goes…simply, nothing to see here. While AM stations crush their competition in the markets surrounding us in ratings and billing, our offerings have received no investment from their owner companies and so they got what they paid for.

Finally, the third biggest jump up came from my alma mater WCTL, who scored their best book in memory and is knocking on the door of once-prominent WXTA/Country 98.

You can see all the hard numbers at AllAccess.com (registration required).