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Bilbat in Hornell Sold!

D

djpoint

Guest
I read online that my old stomping ground in Hornell NY WKPQ 105.3 will be sold. Bill Berry gets to keep WHHO-1320 and WABH in Bath. So Mr. Phunter???? Will there be upgrades???? Maybe some 21st century audio processing(Omnia, Orban 8400, HD), new studio, and consistent researched programming? New imaging? What's a Freedom 105.3 anyway? Those were the days! Maybe simulcast with 94-ROCK which doesn't play rock by the way. ??? Better tune up the satellite receiver. Its a damn shame but that's probably in the near future.....the "bird." 50,000 watts of Satellite stuff. At least the programming will be consistent instead of the AOTR(all over the road) approach that KPQ has been known for. The days when Mike Strobel, Mark St John, Big B, Lynn O'brien and T-squared days are missed(not justin), its not the same. :)
 
Not actually sold...more like swapped. And it only affects the FM station (WHHO remains with Bilbat). You can check out my blog at eyeonkpq.blogspot.com. There is a link to the Evening Tribune article about the swap, as well as some pictures of the "funeral".
 
I would come back to program the 50,000 watt giant but they couldn't pay me enough nor would they have a promotions and programming budget to support the changes.
 
This is the sad ending of a long chain of events that began back in 1985 when Bat first fell ill, just 2 years after they bought the stations. Prior to that they had aggressively upgraded the stations equpment and programming. It seemed like they were never able to right the ship after that.

By the early 90s they were in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. They later had a deal to sell to Phuntner, then backed out of the sale an sold to Sabre. The lawyers got involved, Sabre sold to Barry Drake who walked away from the table. Then things went from bad to worse in the last two years .. Bat died in October 2005 and the 2006 License Renewal is being held up in the commission for an unspecified reason (s), a burnout at the tower site last year left WHHO at barely a whisper.

With what I had read and heard I would say that Bil is lucky to have walked away with anything at all .. much less WHHO and WABH. I had not known about the LMA .. and the last I had heard (December) Bil was still optimistic he would be able to keep the stations.

Here's to the hard working staff who did their best to hold it together under very adverse conditions .. a few of them have been there on and off since the mid 80s.
 
So, now that WHHO is running the old WKPQ format, will they be simulcasting it on WABH for Bath listeners? Or, will they continue to program WABH separately out of separate studios in Bath? I doubt they could still program it from the WVIN studios since they are no longer a sister station to "V 98.3".
And when Pfuntner finally does get control of 105.3, will he program it out of Hornell? Or will it be moved to another location in his chain of stations, like maybe Bath, Wellsville, or even Elmira?
Pfuntner just signed on a new signal in Wellsville. WQRW 93.5 has a format similar to what WKPQ had been doing. So it will be interesting to see what becomes of THAT station as well.
 
Hey....what's being programmed on 105.3 right now??? Is is sat yet or what programming service. If you know let everyone know.

kevin
 
Up in Steuben County over the weekend so I heard for myself; Sat AC....not sure of the service, maybe Jones, sounds like them. I heard that WVIN-FM was programming more rock??? Anyone hear WVIN-FM?

Kevin
 
I was in Bath this past weekend visiting family. No, WVIN is still running the AC format it's had for the last few years. When they are live and local, the playlist is a bit broader than the one supplied by the satellite service they use (not sure which one that would be). But the format is more or less unchanged.
Same goes for WABH 1380. Still running satellite oldies. To listen to that station, you'd never know they were about to be sold. They were talking about being the area home for Yankees baseball all season long. I wonder if that will continue when/if Bilbat takes over.
I was pondering this whole situation over the weekend and thought of something else. If Pfuntner takes control of WKPQ, might he consolidate his radio operations into one facility? In other words, WKPQ, WZKZ, and maybe WVIN all in one building somewhere?
If that happens, and if WABH turns into a WHHO simulcast, that would mean Bath would have no local radio anymore. I'm sorry, but in my eyes, Family LIfe doesn't qualify as "local" since they have their huge translator network all over NY and PA.
 
Maybe not - Re: Bilbat in Hornell Sold!

I read yesterday on another web site that the Pembrook Pines sale/swap/resolution may be off. Any word?
 
I also heard that the deal with Pfuntner may be dead. What I am not sure of is if WKPQ is actually on the air right now. As of today I was not hearing them, and I can usually get a strong signal on 105.3 even though I live some 50 miles from Hornell. So if they are on, they msut be at reduced power.
Personally, I hope the deal is dead, and that Bilbat can keep the WKPQ signal. Pfuntner doesn't need to own any more radio properties down that way. Considering he has stations in Bath, Wellsville, Salamanca, and Olean.
The next question is, if 105.3 does revert back to Bilbat ownership, will they bring the old CHR/Hot AC format? Or will it be something different entirely. And what of WHHO 1320 AM? Time will tell I guess.
 
I was in the area over the weekend. The FM was definitely on satellite--and didn't sound bad. I don't know which service they were using but they were doing a "retro weekend".
 
ThePickleReport said:
I was in the area over the weekend. The FM was definitely on satellite--and didn't sound bad. I don't know which service they were using but they were doing a "retro weekend".
Click to expand...

Can't believe there hasn't been an update on this end of the market as to the situation with WKPQ! Anyone know any new developments? Is Pfuntner out? Is Berry still in? Is it sold to someone else?????
 
Last update I had, Bill Berry was forclosed on and the station property (including tower,transmitter,studio equipment,studio building, EVERYTHING all went up for auction and Terry Giles from a Giles Leasing in Ohio has bought everything at the auction so that the only thing Bill Berry is entitled to is the license for the station and frequency. He owns no physical equipment needed for broadcast any longer. What complicates it even more is that he was quoted in the Hornell newspaper that he was going to try and work some LMA out with Terry Giles so Bilbat could keep WHHO and WKPQ on the air and apparently they still are or I'd imagined everyone would be hearing silence on 105.3 which probably wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Apparently the swap for WKPQ for Pfuntner's WABH in Bath is still good, but he will only be guarenteed the station license, the frequency, and nothing else. He would have to work out some form of lease agreement with Mr. Giles if or when he gets WKPQ
 
Well that sure is a complicated mess. I am building the graph so as to better understand it. LOL Thanks for the update.
 
I've developed a pie-chart. :D

But seriously folks, what a freakin' mess. Is radio in the Southern Tier in such dire straits that guys like Pfuntner can latch on to such a dominant technical facility (43kW, 162 meters/532 feet @ 105.3) and make a bigger mess of it than it already may be. What's wrong with this picture?!

-9-
 
Boy, it's interesting to see how the work you've done since 1985 on WKPQ and WHHO can live on in cyberspace! It's even nicer to see that somebody said something nice about me (TSquared, not Justin)!!

T^2 and Justin are the same person, me, and we've been involved with the messy legal stuff since 2001. As a matter of fact, I see others in this forum that have also been involved. Some even posted questions even though they know the answers!!

If I had known that these internet posts were so cool, I would have read them earlier.

I purposely stayed away because, per my bestest buddy in the WHOLE WORLD Jeff Jones, there was alot of nasty and personal stuff written about me. Well, me as Justin. What's funny is alot of it was posted by my ex pal in North Carolina that used my own words and turned them around to mean something bad. All because he got run out of town on a rail AFTER he stole a jingle package from a big city station.

I am not a believer in buying into that stuff if there is nothing positive that I can take away from it. "Eye on 105" is apparently the place to go if you want to Psycoanalyze Tim/Justin/T^2. It's nice to see that the hate hasn't spilled over to radioinfo.

I have no ill will toward most of the people posting on these type of threads. People that weren't involved in the legal mess just have their opinions based on what they heard. What makes radio magical can also tear it down. People that suffered through the mess understand why the morning guy acted like he did. Why he was demoralized.

I have two recommendations for anyone interested in getting the actual facts about what is going on.

1. Ask me or anyone else that was actually involved. As I said above, some of them have posted in this very thread.

or

2. Look at the public file. It's all there as well.

I say this because in the last 60 minutes that I have been poking around the boards on this subject, I have noted 13 innacuracies about the WKPQ deal. Some perpetuated by people that have an interest in having incorrect info floating around. I didn't even bother counting the mis-info about WABH, WVIN, and Pfuntner in general.

Some are quoting the Evening Tribune. Although I count Rob Montana as one of my very good friends, his last published story on WKPQ was inncorrect. That story was then perpetuated by Scotty Fybush at NERW. I have allways considered him to be the last word on any subject, until now, so I can't blame anyone else for doing the same thing.
 
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