WBBF on 98.9

[fybush]

Not that ETM has to start selling Real Estate to raise funds, but in theory could WGR be diplexed with WBEN on Grand Island?

For the non-directional day signal, it would be a pretty easy move.

Nighttime would be more complicated - even if you could somehow replicate the existing pattern (using 4 towers) with just the two towers on Grand Island, it has a deep null to the east that protects WDEV in Vermont. You'd end up with a big chunk of the Northtowns in that null, which would not be a good thing.

 

[TheBigA]

Not that ETM has to start selling Real Estate to raise funds,

Although they recently sold the tower land from WBBM Chicago.

But that property was worth more than this one.

 

[TVEngineerArk]

KB was indeed a dumpster fire when it returned as an Oldies format, but I'm told by at least three sources that the first plan to take 1520 Oldies occurred a few years earlier, probably 2000-2001. A veteran Buffalo PD was in line to program the station. Files were loaded, playlists were set, audio processing had been tweaked. But the format change was scuttled at the very last minute by Entercom corporate which feared KB would adversely impact WBEN.

I was working at Entercom in Buffalo at that time and can confirm that your sources are correct about the format being ready to go when the plug was pulled at the last second. I had actually contributed some songs from my personal CD library to the files in the song library. IIRC the first song was scheduled to kick the format off was "Beginnings" by Chicago.

 

[Rusty Bridges]

The Big Tree Road site is reportedly a very clean site according to a independent HazMat study conducted by an independent environmental agency about 20 years ago following the clean up of an overflow diesel oil spill at the site. So yes, as far as Big Tree would be concerned, it wouldn't be a problem clearing the site ... except perhaps for the tower and guy wire bases, which are said to be very deeply anchored in the ground. The very astute design engineers back in the day took into account soil content and the strong wind and weather that blow off Lake Erie. The site sits in a modest bowl atop a low bluff (not to be confused with a Buff-low) that gets a mighty blast when the winds of winter whip off Lake Erie.

All this said, substantial points have been made here as to the unlikelihood of the Big Tree Road site being converted. With regard to a move to Grand Island: when WGR and WKBW were at each other's throats in the 70s and early 80s (before FM took a toll on both stations' music formats), Taft, having had its fill of paying monthly rent to CapCities (which owned the site) considered moving to Grand Island where Taft's Entertainment division owned a substantial tract of land which was purchased as a proposed site of a mega-amusement-theme park. The amusement park instead was built north of Toronto, known as Canada's Wonderland.

 

[Penrod Rightout]

As long as WGR is as healthy as it is, Big Tree Road is in no danger. The four towers at the corners of the site form a broadly-spaced parallelogram for WGR's night array, with the daytime signal coming from one of the corner towers. (It's moved around over the years; I think it's the one at the northwest corner now, but don't hold me to that!)

You are correct, Scott, the non-d daytime tower is the one at the northwest, tower #5 (it used to be the freestanding tower #6 but was changed.)

ETM had explored selling off the southern part of the land which isn't used south of the towers but lacking right-of-way there were no takers.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

Also Entercom isn't likely to turn off WGR which is at the same location in Hamburg. That real estate likely isn't worth a whole lot as Buffalo isn't growing rapidly population wise.

This is not a dig. I lived in the area many years ago and still keep tabs on the area, not much has changed. So I don’t see Entercom getting any big offers for the land that they can’t resist anytime soon.