As 2012 winds down, it’s time to review some of the major events this site has covered this year. This isn’t by any means a complete list, but more of a “highlight reel”. Let’s go to the tapes…

• In January, Bill Rehkopf and Matt DelSignore left KDKA Radio for CBS’s new news venture in Washington, D.C. Rehkopf stayed with WNEW until September when he returned to the big K to host a revamped edition of the “Afternoon News”. Meanwhile, Paul Rasmussen took over the morning news anchor duties in March.
• Jim Krenn and WDVE parted ways after 24 years. The station reportedly offered Krenn a new position which he declined. In an ironic twist, Krenn’s first morning show partner, Scott Paulsen returned to the morning show as a regular contributor and occasional fill-in host.
• KDKA-TV anchor Susan Koeppen returned to the air in early January after suffering a cardiac arrest in November 2011. A few months later, Koeppen had open-heart surgery to repair a damaged heart valve believed to be the cause of the health scare. She has since returned to her position full-time.
• Before voting to merge with SAG, the local AFTRA Union held a public rally at WTAE-TV where they were fighting for fair labor wages and treatment for the on-air staff. Other Hearst stations have on-air staffers who are union members. WTAE has not since 1997 when one reporter led a crusade to drop union membership. Once the rally was held however, little has been said about the efforts to rejoin the union.
• Locally-owned Renda Broadcasting sold all of its Oklahoma properties beginning with the Tulsa market in March. That sale was followed by that of the Oklahoma City properties in July. Renda still owns properties in Pittsburgh, Greensburg, Indiana and Punxsutawney in Pennsylvania as well as several Florida properties.
• In March, Jimmy Roach left the Froggy radio station chain to very quickly return to his previous post at WDSY.
• Early in the year, Arbitron announced that they would no longer publish numbers for stations unless they subscribed to the monthly book. Locally, that leaves out Renda Broadcasting, Broadcast Communications, Inc. Keymarket, Salem Communications and several others. Most of the stations left on the publicly released numbers are Clear Channel, CBS, Steel City Media and the non-comms. As a result of this decision, PBRTV no longer reports on the numbers as we feel they are completely inaccurate. No word if the recent sale of Arbitron to Nielsen will reverse the decision. 
• Broadcast Communications, Inc. announced the intent to purchase three Western Maryland stations – WKHJ, WWHG, and WMSG. The deal went through in the last few weeks according to FCC documents.
• Lee Ferraro stepped down as General Manager of WYEP.  Abby Goldstein took over the reigns this fall.
• In June, PBRTV began a massive “reconstruction” effort to upgrade to its current appearance. As the summer progressed, the site was reviewed, renewed, redone, revamped and any other “re” you can think of. Readers were invited to share classic pictures for the new photo gallery, the classic mailbag is posted for archival purposes and we look forward to more in 2013!
• Mr. & Mrs. PBRTV paid a visit to the all-new Museum of Broadcast Communications and Radio Hall of Fame in Chicago at the end of June. We found none other than Myron Cope proudly displayed on the walls with many other well-known greats.
• Keymarket Licences turned in a few of the AM licenses this year: WASP (1130 Brownsville) and WBGI (1340) Connellsville in July. WSTV went dark in 2011 over a property dispute and Keymarket turned that license in earlier this month. We’re expecting at least one more license to be turned in in early 2013.
• National industry “rag” Radio-Info.com changed hands in August with morning e-mail must-read Tom Taylor leaving his post. Taylor returned with a new e-mail blast later in the fall. (And we’re grateful that he’s returned! Hi Tom!)
• WTAE and WPXI both have new news directors. WTAE hired Justin Antoniotti almost immediately upon Alex Bongiorno’s departure in October. WPXI waited a month or two after Mike Goldrick’s departed to Washington, D.C. to promote Mike Oliveira who has been with the station since 2005.
• Unfortunately we ended the year with Clear Channel’s annual purge. Locally, Flick has exited WKST and we later found out that Kate Harris is gone from WWSW. Harris’ departure comes almost immediately after gaining a voicetrack role on D.C.’s Country WMZQ. CBS followed suit, although not as widespread, and locally that affected John Seibel who is gone from KDKA-FM.
• We lost some really wonderful people this year. We remember John Garabo, former WDSY morning host; Jimmy Psihoulis (AKA – “Jimmy Pol”), one-time owner of WZUM; Ron Morris, owner of the American Entrepreneur program on WMNY and WPGB; Ted Atkins (AKA – “Captain Showbiz”), famed programmer of WTAE-AM; Ralph Wiethorn, WWSW, WKJF, WQED and the local franchise of the Columbia School of Broadcasting; Barbara Cloud, Pittsburgh Press/Post-Gazette columnist; and Beano Cook, WTAE and ESPN.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this review of the events of 2012. No doubt, there’s more to come in 2013. Happy New Year.

UPDATE: There was a follow-up visit to “Online with Bill Alexander” after this post was published. Listen to the program here. 

Local stations have drawn a lot of flack this week for airing the graphic ads for Presidential candidate Randall Terry. Mr. Terry, a Democrat, is not on the ballot in Pennsylvania, but is in the state of West Virginia. At least two of the ads focus on Terry’s anti-abortion stance and one of them includes some disturbing photos of aborted fetuses.  WTAE-TV (4), has aired a viewer discretion notice before these ads have run. Despite their best efforts though, WTAE has received the most complaints for airing these spots during prime news slots early in the morning and during the 5:00 p.m. hour. According to Terry’s ad campaign website, WPXI (11) (and PCNC), WPGH (53), and WPMY (22) have all opted to air the controversial ads during late night, or at least non prime time hours.

WTAE released a statement on Friday via the station’s website:

SPECIAL NOTICE FROM WTAE-TV ON CAMPAIGN ADS AIRING ON WTAE-TV CHANNEL 4:

As it relates to any federal office, we are obligated, by law, to provide the candidates time to advertise if they are a qualified candidate. The law does not allow for us to censor the ads or dictate the programming in which they can advertise. We have neither a position, nor an endorsement, of any candidate or subject group referred to in any advertisement related to campaigning for political office. 

The time was bought by Randall Terry who is a legally qualified candidate for President of the United States in West Virginia. Because Mr. Terry is a federal candidate, and we serve parts of West Virginia, we are obligated by the law to make the time available to him.

Here is a link to his campaign information:

http://www.terryforpresident.com/

Here is a contact link for the FCC if you would like to let them know about your concern:

http://www.fcc.gov/contact-us

We are running disclaimers to alert viewers, however, this may seem inadequate given the content of the ads. Please note, the ads will continue to air this week at approximately 6:10am, 5:45pm and 11:35pm.

We are following the law with respect to the airing of these commercials and hope this helps with some insight into this situation.

For the many years that I have produced this website, I have often been the target of angry e-mails from people who think I was solely responsible for the format change of their favorite station. I’m just here to report the facts, and have nothing to do with the change of formats… or imaging… or personnel.

Thursday afternoon PBRTV reported that WESA-FM (90.5) was re-imaging itself and adding some new programming after one year on the air. The changes – more so to the programming – might upset some listeners, but I never expected it to be quite to the extreme that is taking place.

Earlier today (Monday) I checked my e-mail and found two e-mails titled, “Keep On Point, Tell Me More and The Takeaway”. Normally my eyes would see something like that as “spam”, but it was not in my spam box. I opened it and read:

Greetings,

I just signed the following petition addressed to: DeAnne Hamilton, WESA Pittsburgh General Manager.

—————-
Keep On Point, Tell Me More and the Takeaway

Taking away three fast moving, intelligent news talk shows that highlight regional perceptions on diverse issues and replacing them with an extended hour of regurgitated news and the Diane Rehm show is assuming the worst of southwestern PA public radio listeners and rolling talk news programming in our area back decades (http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/ae/tv-radio/wesa-shakes-up-programming-lineup-648320/).

Tom Ashbrook is an incredibly skilled moderator and Michel Martin is fantastic at educating regarding minority issues/stances. John Hockenberry and Celeste Headlee make a great team and focus on issues not always covered by mainstream media. You truly learn something new every day.

To replace these three shows with an extra hour of Morning Edition, and two hours of The Diane Rehm show (an incredibly slow moving, stale program with little caller feedback) is putting the breaks on what appeared to have been an exciting new trend in local public radio, affording listeners quality programming without having to go online. It’s disappointing and will surely perpetuate the negative opinion of local public radio.

WESA can and MUST do better!
—————-

Sincerely,

Fill in your name…

As of this writing, only three people have signed the petition started by Dana from Pittsburgh at change.org. Other than PBRTV, receiving these petitions are WESA’s general Manager DeAnne Hamilton; WBUR Radio, producers of On Point; Jennifer Houlihan, host of “Take Away”; and Anya Sostek of the Post-Gazette who wrote about the imaging/programming change for the paper.

I invite both WESA management and those behind the petition to send a comment to PBRTV. However, I must reiterate that there is little that a one-man website can do to make a programming change. But that’s okay…