Notes
November 10, 2016
WESA (90.5) morning host Josh Raulerson has left the station to work in communications for the Pennsylvania Environmental Council. Christopher Ayres has taken over the reigns of “Morning Edition” for the station.
Raulerson will remain involved in projects at WESA and will host a Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures event with Diane Rehm on November 14.
WGBN (1360 McKeesport) has until December 8 to sign on and resume operation or the nearly 70-year old station will lose its license the next day. The station has been off the air since last December due to financial difficulties. Renda Broadcasting, who donated the station to Pentecostal Temple Development Corporation in 2013, still owns the primary daytime transmitter site in Glen Hazel. Some sources have said that back rent and other bills are due on that site so PTDC may have to get a waiver to operate full time from the original and now nighttime site in Lincoln Borough in order to resume operation. Unfortunately it’s been reported to PBRTV that the Lincoln site is in such disrepair that operation from there could be hampered as well.
Could they put it on for one day to reset the clock and hold their license? If the transmitter is bad, maybe they could take a temporary transmitter and tuner and hook it up for the day.. Come on engineers, help these guys out, AM Guys, Rich, anyone?
To me, the license is worth something, and maybe Pentacostal can get the station put on their own land, so they can get everything in house, that’s really the way to go for a small operation. We saw the same thing happen to 1590 WZUM, selling the land to build the station on a leased parcel, then new owners bombing out on the payments and losing everything.
Iheart and Cumulus are doing the same thing, I don’t see how they can sustain their operations either!
Boomer
What\’s the point, Boomer? AM is dying, and stations with spotty signals are going the quickest. If there\’s an audience for their programming, put it online and potentially reach far more people with a much smaller overhead. There\’s nostalgia for the old days when people listened to TL on WMCK and WIXZ 1360, but those days are gone.