Damn Gvac Beat me to it....
As WNEW mulls, fans
push for Ron and Fez
By DAVID HINCKLEY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
A nightly simulcast of David Letterman's television show starts tonight on WNEW (102.7 FM) at 11:35 p.m., but the bigger question with 'NEW remains what format it will take when it emerges from its current limbo.
One group of fans is pushing the station to keep Ron and Fez, who are now heard live 7-11 p.m. and repeated the next day, 10 am.-2 p.m.
The current betting favorite for a new format is a music mix that could poach listeners from No. 1 Lite-FM (WLTW, 106.7 FM).
Dana McClintock, spokesman for WNEW's parent Infinity, says only, "We do not comment on speculation.... We are always looking for ways to improve all our properties."
Unofficial sources at WNEW say any changes are likely to come closer to the end of the year.
WNEW's ratings have plummeted since Opie and Anthony were taken off the air following the St. Patrick's sex incident in August. The latest Arbitrons show 'NEW with 1% of the city audience, dead last among major city stations.
Ron and Fez were gaining listeners in the summer and still outpace the rest of the station, with 1.6% of the audience.
Gary Hansen, one of the listeners trying to keep Ron and Fez in New York, says they're "among the few shows that really connect to listeners. They've been moved all over the schedule and people still find them. So much of commercial radio is a wasteland, we can't lose them."
The campaign to save Ron and Fez has a Web site, www.ronfez.net, and Hansen says fans have sent "thousands of letters" to John Sykes, radio chief at Infinity.
"Talk can work at WNEW," says Hansen. "The station never gave it any promotion and it was still growing."
Smoky places: The Secaucus building that houses WHTZ (100.3 FM) was evacuated Wednesday when a fog machine in the new Z-100 on-air studio got a little overenthusiastic.
Afternoon host Paul (Cubby) Bryant, whose story is that he bought the machine two years ago on QVC and just wantaed to try it out, decided it would enliven Elvis Duran's Morning Zoo.
"For a few minutes it was cool until we heard the alarm noises and saw everyone leaving the building," says Bryant.
This wasn't terribly amusing either to other tenants or the Fire Department, which warned the station that another incident could mean a big fine. But fortunately, says Bryant, they were able to stop the sprinkler system from going off and flooding, say, Z-100's new studios.
"If that had happened," Bryant says, "I'd be in Boise selling tacos with Opie and Anthony."
Remembering: WNYC (820 AM) marks Veteran's Day tonight at 8 with a "Radio Lab" that features, among other things tapes made in Vietnam in 1966 by a Marine who was killed in action. Host is Jad Abumrad.
Originally published on November 11, 2002
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