Wmmr

  A fire Friday afternoon at a Lower Merion office building disrupted four FM radio stations, including sports talker The Fanatic. No one was injured. Around 4 p.m., the fire alarm sounded at One Bala Plaza, the headquarters of Greater Philadelphia Media, which owns 97.5 The Fanatic, 95.7 BEN FM, 93.3 WMMR, and 102.9 WMGK, said Donna Gallagher, a receptionist for WMMR and BEN FM. Video posted on YouTube showed smoke billowing from the top of the six-story building. Firefighters quickly responded and extinguished the fire, Gallagher said.

John DeBella and the rest of rock station WMMR-FM (93.3) officially moved from the station's studios at 19th and Walnut yesterday - and they did it in style. DeBella, fellow jock Pierre Robert and an escort of about 30 bikers from the Tri-State Hog Club made the trek on noise-polluting Harley Davidsons, broadcasting every inch of the way. And when the entourage got to Fifth and Market - where WMMR will share quarters with sister stations KYW-AM (1060) and KYW-TV - DeBella, Robert and a couple of biker dudes rumbled right up the front steps and into the Channel 3 lobby.

Metromedia, owner of nine radio stations across the country, including WIP (610/AM) and WMMR (93.3/FM) here, reached an agreement in principal yesterday to sell those stations and Texas State Networks to an investor group headed by the president of Metromedia Radio, Carl C. Brazell Jr. The in-house sale, possibly the largest transaction ever involving a radio station group, is reported to be for about $285 million. The change probably won't result in a format change at either of the two local stations involved, said a source at WMMR (currently the No. 1 music station in the Philadelphia radio market)

Weekend disc jockey Michael Tearson yesterday handed in his resignation to bosses at WMMR radio, severing his 26-year on-again, off-again relationship with the station. To do what? Tearson, a fixture on Philadelphia radio since the late 1960s, doesn't have a new radio gig lined up. He quit, he said, to work on an array of projects, including freelance production in a new home studio, writing and acting. "It's a bold move to make, because I don't have a fallback position," he admitted.

How popular is The Who, seven years after the official breakup? WMMR is betting more than a million bucks that the reuniting British rockers still have what it takes to sell out Veterans Stadium, July 9. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. today at $22.50 a pop plus service charge at all Ticketron locations (call 885-1212 for locations), via phone charge at (800) 233-4060 and at a trailer parked outside JFK Stadium. "We're promoting the show and guaranteeing The Who a sellout in order to be sure that Philadelphia would get a show on their tour," says WMMR vice president and general manager Michael Craven.

Sometime in the next few months, fans of WMMR-FM (93.3) may notice that John DeBella is sounding better and better. Not his show, the radio signal. Early next year, Philadelphia's top-rated rock-and-roll station will move its transmitter from the top of the PSFS Building to the city's tallest skyscraper, the 61-story One Liberty Place. The move, says Mike Craven, vice president and general manager of WMMR, will mean slightly better reception for some people, much better reception for others.

WMMR, the FM radio station that once dominated Philadelphia rock music airwaves, will be sold due to the imminent purchase of Infinity Broadcasting by its parent company, media giant Westinghouse. Westinghouse's proposed purchase of Infinity, for $4.23 billion, won antitrust approval yesterday from the U.S. Justice Department after the company agreed to sell radio stations in Philadelphia and Boston. The deal still needs FCC approval. Today's settlement, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., calls for Westinghouse to sell WBOS (92.9-FM)

All-news KYW-AM (1060) and rock giant WMMR-FM (93.3) are about to become sister stations. Late Thursday, Westinghouse Broadcasting, parent company of KYW and 13 other stations nationally, announced that it had agreed in principle to buy 10 stations owned by Legcy Broadcasting and Metropolitan Broadcasting, the parent companies of WMMR, in what broadcast-industry analysts say is a $385 million deal that will create the second-largest radio group...

Growing up in the late '60s in the Northeast, Tom Sheehy spent weeknights by the radio laboring over his trigonometry homework. But he didn't listen to just any old radio. Sheehy had a gadget freak of an uncle who gave him a portable FM. "I was one of the fortunate kids in the neighborhood to have one, and I used to listen to WIFI because it would play underground rock," recalled Sheehy, 41, publicist at J.C. Dobbs. "But one night," he said, "I was changing stations and this voice came on. It was so deep.

  "Party Doll" by Buddy Knox was Michael Tearson's first record. His newest: Stuff That Works - by Michael Tearson. "The best compliment I've gotten about my album," the veteran Philly DJ says, "is that different people pick wildly different songs as their favorite. " Tearson's voice at 63 is as distinctive on CD - he sings 13 tunes, from Bob Dylan to Neil Diamond - as on radio. That's the medium where the Baltimore-area native got his start 44 years ago in Philadelphia, just as the FM revolution dawned.

  A fire Friday afternoon at a Lower Merion office building disrupted four FM radio stations, including sports talker The Fanatic. No one was injured. Around 4 p.m., the fire alarm sounded at One Bala Plaza, the headquarters of Greater Philadelphia Media, which owns 97.5 The Fanatic, 95.7 BEN FM, 93.3 WMMR, and 102.9 WMGK, said Donna Gallagher, a receptionist for WMMR and BEN FM. Video posted on YouTube showed smoke billowing from the top of the six-story building. Firefighters quickly responded and extinguished the fire, Gallagher said.

IT COULD HAVE been last week, it might be this week, it may even be today, but sometime this month Pierre Robert will have been at 93.3 WMMR for 30 years. Robert isn't sure of the exact date because he never thought he would need to remember it when he started in the music library and ended up on an overnight shift that same week in 1981. "I came out here from San Francisco and I said I'll give it a year or two," said Robert, who can't believe he's been able to do what he loves for so long at a station he loves.

BILLY AND Philly. We've always been a team. Billy Joel has played and sold out more shows (56) at our South Philadelphia arenas and stadiums than any other solo artist. And while this brashly gregarious, immensely gifted singer/keyboardist/composer has moved more than 150 million albums worldwide, local fans have been in his corner and buying his music the absolute longest. For proof, look no further than the gatefold Billy Joel CD package hitting stores today and also available in download form, with liner notes by yours truly - but more on that later.

  "Party Doll" by Buddy Knox was Michael Tearson's first record. His newest: Stuff That Works - by Michael Tearson. "The best compliment I've gotten about my album," the veteran Philly DJ says, "is that different people pick wildly different songs as their favorite. " Tearson's voice at 63 is as distinctive on CD - he sings 13 tunes, from Bob Dylan to Neil Diamond - as on radio. That's the medium where the Baltimore-area native got his start 44 years ago in Philadelphia, just as the FM revolution dawned.

WHEN A Flyers official heard that "40-Year-Old Virgin" director Judd Apatow was looking for a hockey player with no teeth for his new movie, he knew just who to recommend: Ian Laperriere . The injured winger jumped at the opportunity and enlisted teammates Scott Hartnell , Matt Carle and James van Riemsdyk to join him in Hollywood for a 16-hour-day shoot in Apatow's "This is Forty. " The guys portray hockey players who hit up a bar after a game and end up dancing and somehow playing with Lappy's false teeth.

"HELLO, Philadelphia. Welcome to your worst nightmare. " With those seven words, Howard Stern began in earnest his inexorable march toward becoming the multimedia phenomenon we know (and love and love to hate) today. They were spoken 25 years ago tomorrow, Aug. 18, 1986, when the groundbreaking satirist-entertainer debuted on WYSP-FM (94.1). By the time Stern began simulcasting his New York-based morning drive-time radio show here, he had already been a hit in Washington and New York.

P INK IS HEADING home this weekend for her baby shower. We hear the Doylestown- native pop star is flying here from Los Angeles to celebrate with family and friends Saturday afternoon. She and Motocross-rider husband Carey Hart are expecting their first child in June. Out and about Spike Lee checked out some new Knicks gear at Mitchell & Ness (12th & Chestnut) Friday afternoon. The filmmaker was in town to be honored by the African American Musuem of Philadelphia.

The Walnut Street Theatre is going for baroque, as its main-stage mounting of Amadeus has broken the 202-year-old theater's box-office record for a straight play (nonmusical). Its $341,109 in ticket sales sent Amadeus past the 2008-09 production of Tennessee Williams ' A Streetcar Named Desire ($314,840). Add to that the theater's 50,000-plus subscribers. The Walnut added a March 6 performance of the Peter Shaffer -written Tony winner, which presents the tortured relationship between composers Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart . Media notes Heather Marter , 22, a 2007 grad of Delran High and a broadcast journalism major at Monmouth University, is in the cast of Real World: Las Vegas , which will premiere March 9 at 10 p.m. on MTV. The Dennis & Michele midday show on WKXW (New Jersey 101.5)

Paul Green, founder of the original School of Rock a decade ago, is used to being imitated. First it was comedian Jack Black, who seemed to play Philadelphia's Green - a quirky and irreverent guitar instructor - in the 2003 film. Then it was the emergence of a national market for kids' rock schools. Now Green is getting more competition in his backyard. Erin Riley, the '80s-era WMMR music director, has opened the Rock and Roll After School in Phoenixville, making her a rare regional challenger to Green's now coast-to-coast empire.

'WE LOST our voice. " What fitting words for Phillies President David Montgomery to use to express the significance of the passing of Harry Kalas. Whether singing "High Hopes" or declaring a Mike Schmidt home run "outta here," Harry had a gift. He was our voice and we will miss him. But when it comes to giving good voice, Philadelphians are lucky. Not every sports town can boast of a legend like Harry the K or a voice like John Facenda. In fact, many sports fans, news junkies and music lovers never find that specific broadcaster, news anchor or deejay to put up on a pedestal.