Wqsr

News/talk/sports station WBAL -AM (1090) moved past country-music outlet WPOC-FM (93.1) for the first time in a year, while local listeners also seemed to develop a stronger taste for oldies rock music, according to the summer radio ratings results.The Arbitron numbers for the period June through September, ** among all listeners 12 and older, reversed the WBAL-WPOC standings that had prevailed since the 1994 summer quarter, when the major-league baseball strike wiped out WBAL's traditional summer drawing card.

Steve Rouse, whose two-decade run as host of Rouse & Company on WQSR-FM made him one of the most popular radio personalities in Baltimore, will return to the airwaves Sept. 12 as host of a new morning show on WLIF (101.9 Lite FM), the station announced yesterday. Rouse, 55, who has been doing fill-in work on WBAL (1090 AM) and 98 Rock (97.9 FM) since his show was canceled last year, said he's excited about returning to Baltimore radio full-time. The new show, to be called Steve Rouse: Baltimore's Morning Show, will air weekdays from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. "It's what I've done all my life," Rouse said.

Sconnix Broadcasting of Tysons, Va., has agreed to sell WQSR-FM (105.7) in Catonsville and WBMD-AM (750) in Baltimore to Boston-based American Radio Systems (ARS).The sale of WQSR, Baltimore's "Good Time Oldies Station," and sister station WBMD, will generate $39 million for Sconnix.The sale will not affect either station's format, according to Brad Murray, the stations' vice president and general manager. WQSR was ranked No. 2 in the winter 1994 ratings for adults ages 25 to 54. WBMD offers Christian programming.

Submit your questions about 102.7 WQSR-FM's recent switch to JACK-FM and what that means for the Rouse & Co. morning team. Steve Rouse, the show's host from 1988 to 2005, and Mike Thomas, a 17-year producer of the Rouse & Co. Show, will answer your questions. Submit questions by Wednesday evening. Answers will be posted Friday.

IT'S NOT OFTEN that you find a new set of bleachers and stadium lights tucked in among housewarming gifts, but Dundalk football coach Dave Eubank's recent move to a new house may pay off bigger dividends for the school than the predictable towels and toasters and throw rugs. It was at Eubank's housewarming where he and Dundalk athletic director Jeff Walen met Renee Jamerson, the director of FM operations and promotions for Infinity Broadcasting, which owns and operates WQSR (102.7 FM). Walen and Eubank needed to raise some money to fund a campaign to bring lights and bleachers to the school's athletic field.

Submit your questions about 102.7 WQSR-FM's recent switch to JACK-FM and what that means for the Rouse & Co. morning team. Steve Rouse, the show's host from 1988 to 2005, and Mike Thomas, a 17-year producer of the Rouse & Co. Show, will answer your questions. Submit questions by Wednesday evening. Answers will be posted Friday.

Opponent: Green Bay Packers Site: Lambeau Field, Green Bay, Wis. When: Sunday, 1 p.m. TV/Radio: Ch. 13/WJFK (1300 AM), WQSR (102.7 FM) Line: Pick 'em

FOR 20 YEARS on WQSR-FM, Alan Lee hosted a Sunday night radio program of forgotten oldies. Now, according to the brilliant thinkers in radio, and the ratings numbers and actuarial charts they employ in place of human hearts, Lee becomes a forgotten oldie himself. He is one of those banished in the recent purge at WQSR. And the songs he kept alive now slip deeper into rock 'n' roll's dustbin. While many publicly lament the loss of WQSR's morning gang of Rouse & Company, as they should, Lee was always the true keeper of the flame for that primitive era when rock 'n' roll was first crawling onto dry land.

THE KENTUCKY DERBY is a big hole in the ground. That's sort of how NBC's Derby producer, David Michaels, put it yesterday. During a conference call, Michaels recalled asking jockey Pat Day about how to present the spectacle of the Derby. Day told him the first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs is like the Grand Canyon. "Every year, I look at the show as the Grand Canyon," Michaels said. "It's the challenge of capturing this." That won't include new, big technical innovation, he said, "until the time comes when somebody invents a rail cam that won't spook the horses."

Steve Rouse's voice had a dull, late afternoon tone of philosophical weariness. "I have no interest in bad-mouthing anybody," Rouse said during a long phone conversation yesterday. "It was an incredible run. One that you don't see ever in this kind of business. It was the best." He was talking the day after Infinity Broadcasting dropped his early-morning oldies show, emptied the studio except for technicians and even changed the name of the station from WQSR-FM to 102.7 JACK-FM. "Stuff happens occasionally," Rouse, 54, said.

A popular, longtime Baltimore morning show has been yanked off the air. In the radio industry's answer to the popular song-shuffling iPod, Baltimore oldies station WQSR-FM became 102.7 JACK-FM yesterday. And with the format change came the end of Steve Rouse's 17-year run as host of the Rouse & Co. morning show. "I hope I gave people some laughs and smiles and some entertainment all these years," a stunned Rouse said yesterday. "For 17 years, I did exactly what I had dreamt as a kid I always wanted to do."

IT'S NOT OFTEN that you find a new set of bleachers and stadium lights tucked in among housewarming gifts, but Dundalk football coach Dave Eubank's recent move to a new house may pay off bigger dividends for the school than the predictable towels and toasters and throw rugs. It was at Eubank's housewarming where he and Dundalk athletic director Jeff Walen met Renee Jamerson, the director of FM operations and promotions for Infinity Broadcasting, which owns and operates WQSR (102.7 FM). Walen and Eubank needed to raise some money to fund a campaign to bring lights and bleachers to the school's athletic field.

Matchup: Ravens (8-5) vs. Oakland Raiders (3-10) Site: Network Associates Coliseum, Oakland, Calif. When: Sunday, 4:05 p.m. TV/Radio: Ch. 13/WJFK (1300 AM), WQSR (102.7 FM) Line: Ravens by 6