WCOP... and the "country" lawsuit

[Bob Nelson <bluesradio_99@yahoo.com>]

Since WCOP has been mentioned lately, it reminded
me of what happened in the late 70s or early 80s
(I forget exactly when), when WCOP dropped its
country format. A group of area country-music fans
banded together and complained to the FCC that they
had no access to their favorite format; somehow
WCOP's owners, Plough Pharmaceuticals (makers of
Coppertone--I thought THAT was why the calls were
WCOP!) had to actually pay a settlement of sorts.

They wound up buying airtime on what was then WDLW
(1330 AM) on weekends, and country
would be aired then. It did fairly well, and the
next thing you knew, the Waltham-based station did 
it all week long as "Boston Country". (Then, WBOS
thought they'd make a go of it...dumping their album
rock format for country. I believe Boston Rock
magazine referred to this as "the day The Boss
became The Hoss"). Later they,too would dump country.

Anyway, I can't remember too many other details, but
I do remember reading all about it in the Globe back
then. A lawsuit because a format was dumped?
It happened.





_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

------------------------------