RE: WORL (was 1957 airstaffs)

[Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>]

Somebody asked when WROL (which begans its life as WBSO, owned by Roger
Babson, founder of Babson College, and upon being sold in mid 1935, it
became WORL...)changed format and call letters, and I finally found the answer:

8/22/66:Calls changed to WRYT.
5/8/78:Calls changed to WROL.

The change to the call letters 'WROL' occurred out of a big controversy in
the late 1940s over the denial of license renewal by the FCC to the original
owners of what was then WORL (Arde Bulova and George LaFount, I believe);
after fighting and appealing the decision for as long as they could, the
station went dark.  There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the
media about it-- many of the announcers were by this time working for free
because the old owners had exhausted their funds appealing the FCC decision,
but the staff loved the station and wanted it to stay on the air... alas,
their efforts were in vain.  New owners finally took over several years
later (1951, I believe), but the WORL calls were gone by then... the new
owners tried to get as close to the former calls as they could, because many
people had fond memories of the station even then, and were still upset at
its having been taken off the air.

But to make a long story short, the modern incarnation that several people
on the list remember changed calls to WRYT in August of 1966.  

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