Re: more exciting Boston radio dates

["'A. Joseph Ross'" <lawyer@world.std.com>]

On Mon, 5 May 1997, Rob Landry wrote:

> WCRB was not a classical station originally; Dave MacNeill tells me they
> did high school football games, among other things.  The changeover to
> classical occurred gradually in 1951 and 1952.  Why WCRB survived, while
> WBMS, Concert Network, and other classical stations failed, is something
> I'd very much like to know. 

I suppose there are many possibilities.  I don't know about WBMS, but I've
always felt that the reason WXHR, Concert Network, and other FM classical
stations failed was because they were on FM at a time when few people had
FM receivers, and nobody had them in their cars.  WCRB had a real
competitive advantage in having an AM signal, especially for drive-time
listening.  WXHR eventually tried to compete with an AM signal, but it was
a bit late, and it was a daytime-only signal, which couldn't compete will
for afternoon drive time.  And people were already in the habit of
listening to WCRB in their cars and had buttons set for it.

I remember when WCRB (AM) became WHET and started to move away from
classical programming.  My car still had an AM-only radio, and I couldn't
listen to classical music in my car until I finally bought an FM
converter.

Maybe someone else can answer about WBMS.  Maybe the owners simply weren't
as persistent as WCRB, or maybe the time wasn't quite right yet.  Or maybe
the WBMS signal wasn't as good as the WCRB AM signal.

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  A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                                          617/367-0468
  15 Court Square                                       lawyer@world.std.com
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