Re: memories of 'RKO

["Jim Hall" <aerie@shore.net>]

If I remember right, WYLD New Orleans was (is?) a daytimer on 990 kHz. I
recall DX'ing them after midnight one Sunday/Monday when they were testing
their transmitter

- ----------
> From: Dan Strassberg <dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net>
> To: Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>;
boston-radio-interest@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu
> Subject: Re: memories of 'RKO
> Date: Thursday, May 15, 1997 7:44 AM
> 
> At 06:40 AM 5/14/97 +0000, you wrote:
> >
> >A point of trivia-- somebody asked about when WBMS became WILD.  It was
> >their owners, Bartell, which did it.  The call letters, interestingly
> >enough, belonged to Bartell's station in New Orleans, which they changed
to
> >WYDE... this was in 1957.
> >
> The New Orleans stations was (and I think, still is) WYLD. I even once
heard
> a caller to a Boston talk show, many years ago, ask the host whether the
FCC
> could assign the same calls to two different stations. The caller said
that
> he had just returned from a visit to New Orleans and had heard a "WILD"
down
> there. The talk-show host corrected the caller and said that it might
have
> sounded like WILD but was actually WYLD. (Little did either of them know
> what would happen 30 or so years hence; WYLD is an AM, I'm pretty sure.
Even
> now, there could not be a second WILD on AM.) WYDE was (and maybe still
is)
> an AM (on 850) in Birminham, AL.
> 
> Does anyone else remember the on-air promotions that Bartell did for WILD
> before the top-40 format was inaugurated? They bought spots on a number
of
> other Boston AMs. I presume the spots were purchased by a third party or
> under an assumed name, because I doubt that the other stations would have
> accepted the advertising from a competitor in those days. The spots
featured
> a very sultry female voice saying "Everyone in _old_ Boston is going
> wild,wild,wild,wild...." All of the "wild"s were concatenated so closely
> that they must have had to edit the tape to remove the brief pauses
between
> the words. The "wild" part was also whispered. Very provocative! And no
> mention whatsover about what everyone was supposedly going wild over. Had
> there been a mentions, I don't think the stations that carried the spots
> would have accepted them. The last of these spots aired on the other
> stations the night before WBMS took to the air with the new WILD calls.
> Bartell, apparently, had been able to keep WBMS's new calls a secret
until
> the moment the station started using them.
> 
> One of the DJs at WILD had previously worked in New Orleans. I can't
recall
> his air name. I think I read in the Globe that he had just received his
> degree as a _dentist_ from Lyola U of the South in New Orleans and had
> financed his years in dental school by working as a DJ down there. A
mistake
> that he made on the air a couple of times was to call the Boston weather
the
> Crescent City weather. I hope he was more careful when he pulled teeth!
> 
> A hallmark of WILD's sound under Bartell was the use of female voices,
which
> were almost never heard on the Top 40 radio of the day. One was most
likely
> the same voice that had recorded the "wild,wild,wild,wild...." spots. I
> think the female announcers did news. I don't recall them doing record
> shows, but I may be wrong.
> 
> -------------------------------
> Dan Strassberg (Note: Address is CASE SENSITIVE!)
> ALL _LOWER_ CASE!!!--> dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net
> (617) 558-4205; Fax (617) 928-4205

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