Re: FW: Oops 7/4 and no respect for history

[Rob Landry <umar@wcrb.com>]

On Thu, 10 Jul 1997, Martin J. Waters wrote:

>         No, actually. They had a different transmitter site as recently as
> 1953 on a different frequency. No station that old is likely to have any of
> its original employees left, or even any left alive in retirement. The fact
> that it's owned by a different company now also, IMO, misses the point. It
> is a heritage station, although it changed its call letters once, 30 years
> ago.

WHRB celebrated its 50th anniversary on December 2, 1990.  The original
station was a carrier-current AM and did not call itself WHRB, and it was
owned by the Harvard _Crimson_ (a.k.a. "Cambridge's only breakfast-table
daily"), since the _Crimson_'s "radio board" was not to become independent
until 1943 and did not adopt its present name (Harvard Radio Broadcasting
Company, Inc.) until 1949.  Nevertheless the present WHRB staff members
identify their organization with the original Harvard Crimson Network, and
a continuity in programming and general philosophy can be seen that
stretches back to the early days of the original station. 

But what, exactly, is celebrating its 75th anniversary in the case of
WRKO?

To put it another way, if the USS Constitution had been scrapped in 1915
and replaced with a steel-hulled ship which in 1954 was to be renamed the
USS Mel Karmazin and sold in 1960 to the Guatemalan navy, why would the
Guatemalan crew of today's El Carmazino be interested in celebrating the
200th anniversary of the launching of the original frigate?


Rob Landry
umar@wcrb.com

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