No Subject

Subject: Radio Affiliations

I'm going to venture to guess that WLAW-680 went to 50,000 watts under the
 1941 NARBA agreement.

Considering that the Yankee Network, to comply with duopoly rules, had to
 move one of it's two Boston AM's (WAAB) to Worcester around 1943, this
 triggered off a wave of network/affiliate changes.

WEEI stayed with CBS, but WBZ went from NBC Blue to NBC Red; WNAC went
 from NBC Red to Mutual, and the newly-renamed Blue went elsewhere.

While I have a photostat of an August, 1945 radio page from the Boston Post
 noting WCOP-1150 as an ABC affiliate, I have heard--but haven't been able
 to verify--that at the time WAAB moved toi Worcester, WHDH had just become
 a fulltime station and that the Blue was for a short time on WHDH-850.

I don't know what WHDH's power was at that time (I think they were trans-
 mitting from Saugus), but I don't think it was yet 50,000 watts. Maybe
 it was a pretty decent 5,000 watt signal.

The 1945 date of WLAW becoming an ABC affiliate might also have coincided
 with WCOP also becoming an ABC affiliate. From what I've been able to
 gather from information published in this newsgroup, WCOP at the time
 was 1,000 watts fulltime (made a fulltimer under NARBA), and transmitted
 from Soldiers' Field Road (Around 1947, they moved their XMTR to Lexington
 and went to 5,000 watts).

If WCOP's signal back then was inferior to WHDH, no wonder ABC wanted to
 hook-up with WLAW. They wanted to "fill-in the spots".

According to some old Boston Globe radio listing pages I photocopied, WCOP
 remained with ABC until about 1951. WLAW remained with ABC until they
 sold-out to RKO General, so WNAC could move to 680 and become a 50,000
 watt station. WNAC moved the Mutual affiliation with them to 680, so
 ABC went to WVDA, the new station created on 1260 when WNAC moved to 680.

For the last two years of WLAW's existance, it was the "only" ABC radio
 network affiliate in the Boston area. But as a 50,000-watt outler (and,
 I would guess, with the same directional pattern WRKO uses today), WLAW
 was more than adequate to cover the Boston market.

As for WLAW's previous affiliation with CBS: When that affiliation began,
 WEEI-590 might not yet have moved their transmitter to Medford. This
 allowed CBS to have better coverage well north of Boston (although 590,
 from Medford, is suooposed to cary quite far due north and due south).
 Or perhaps Bill Paley (especially after the 50,000 watts came in) wanted
 to have a 50,000 watt affiliate even if it was within 25 miles of a 5,000
 watt (or even less) O & O. During the "Golden Days" of radio, CBS had far
 fewer 50,000 watt affiliates than did NBC Red, and perhaps even a couple
 50,000 watt affiliates fewer than NBC Blue.

Joseph Gallant

<notquite@hotmail.com>

Typo: Part of the last paragraph SHOULD read: "...although 590, from
 Medford, is supposed to carry quite far due north and due south". My
 apologies.

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