No Subject

Subject: The old WEEI.

Recent postings confirmed what I had heard about the old WEEI in it's all-
 news days--that despite decent ratings (especially in drive times), it
 lost money. I had heard back then that the old WEEI-FM's profits
 supported and made up for the losses of the old WEEI-AM.

But another reason I think the old 'EEI lost money was that it was a 5,000
 watt signal with a north/south directional pattern. You can hear 590 well
 on Block Island and Rochester, New Hampshirte, but you couldn't hear it
 in Worcester, and very weakly (if at all) in the western part of what
 is now the I-495 belt (Marlboro, Hudson, Hopkinton, etc.), areas that
 were just starting to grow in 1974 when WEEI went all-news.

Were CBNS

Were CBS to switch WBZ to a 24-hours-a-day all-news outlet, they might
 at least break even. WBZ has a strong 50,000-watt signal and reaches many
 areas to the west of Boston that 590 can't (then or now). This additional
 reach, particularlly in the fast-growing "MetroWest" area, could actually
 make a 24/7 all-news format on 1030 successful both in the ratings AND
 in the bottom line.

I also remember that the old "CBS Mystery Theatre" aired on WEEI TWICE--
 first when it premiered in 1974 for a few years, then later at the end
 of it's run. I think it aired on the old WMEX-later WITS-during the
 middle years. I think CBS returned it to 'EEI after WITS began running
 it only on weekends (it was broadcast seven nights a week).

And, for the first four or five years of 'EEI being "all-news", the
 station ran an all-night talk show with Bruce Lee (no relation to the
 karate-movie star), which had actually started a couple of years before
 the station went all-news. It was the last vestige of the old all-talk
 WEEI.

I wonder if the late CBS chairman, Bill Paley, ordered WEEI to go to all-
 news, since from 1967 until 1974, they were the only all-talk station
 in the Boston market (and probably very successful with it). Despite the
 good ratings, perhaps Paley wanted WEEI to go all-news, since he ordered
 most of CBS' other AM stations to go that route (The exception was KMOX
 St. Louis, which didn't go 24-hour all-news; but I think it's dominance
 of St. Louis was such that somebody in the City Of The Gateway Arch
 probably talked Mr. Paley out of orderkng KMOX to go 24/7 news).

Joseph Gallant

<notquite@hotmail.com>

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End of boston-radio-interest-digest V2 #100
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