Closing of WBZA (Was Re: 1939...)

[mwaters@wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>Dan Strassberg wrote:
>Nevertheless, Westinghouse DID buy KFWB [in addition to buying WINS, NY]
>and the company's successor, CBS, still owns it.

>In another post, Dan Strassberg wrote:
>People seem to forget that Westingouse owned both KEX and WOWO at one time.
>KEX was the first to go; WOWO was the second. I don't recall which stations
>KEX and WOWO were jettisoned for.

        As Donna Halper said, everybody's right. I recall now that I always
had understood WBZA was closed to permit Westinghouse to buy WINS. Then I
saw somewhere that it was to purchase KFWB, so I looked it up. The 1972
Broadcasting yearbook shows an acquisition date by Westinghouse of KFWB of
1966. It shows 7/26/62 as the acquisition date for WINS--just a few weeks
before WBZA was shut down.
        And based on a couple things I've heard or seen and the aircheck
I've heard of the WBZ management statement when they signed off WBZA, the
delay may well have been because Westinghouse was fighting the necessity of
shutting down WBZA. I've never researched it, but one can imagine they
might have tried to argue that WBZA should not be considered a station for
the purposes of the group ownership rules bercuase it was a synchronous
operation.

        KEX was sold by Westinghouse long before WOWO. My 1972 Broadcasting
Yearbook shows KEX acquired by Golden West Broadcasters in 1962. WOWO
(acquired by Westinghouse in 1936) still was owned by Westinghouse in 1976,
according to the Broadcasting Yearbook. And my own listening, if I remember
correctly, suggests that Westinghouse may have owned it at least into the
early 1980s.

>I assume that because Westinghouse owned both IB stations on 1190, WOWO's
>application for 50 kW had a much easier time than it otherwise would have
>had. Actually, WOWO was 10 kW-ND before it got its increase to 50 kW in the
>50s. The directional 50-kW nighttime signal put much less than the
>equivalent of 10 kW toward KEX, so Westinghouse won two ways when WOWO went
>to 50 kW.

        If the new signal were going to reduce the signal toward KEX, why
would the owner, even if it were someone other than Westinghouse, have
objected? If you want to change your station so you send less signal toward
mine, I'm not likely to object. In fact, what seems curious is that,
especially given the same ownership, they proposed a pattern reducing the
night signal toward Portland rather than one keeping it the same while
pushing the main part of their new 50 kW signal to the east, as the 50 kW
pattern does (but for oh so short a time longer, now, apparently).

        Sort of off the subject (or not): I was reminded tonight that a 10
kW, non-DA clear-channel signal can be mighty good. I had the CBC station
in Windsor, Ontario, on, in Conn. It was playing classical music, with a
very silent channel behind it, and I was thinking how great it sounded for
10 kW. The only noise was a tiny bit of slop from WQEW because I'm so close
to NYC. The 1550 Disney station in Hartford, which I believe sends almost
all its signal north at night, was not heard at all here about 25 miles to
the south of Hartford.

>Also, WOWO was originally licensed to
>Chicago, as was KYW. Why Westinghouse moved BOTH stations I don't know. I
>think it was many years before Westinghouse acquired another Chicago
>station, WIND.

        WIND is shown as acquired by Westinghouse in 1956.
        Wasn't KYW moved in some connection with that ancient 1920s' system
of assigning high-power stations by districts. Westinghouse couldn't get
one of those assignments in Chicago, so it went to Cleveland or
Philadelphia (I forget!) to secure a high-power, clear-channel assignment
for this station?
        WOWO shows an on-air date of 1925. I have a 1926 list showing it in
Fort Wayne (with 500 watts). I had not heard before this of a Chicago
connection for WOWO.

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End of boston-radio-interest-digest V2 #202
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