Re: Boston CBS affiliations of long ago

[Dan Strassberg <dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net>]

At 03:18 AM 10/12/98 -0400, you wrote:

>        If I was ABC, stuck with WCOP in Boston, I would have given an
>affiliation to WLAW, too! The real question is, why was ABC stuck with
>WCOP, in the late 1940s? What was WNAC/1260 doing? Mutual? At that point,
>WHDH also would have been preferable from ABC's viewpoint, IMO, although
>WHDH seemed to be pursuing the concept of being an independent station very
>early.

I believe that WHDH, like WNEW in New York, was, by design, and independent.
Until the Braves moved to Milwaukee, WHDH had both the Braves and the Red
Sox. Between the heavy sports load and being the city's only music-and-news
station, I think that WHDH management felt that it had carved out a better
niche for the station than it could have found as a network affiliate.

I'm pretty sure that WNAC was the Mutual affiliate. In fact, at least one
Mutual program originated from WNAC--Cedric Foster's daily news commentary.
During World War II, the radio networks, and even a few independent stations
in larger markets, had their own news commentators. As far as I know, only
two such survive on the national radio networks today--Paul Harvey and
Charles Osgood. Back then, some of the better known commentators were Lowell
Thomas, Gabriel Heater, and H V Kaltenborn. Foster sounded the epitome of
the old New England Yankee (complete, if I recall, with the sibilent Slim
Pickins S). His commentaries were dry as dust--even when the news was
interesting, which it often was during the War. Cedric was the best cure for
insomnia that I can imagine. I can only imagine that he remained on the air
by being a buddy of the station owner, Donna's hero, Mr Shepard.

WNAC was the key station of the Yankee Network, Most, though not all, Yankee
Network affils, were Mutual affils. Mutual included several regional
networks, of which the Yankee Network was one. To be a Mutual affiliate in
New England, I think a station HAD to be a Yankee Network affiliate, but a
station could be a Yankee Network affiliate without being a Mutual
affiliate. Other regional networks that had similar arrangements with Mutual
included the Don Lee Broadcasting System on the West Coast; the
Intermountain Network in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and New
Mexico, and (I think) the Texas State Network.