Re: WHET (Was: Re: WCOP and the Lawsuit)

["Joseph Gallant" <notquite@hotmail.com>]

When WCRB-AM switched to big-band/standards WHET on, as David
Harris pointed out, on September 29th, 1975, it was NOT broadcasting
the format 24 hours a day. For one thing, the station went off at
12 Midnight or 1 A.M. For another, WHET continued to simulcast
WCRB-FM from 6 to 9 A.M. and 3 to 6, 7, or 8 P.M. (I can't recall
offhand how long the PM simulcast went).
I seem to remember that WHET's night signal in my hometown of Norwood
until the summer of 1976 was crappy, to say the least! It would often
be over-ridden by WEVD/WPOW (then sharing 1330) out of New York. (Was
WHET's nighttime power only 1,000 watts in 1975?)
During that time, they also broadcast some sports events produced by
independent packagers who paid for tha airtime. They included Boston
University men's hockey games, and a series of high-school hockey
games from the Boston area, including the Massachusetts State
Tournament. Both the BU and high-school games had started on WCRB-AM
during the 1972-73 season (they were NOT simulcast on FM). BU hockey
would stay on WHET through the 1977-78 season, while the high-school
hockey series left WHET at the end of the 1975-76 regular season,
with WBOS-FM picking the package up beginning with the 1976 playoffs
and going through the end of the 1977-78 playoffs, at which time,
"Hockey Night In Boston" (who produced the games) abandoned radio
for a TV highlights show.
In August of 1976, it was announced in the Boston papers that WHET
would expand to a 24-hour broadcast day, going to "full power with a
new antenna" (could the night power have gone up to 5,000 watts at
that time?). After that time, and through the present, I can receive
1330 at night in Norwood. It's not the best signal, but much better
than they had prior to August of '76!
In the Spring of 1976, WHET ended simulcasting WCRB-FM during P.M.
drive, and the A.M. drive simulcast ended in August, 1976, at the same
time the "new antenna" was finished.
A number of well-known big-band/standards DJ's were heard on WHET
during it's slightly over 2 1/2 years in the format: Betty Day, Al
Nevins, Johnny Towne, Bill Marlowe (who would come back to 1330 a few
years before his death to do an all-Frank Sinatra show on a brokered
time basis each Saturday afternoon), and Alan Dary, among others.
In early 1978, Anthony Martin Trigona (or Anthony Macaroni-Spaghetti,
depending on your point of view) bought the station, and that May,
took over, first cutting big-band/standards to 9 P.M.-6 A.M., then
within a month, eliminating the format altogether. Guess what he
put on instead? A second-rate beautiful-music format which fared even
worse than the format which it replaced. The beautiful-music format
was gone by February, 1979.
Martin-Trigona claimed that WHET "got no better than a 0.5" in the
ratings. But in older adults, it probably did much better than that.
What I think both Charles River Broadcasting and later Mr. Macaroni-
Spaghetti did wrong was failing to invest in promotion for WHET
(i.e. billboards, and especially, TV spots). Had they done that, I
think that WHET, even with it's less-than-perfect nighttime signal,
could have done 2's and 2.5's, with much higer numbers among adults
40 and older. In that demographic, they would have been able to give
Boston's beautiful-music stations a run for their money.
I hope someone can post to this newsgroup information on what WCRB-AM/
WHET's night power was prior to August of 1976. I'm almost sure that
in addition to tightening their pattern at sunset, they also reduced
power from 5,000 watts day to 1,000 watts night.
Joseph Gallant
<notquite@hotmail.com>

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