Re:WNAC WEZE/WTAG (fwd)

[Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>]

Kevin asked--
>(BTW was WLAW by chance a Yankee Network affilate back then???)

Not that I recall.  They spent a brief period as a CBS affiliate, I
believe, and then they went to ABC.  Keep in mind that by the mid 1940s,
John Shepard 3rd was in very poor health.  He had divested of the Boston
Shepard Store (closed it down entirely, opting only for the one in
Providence) , and was slowly watching his media empire get bought out from
under him.  By 1949, he would resign from the board of the Yankee Network
and he would die in June of 1950.   The folks from General Tire were the
ones who made the decisions about the destiny of the Yankee Net and other
issues pertaining to WNAC from about 1945 on (1943 on paper, but Shepard
remained a factor till his health began failing... he was a heavy smoker,
and also lived a very stress filled life...)   
.
and a clarification of an answer I gave about WLAW-- I wrote that the
station was licensed to the Rogers family, which it was, although it still
read "Hildreth and Rogers" even in 1950.  There had been a Hildreth many
years ago-- they even named a building in Lawrence after him-- but he had
never been involved in the station, having died before it went on the air,
if I recall the WLAW history I read in the Eagle-Tribune when the station
first went on the air.  Radio had been a dream of the Rogers family--
Hildreth had been involved in the newspaper during the first part of the
1900s...   

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