Boston Radio 1957 (was Network Affiliations)

[Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>]

Joe G wrote--
>An earlier page, from June, 1958, shows that NBC radio propgramming had 
>moved to WEZE. The Peacock had "flown the coup" from WNAC to WEZE sometime 
>in late 1957 or early 1958.

The newspaper listings I have from that time period seem to show WNAC
airing some NBC stuff throughout 1957 and into mid-1958.  The Christian
Science Monitor, in late 1957, noted that WNAC was indeed carrying a mix of
NBC, Mutual, and Yankee Network features which the writer found rather
confusing... According to the article (written on 1 October 57), WNAC had
picked up NBC in the late fall of 1956, not long after WBZ had officially
dropped it.  BUT, the article also noted that when there was a conflict,
*WVDA* (!) got the NBC shows that WNAC couldn't run.  This occurred despite
the fact that WVDA was supposedly an ABC affiliate at the time.  And to
make it worse, when WVDA got sold, even more changes in affiliation
occurred-- listeners must have been as puzzled as the author of the
aforementioned Christian Science Monitor article... Anyway, the 1960 Radio
Annual (which lists what occurred in 1959) DOES have WEZE as the NBC
affiliate, and interestingly, lists WTAO as the ABC affiliate.   

Joe also asked--
>One other note--does anyone know exactly when WEZE started it's "Easy 
>Listening" music format? Was it when the call letters changed in December of 
>1957?

That would make sense.  I know they were still playing pop music for much
of 1957 because I have a disk jockey list that names d.j.'s there while it
was still WVDA.  (For those who don't recall, in the spring of 1957, the
WVDA jocks were JOE SMITH, SHERM FELLER, EARL GYNAN, AND LAWRENCE Q.
LAWRENCE.  Doing sports was JOHNNY MOST.) So, yes the WVDA calls were
undoubtedly changed to WEZE ("easy") to herald the new format.  

But 1957 was a year of many changes in Boston radio.  WMEX was purchased
from the infamous Bill Pote by the Richmond Brothers.  It abandoned the
"Theatre of Beautiful Music" and by the late fall, was playing pop.   WBMS
was purchased by Bartell and re-named WILD-- both of those changes occurred
in early September.  In August, WORL had changed from attempts at pop music
over to "The 950 Club", which featured 15-minute blocks of  "950 musical
stars... all your favorites, old and new... every star has the spotlight
for 15 minutes."  And of course, WVDA turned into WEZE by year's end.
Meanwhile, WBZ was heavily promoting the "Live Five" and putting out a
survey which, while it contained some middle-of-the-road tunes, also
contained considerable pop-- sort of a "chicken rock" approach... for
reasons I do not understand, the WBZ survey was called the "Giant 51."

In August of 1957, there was a newspaper strike, and the Boston TV and
radio stations went all out to compensate for that-- they also increased
their commercial loads, of course... several stations (WBZ among them) put
up billboards near T stations and changed news headlines on a regular
basis.  WVDA, which hadn't changed yet, hired guys to wear sandwich boards
and walk around downtown Boston promoting WVDA's news coverage and giving
some news headlines too.

By the way, mention was given by the Christian Science Monitor's radio
writer to a "new feminine personality" doing weather on WILD in late 1957.
Any idea who that might have been?

------------------------------

End of boston-radio-interest-digest V3 #416
*******************************************