Re: most influential?

[Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>]

>Bump wrote--
>
>But does this quest of yours have a time frame?
>
>Or are you seeking the "....influential of all time"?

The gentleman whom I am helping with this article asked about the most 
influential radio and TV forces in Boston, so that means from the dawn of 
radio in Boston (when 1XE took to the air in 1920) to when TV came along 
here in 1948, right up to the present day.  Obviously, somebody from 1999 
would not be "the most influential of the past xxx years", but somebody 
like the late great John Shepard 3rd, though he died in 1950, his influence 
still is felt in everything he created in Boston -- like radio news 
reporting (prior to the Yankee News Network, most radio news was just rip 
and read from newspapers-- he fought for radio new reporters to get press 
credentials and to get the right to cover stories the way newspaper 
reporters did...), FM networks (he lent Armstrong large sums of money to 
continue perfecting FM and put the first FM station in Massachusetts on the 
air), home shopping via radio (WASN-- the all shopping station in 1927 (!), 
and numerous other things that were ahead of their time.

>Bump wrote about Jerry Williams--
>Jerry was certainly a large influence on the development of talkradio....and
>certainly helped set the standard.  But his period was probably late 70's
>early 80's.  (Some in the broadcast biz see him now as 'old'.  My guess is
>we won't be seeing him on the air at the new talk station for that reason.)

Umm, I remember Jerry on WMEX in the 60s!  He came on the air after Arnie 
Ginsburg.  The entire station was very schizophrenic-- top 40 with bells 
and whistles, and then a talk show where you had to be at least 21 to call 
in... the talk show genre was still new, but Jerry developed it in Boston 
for sure...

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