Re: 1520 KB-Radio in Buffalo (was: WALE of a deal?)

[mwaters@mail.wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>Steve Ordinetz wrote:
>or even
>closer, WBZ vs WMEX in the 60s.  WBZ was this blowtorch that covered half
>of North America, while WMEX, even with their crappy signal usually beat
>them.

        In the overall, 12+, Mon-Sun, I don't believe that WMEX did much if
any beating of WBZ. Perhaps a case of urban legend. Maybe WMEX won
something if you break out age groups for the young audience, although I
have no idea what those numbers were. And Arnie Ginsburg certainly did very
well.
        It is true, and interesting to note, that in the mid-60s, WBZ's
superior signal did not always translate into the top ratings. WHDH/850 and
WEEI/590 often did better. One reason that the fourth station with a big
signal, WNAC/680, flipped to top 40, of course, is that it was not doing
very well and it's audience was skewed old.

>I think I read somewhere once that Bruce Bradley had better numbers
>in Baltimore than Boston.

        I don't know about that. You may have read a post I put here a year
or two ago that quoted Bruce Bradley, in a St. Louis Post interview a few
years ago. He said, with amazement and nostalgia for the days before each
market had 30 signals, that in the summer of 1966 (the last summer
pre-WRKO), his evening program was not only #1 in Boston, but also #1 in
Baltimore. What exactly that is based on, or actually means, in terms of
demographics, or whatever, I have no idea. But guys like him, and Joey
Reynolds, who occasionally mentions the old times now on his WOR talk show,
will recall those days when it was routine for request phones at the I-A
and I-B stations doing top 40 to be taking in calls from 20 states.

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Have you patronized the skywave signal of an AM Class A station today?

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