Re: the real "all girl station"

["Dan Strassberg" <Dan.Strassberg@worldnet.att.net>]

Did the letters WNAC stand for anything? I didn't think so. If that's the
case, has your research on Shepard revealed why he wanted WNAC and why WNAB
wasn't just as good in his mind? As far as I know, the National Association
of Broadcasters didn't yet exist, so there was no conflict with the initials
of the broadcasters' organization. Though, later on, when the NAB _did_
exist, didn't Shepart pull out of it as a result of some grievance with the
organization?. Also, didn't he change the calls of WASN to WAAB at some
point?

Until 1943, when the FCC broke up duopolies, Shepard had two Boston
stations, WNAC, which, after March 1941, was on 1260 and WAAB, which was on
1440. Then, to fend off forced divestiture of WAAB, he moved that station to
Worcester. Which brings up the question of why, when he changed the calls of
WASN, he picked the WAAB calls. For years and years, until some station got
WAAA, WAAB was first alphabetically among US stations with Wxxx calls. Was
that the reason Shepard chose WAAB? I guess being first alphabetically is a
nice distinction. (If potential advertisers used the Yellow Pages to find
radio stations, WAAB would have been first on the list.) But, I don't think
the letters WAAB stood for anything. (The calls might have stood for We're
Always the Absolute Best, but I don't think they did.)

Since Shepard owned a station (WNAB) with calls so close to WNEB, which, as
far as I know, were available at the time, one would think he would have
grabbed WNEB, which obviously could stand for New England Broadcasting--and
probably did so when the 1230 station in Worcester went on the air.

--

Dan Strassberg, dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net
Phone: 1-617-558-4205, eFax: 1-707-215-6367

-----Original Message-----
From: Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>
To: A. Joseph Ross <lawyer@world.std.com>
Cc: boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
<boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Date: Monday, July 03, 2000 1:14 AM
Subject: Re: the real "all girl station"


>
>>Joe Ross wrote--
>>Good story.  But a few times, they refer to Shepard's station as "WNAB."
>>Was there a WNAB or is that a typo for WNAC?
>
>In 1926, after trying for several years to get those calls, Shepard was
>finally able to acquire them.  A station in the south had them first.  He
>used WNAB for public affairs programming mainly.
>