Re: Boston radio, 1992

[Scott D Fybush <fybush@world.std.com>]

Here's the chronology of the WBZ transition as I recall it (and I
was there for most of it):

Gulf War: WBZ plays its last music (anybody know the song? I don't!)
and goes to a hybrid news/talk format.  Mornings feature LaPierre
doing news to :15 and :45 after, sports, then Peter Meade filling
out the half-hour with talk.  Middays have Tom Bergeron doing 10-12
and 1-3 (and running over to do People are Talking on WBZ-TV from 
12:30-1!), interrupted by an hour of news with Debra Lawlor and
Jacque Goddard at noon.  Afternoon news with Anthony Silva and Diane
Stern ran from 3-7 (an expansion of the old 60 to 6 and 90 to 6 shows).
Brudnoy did 7-midnight, with Raleigh filling out the overnight hours.
I don't remember what weekends sounded like at that point, aside
from some fixtures like Calling All Sports Sunday evenings and
Lovell Dyett Saturday nights.

In August 1992, right about the time I started working there, Meade
left and mornings went all-news, with Pat Carroll as the first anchor
(lasting only a week or so before she went down to NYC), followed
by Debra Lawlor.  I was the first writer for the bottom halves of the
morning news, though they brought in someone new in September and bumped
me off to part-time.  I came back full-time in late September or
early October when the Bergeron show was replaced by the WBZ Midday
News, with newcomers Bob McMahon, Bill Watson and Bill Lawrence (all
veterans of the recently-deceased WEEI news format) rotating anchor
duties on weekday middays and weekend mornings.  

So, by fall 1992 WBZ had fallen into its current format of all news
5a-7p and talk 7p-5a.  Weekends, of course, are a more complicated
story...

-s