Re: the demise of WEVD

["Dan Strassberg" <dan.strassberg@att.net>]

But WEVD had a distinction that might not have made it unique, but certainly
made it unusual. It moved from 1330 AM to 97.9 FM to 1050 AM. And it wasn't
even _that_ simple. In the late 40s, when I got my first FM receiver, WEVD
either had not yet added FM (on 97.9) or had just done so. WEVD was one of
the last of the share-time AM stations in New York City (it shared time with
the _old_ WBBR Brooklyn, which was owned and operated by the Watchtower
Bible and Tract Society--the Jehovah's Witnesses (NO connection between
_that_ WBBR and today's WBBR 1130) and WHAZ Troy NY, which was owned and
operated--for a grand total of six hours per week--by my alma mater,
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute). There once were dozens of share-time AMs
in New York and other major cities, but by the late 1940s, the only ones
that remained in New York and northern NJ were on 1280, 1330, and 1380. (OK,
WCAP 1310 Asbury Park NJ (now WJLK) still shared time with a station in
Trenton and another in Camden, but WJLK never was a New York market
station.)

The share-time arrangment kept WEVD (AM) off the air from 3:00 AM to 8:00 AM
Monday through Saturday, 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM Tuesday through Friday, 6:00 PM
Monday to 3:00 AM Tuesday, and a _lot_ of hours on Sunday (I can't remember
those). So the FM, which operated full time, turned WEVD into a full-time
station for the first time. At least for a few years after the FM signed on,
it simulcast the AM whenever the AM was on the air.

In the 60s (I think--I believe that Scott Fybush has posted the exact dates
in the Archives), after Watchtower sold WBBR to Richard Eaton's United
Broadcasting, which changed the calls to WPOW, the Forward Association sold
WEVD (AM) to WPOW (which by then might already have become WNYM--which were
its calls after it was purchased by Christian broadcaster Salem
Communications). But Forward kept WEVD-FM, which I'm pretty sure became WEVD
(FM).

Later still, in a complex swap, Spanish Broadcasting acquired 1050, which
had most recently been home to WFAN, and (because Spanish still owned WSKQ
(AM) 620 and was not then allowed to own two AMs in any market), it swapped
1050 plus a lot of cash (for that day) to Forward for 97.9 FM. Spanish thus
achieved its goal of owning an FM in New York. By that time, FMs were
already more valuable than even 50-kW AMs, so Forward realized its goal of
getting millions ($21 million, if I recall correctly) to support its
newspaper but was able to stay in radio in New York, albeit with a major AM
signal rather than the FM signal it had had for many years. (An interesting
piece of radio trivia: There was a delay in Spanish's financing, which held
up its closing on 97.9. In the interim (more than six months, if I recall),
Spanish received a waiver--required so that it could operate both 620 and
1050. During the interim period, the 1050 calls were WUKQ, so 1050
was WHN, WMGM, WHN, WUKQ, and WEVD.)

I think it is questionable whether Forward's _new_ $87-million "endowment"
will save the company for very long (that is, for more than maybe 10 years).
WEVD 1050, with its mostly brokered-time format, was quite profitable, and
those profits went to support the newspaper. However, even the cash that
WEVD threw off plus the earlier "endowment" (from trading the FM for an AM)
couldn't support the newspaper business indefinitely. Forward seems to have
a long-term strategy of using radio properties to support its newspaper. But
since Disney now holds an option to buy WEVD, it looks as if Forward has run
out of radio properties that it can use to support its newspaper habit.

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

----- Original Message -----
From: Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>
To: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2001 8:35 PM
Subject: Re: the demise of WEVD

> Long before there was FM, there was WEVD, which was at 1300 kHz in 1929,
> according to some Federal Radio Commission station lists I have.  (WEVD
> went on the air in 1927.)  As for WHN, it was living at 1010 kHz in 1929,
> and there it remained throughout the 1930s.   WHN may have moved to 1050
> because of the NARBA rulings in 1941-- NARBA moved nearly everybody-- the
> newspapers had big ads about "radio moving day."   But in the 20s and 30s,
> WEVD and WHN were stayed where the FRC put them.  In the early 50s, as
Norm
> said, WMGM (the former WHN) was indeed at 1050.  WEVD meanwhile had moved
> off of 1300 in the 40s, and was now at 1330, with the same owners as
before.