WHCN as we knew it is blown up

[Martin Waters <martinjwaters@yahoo.com>]

   Sometime Friday (I'm pretty certain) the run of
WHCN 105.9 Hartford as the market's original
progressive rock / later classic rock station ended.
Cheap Channel turned it into "the river" or "the new
river," although I guess "river" can be any format you
want.

   I was driving out of town Friday night when I heard
it, but it looks like no one has posted about it.

   The new blurb at whcn.com lists the music as
including Doobies, Aerosmith, Joel, Matchbox 20,
Fleetwood Mac, Rolling Stones, Creed, Mellencamp,
Zeppelin, Clapton, Goo Goo Dolls, Eagles, etc. It's
more the mix -- much more recent-hits/pop-ish --
that's different. And the bumpers are much more
hit-radio up-beat style. And right now it appears to
be jockless, although I did not listen this morning.
At least for now, the calls are the same, although it
sounds like they're only used once an hour and
otherwise it's the frequency and "the river."

   The station had bad ratings for quite a few years
now. There were some Hartford metro books in which
WAQY Springfield, classic rock, beat it (although the
Hartford book stops at the state line) and WPLR in New
Haven, although getting low numbers in Hartford,
wasn't that far behind 'HCN's bad numbers. I haven't
looked at the more recent numbers.

    So, no more walrus and all that. WHCN went from
classical music (as in Hartford Concert Network, with
WBCN, WNCN, maybe others) in the very late '60s a lot
the same way WBCN did in Boston. The classical was not
making any money, so they started trying progressive
rock. The rest is history.

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