WCGY "The Rock Garden" (Re: When WCCM Got Sold)

["Peter Q. George" <radiojunkie3@yahoo.com>]

    WCCM-FM was the poor step-child of WCCM for so
many years.  It wasn't until 1973 that Curt Gowdy
started doing something with it.  First, the
transmitter situation..... originally it was only
running at 5,000 watts from atop the WCCM studios on
Franklin Street in downtown Lawrence.  Lawrence is in
the middle of a geographical bowl and thus the 93.7
signal was horrible, outside of Lawrence.
    It wasn't until the summer of 1973 that WCCM-FM
made the move to 50,000 watts (mono) from a new site
in Andover, right off the Interstate (495), not too
far from the WSSH tower.  Still the station was only
on the air until 10:00 PM at night, the minimum
schedule required by the FCC for a commercial FM
station.  WCCM/800 was a daytime only operation at
that time.  WCCM-FM provided separate programming
after WCCM-AM shut down for the night.  The FM played
a little more contemporary music than AM did (for the
time) in the evening hours.
     Finally, in the spring of 1974, 93.7 FM made the
big switch to Stereo with a new 24 hour format, "Rock
94, WCGY". Eventually it was known as "The Rock
Garden" by the fall of 1974.  It was an automated
format ("Stereo Rock") from TM of Dallas.  It was
noticed almost immediately, especially by the teens
and college crowd as the station played more music
than virtually anyone else in the market.  I
personally liked it!!  I especially loved the solid
signal it had.  I was able to listen to it from my
home in Randolph, MA to my cottage in East Wakefield,
NH (some 120 miles away!).
     It was a simple format with two currents, a
backsell ("Miss You", The Stones.....and before that
"Knowing Me, Knowing You", ABBA"), a jingle
("Ninety-four....(bling, bling, bling!) W-C-G-Y"),
then two oldies and then a quick voice-over ("Full
time Stereo Rock, WCGY, FM-94").  This same TM format
was on WGFM (99.5) in Schenectady and WSTW (93.7) in
Wilmington, Delaware. 
     WCCM-FM was one of the last FM stations in the
market to go Stereo with the change to WCGY in April,
1974.  The final convert to Stereo was WLYN-FM in
Lynn, back in 1977.

-Peter Q.


  
--- "A. Joseph Ross" <lawyer@attorneyross.com> wrote:
> On 8 Apr 2002 at 2:15, Donna Halper wrote:
> 
> > Today's my day for answering questions (and
> actually knowing the 
> > answers!).  Somebody asked when WCCM was sold. 
> Curt Gowdy acquired it on
> > 5/31/63.  George Jaspert, if I recall correctly,
> had died suddenly
> > September of 1960, and his son wasn't that
> interested in running the
> > station.
> 
> That might explain why the FM station eventually
> became  WCCM-FM.  It must have been 
> some time after that before it started separate
> programs as WCGY.
> 
> That might also explain why, when I called the
> station to ask why the call letters WGHJ, I 
> got Jaspert's son, who didn't really know what his
> father had in mind.  In fact, I think he said 
> "GHJ were my father's initials," in the past tense. 
> I didn't pick up on it at the time, but if 
> George H. Jaspert had died, that might fit.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                          
> 617.367.0468
>  15 Court Square, Suite 210                
> lawyer@attorneyross.com
> Boston, MA 02108-2503           	        
> http://www.attorneyross.com
> 
> 


=====
Peter Q. George (K1XRB)
Whitman, Massachusetts
                           "Scanning the bands since 1967"
radiojunkie1@yahoo.com
radiojunkie3@yahoo.com
***********************************************************

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