RE: WLYN

[arusso@smcvt.edu]

i respectfully disagree with your assessment, sean. having listened to WHRB
and WMBR over the years, i have found they both provide adequate news and
information for the cambridge populace, which is largely dominated by
students and academic types. another important distinction between HRB, MBR,
WJIB and WLYN, is that the former three have a base in their city of
license. if a member of the cambridge community came into any of those
stations looking to lease programming time, or have a cause publicized, i am
sure that all three stations would accomodate (i know this for fact as bob
bittner graciously interviewed the director of a community theater
production i was performing in seven years ago). 
this has simply not been the case with WLYN in the last ten years. 

also, when you look at the statistics of the ten largest cities in the
commonwealth (given the possible exception of cambridge) it is apparent that
all have strong community voices. . .

Boston: 589,141  (WBZ, WRKO)

Worcester: 172,648 (WTAG)

Springfield: 152,082 (WHYN)

Lowell: 105,167 (WCAP, WCCM)

Cambridge: 101,355 (WJIB, WMBR, WHRB)

New Bedford: 93,768 (WNBH)

Brockton: 94,304 (WBET)

Fall River: 91,938 (WSAR)

Lynn: 89,050 (WLYN)

Quincy: 88,025 (WJDA)

again, with the possible exception of cambridge, every station provides a
strong voice for their community and the surrounding area. i realize that
the current state of radio is such that many developed areas are left
without a voice, but it is apparent that most major cities in massachusetts
have broadcast outlets that are open and available to the community. my
point is that WLYN has moved so far away from the community that it fails to
provide any sort of public service to the residents of the city of
license(regardless of language), which i believed to be FCC mandated. as i
said before, my hope is that WLYN will move back to lynn and reinstate its
presence in the community, providing locally-originated programming in the
many languages spoken by the residents of the city and the area. 
-----Original Message-----
From: Sean Smyth [mailto:ssmyth@suscom.net]
Sent: Friday, October 04, 2002 5:36 PM
To: Andrew J. Russo; boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
Subject: Re: WLYN 


arusso@smcvt.edu wrote:
> just a brief comment as a radio enthusiast and lynn resident on the
> current status of WLYN. . .for the last twenty years, the city of
> lynn (the fifth largest in the commonwealth) has been left without a
> quality source for news, information, and local programming. though
> WFNX has been a valued member of the community, their programming has
> always targeted Boston and more recently, the New England region, and
> WLYN has taken on the LMA-brokered ethnic format in order to make
> money. as a result, lynn has been left without any source for truly
> local programming. though WESX, WNSH, and WBOQ have tried to
> incorporate lynn news over the years, it is apparent that their
> programming is predominantly focused on the salem-peabody-beverly tri-
> city region, leaving lynn as the odd city out. the only consolation
> had been that WLYN (at least) maintained a studio presence in lynn,
> but when puritan broadcasting LMA'd to arpin three years ago, all
> that was left of WLYN in lynn was the transmitter and tower.
>
> lynn is a large, vibrant, ethnically diverse community, and i think
> it is an important for our city to have a multicultural voice on
> radio. however, WLYN's programming of late has more of a canned
> quality, and as a result, any community ties to lynn have been
> severed. upon learning from this listserv that WLYN's sale to arthur
> liu's group had gone through, i contacted their corporate office in
> nyc to express my concerns and my hope that they will move the
> station back to lynn and once again focus on local programming in a
> variety of languages. i am still awaiting a return call, and
> unfortunately i don't think i will ever receive one.
>
> it seems a sad commentary that every major urban area in the
> commonwealth has a strong local radio voice, all except lynn. i
> sincerely hope that multicultural radio broadcasting will reverse
> puritan broadcasting and add radio group's longstanding apathy toward
> the lynn community, and maybe even buy the "WLYN" domain so they can
> change that bizarre website that has nothing at all to do with radio.

I disagree with your assessment. Some major well-developed areas in this
state do not have a local radio news source. Most obvious is Cambridge:
WJIB, WHRB and WMBR do their own thing and serve their audiences well, but
they do not cover the Cambridge City Council meetings, they do not report on
what's happening at CRLS, etc. The Boston papers largely ignore Cambridge,
too, unless it's a hot topic coming up at a controversial council meeting,
one of those instances where people can shout "Oy, vey! The People's
Republic!" again and again.

Doesn't Framingham proper now have around 60,000 residents? I would say the
ethnic mix in Framingham is quite similar to Lynn. I understand there's a
relatively large Hispanic community there. None of the stations based on Mt.
Wayte Avenue do anything representing news coverage in Framingham.

IIRC, Holyoke doesn't have a radio station that does tons of local news
either. It's just the state of radio nowadays.