Re: Globe on John Garabedian

["Kevin Vahey" <k-vahey@attbi.com>]

Left unsaid in this rehash of the RKO MEX wars is how both stations 
tried to ignore that FM was not going away. It was right around this 
time that college students discovered FM sounded a whole lot better in 
their dorm rooms.

Looking back you wonder how much impact tiny WTBS had in WBCN flipping 
to rock in 1968. Tommy Hadges and Uncle T were the torchbearers for FM 
and who knows what kind of audience they had.

I was dumbfounded that so many suits in the industry really believed FM 
was a passing fad. I sensed FM could be a monster when Jack Peterson 
developed a following in Cambridge on WLLH-FM in the mid 60's and then 
WRKO-FM and WKOX-FM also attracted listeners.

FM had by early 1967 taken off in other markets especially NYC with 
WOR-FM but here the only station that people bothered to buy converters 
for was WHIL-FM and its country format. All the major AM players (with 
the exception of MEX) had FM slots but didn't have a clue on what to do 
with them. Then WJIB came along and WEZE vanished from the ratings 
almost overnight.

To me one of the great mysteries is how Westinghouse had no clue what to 
do with 106.7.

We still had a few more years of great AM radio ahead of us and in my 
mind the great story was how WHDH reinvented itself and became a monster 
in the mid 70s. They were able to attract all the at home. teenaged 
girls from the 60s who had become moms. They milked CashCall as well as 
any promotion this city has seen before or since. The Blair people only 
made one major misstep and that was balking at the Red Sox wanting a 
little more money and the team moved to WMEX which was trying to become 
what WHDH was in the 60s (Alan Dary etc)



On Sat, 1 Feb 2003 8:48PM -0500, Rick Kelly wrote:
> On Sat, 01 Feb 2003 11:24:36 -0500 SteveOrdinetz 
> <steveord@bit-net.com>
> writes:
>
>>  don't think John H became PD
>>  until sometime in 1971.
>
> I have an aircheck of John H on in afternoon drive (which Steve 
> supplied
> to me... thanks Steve!) from September of 1970?  He was a jock before 
> he
> went to PD?
>
> Also, I remember John H visiting Grahm Jr. College in the fall of 
> 1971.
> He was great, talked to folks about beating 'RKO... when the issue of 
> the
> WMEX signal came up,  (didn't really match 'RKO's...) he stated that
> signal was not as big a consideration if you had good product on the 
> air.
>  In 1971, that pertained... now, well....
>
> Rick Kelly
> www.northeastairchecks.com
>
>
>
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