Re: The Colonial Network

[Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>]

>about WAAB, Steve wrote--
>Ed Brouder's book "Granite & Ether" gives the impression the move took 
>place in late 1940/early 1941.

Not exactly.  WAAB moved out of Boston in late September 1942, and it came 
back on the air as a Worcester station on 13 December 1942.  (Ironically, 
Shepard had tried to move the old WLEX out to Worcester back in 1929 but 
the FRC (later known as the FCC) wouldn't let him.)

As for other recollections and queries from list-members, the Colonial 
Network officially got started on 5 August 1936.  There is a wonderful 
media historian up in Maine named Liz McLeod whom some of you may know-- 
she has an excellent collection of rare transcriptions of early 
broadcasts-- and she wrote this about why the Colonial Network got started 
(she and I were exchanging info a while back):  "Shepard had contracted 
with AT&T for 16 hours per day of broadcast line service, but the Yankee 
Network was only using an average of five hours a day. Rather than waste 
his money, Shepard inaugurated Colonial in August 1936."

I do know that as Shepard's health declined, his interest in Colonial did 
too-- and he began sharing it with Mutual, a network he also had some 
involvement with.  By 1940, many of the programs on Colonial were from the 
Mutual Network.  I believe Colonial was discontinued the year Shepard 
resigned from day to day operations at Yankee-- sometime in 1943.