Re: Boston Globe Online / Sports / WWZN cuts staff and programming

[Aaron Read <aread@speakeasy.net>]

At 06:42 PM 7/19/2003, Kevin Vahey wrote:
>20,000 A MONTH?????
>How on earth did WITS ever wind up with such a bad land deal? Were the 
>options for going 50k in 1979 that limited that they had to be outside 
>Waverley Sq????
>
>Carry the Disney idea one step further...could 1510 go back to 
>Quincy/Milton and go back to 50 day 5 night????

In theory I suppose they could...but it's a political question.  Getting a 
new tower built anywhere in populated New England (which virtually all of 
eastern Mass is) is pretty tough and a long-term fight.  Even getting a new 
AM signal added to an existing tower is a real tough prospect...just look 
at the mess at WUNR's site in Oak Hill.  Not to mention winding your way 
through the bureaucratic mess that is the FCC (I haven't run the numbers, 
but I would suspect a move like that would be a major change, and quite 
possibly subject to the freeze)

Plus the history of WWZN on bostonradio.org mentions that the Neponset 
River tides caused all kinds of phasing problems...would that still be a 
problem?

While diplexing is not a matter to be taken lightly, if you're up for 
paying $11 million than a few hundred thousand is nothing.  Ergo, I'd say 
they ought to try and make a deal with WBZ for their Allston site.   I have 
talked informally (i.e. one engineer bullshitting with another) with some 
of the BZ guys and they're not terribly interested in doing anything with 
their Allston tower, but business is business; I suppose if a good deal 
could be made, then it might work.

AM is a black art to me...so I don't know how well WWZN's existing contours 
could work from a single tower in Allston...but they'd have one hell of a 
downtown signal from there even at 5kW.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aaron "Bishop" Read             aread@speakeasy.net
FriedBagels Consulting          AOL-IM: readaaron
http://www.friedbagels.com      Boston, MA