AAA radio

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 11:51:03 -0800 (PST), Cooper Fox <fox893@yahoo.com> said:

> Does anyone know who actually started the AAA format? 
> Or, who coined the term AAA?

This would seem like a question for Mr. Fybush, but in his absence I
can hazard a few guesses.

The annual convention for AAA programmers is always held in Boulder,
and Boulder's KBCO-FM is one of the heritage stations in the format,
along with Chicago's WXRT.  WBOS was an early adopter, after they
dropped country in the late '80s.  Silberberg's WNCS was doing it
pretty early -- it works well in resort communities, as witness also
WMVY.

On the non-comm side I know rather less.  Many college-affiliated
public radio stations have been doing something akin to AAA for a long
time, usually centered around folk or Americana music (for which
syndicated programming is available in abundance through the public
radio networks); only a few stations have really made a significant
success of it, of which the best-known in the East would be Penn's
WXPN/WXPH/WKHS and Isothermal Community College's WNCW, but there are
a lot more out there, even excluding student-programmed stations.

-GAWollman