WILD 1950's Stunt

[Dan Strassberg]

As I recall from my college days in Troy (I graduated in 1956), the two
closest daytimers to the Capital District were WSPN 900 in Saratoga Springs
and WBTN Bennington VT on 1370. There was also a daytimer in Rutland VT,
WHWB 1000, which I could hear in Troy. Not too much later, there was a
daytimer IN the Capital District, WEEE Rensselaer 1300. WEEE was founded by
Harry L Goldman, after he sold WROW--which he had built--to Capital Cities.
That company, over a long period, through growth and acquisition, morphed
into ABC. What began as WEEE is now a full-timer with a six-tower DA, the
only major AM in the market with a tranmitter east of the Hudson. Before
either of us was in the Capital Cities, WTRY had been a daytimer. The
transmitter had been in Latham. I don't know exactly when WTRY went
full-time and moved its transmitter a few miles west to Niskayuna with a
three-tower array. Back in my time, WTRY operated DA-1, but a few years
after my departure, it became DA-N. After I graduated, RPI sold its
share-time WHAZ 1330 to United Broadcasting, owner of WBBR, one of WHAZ's
two share-time partners in New York City. (The WBBR of that day was
unrelated to today's WBBR 1130.) United's goal was to get WHAZ's hours (6:00
PM Mondays to 3:00 AM Tuesdays) for WBBR. The other share-time partner, WEVD
had other ideas and took the issue to the FCC. WBBR ended up gaining only
three hours a week from the acquisition, but the two New York City 1330
stations eventually merged. United turned WHAZ into a daytimer and it
remains a Class D AM with low night power. Later, there was another daytimer
in the Capital District, WXKW 1600 in Watervliet or Cohoes, I believe. Like
its predecessor on 850, which lested only about five years, the second WXKW
lasted only a few years.

--
Dan Strassberg, dan.strassberg@att.net
eFax 707-215-6367

----- Original Message -----
From: "A. Joseph Ross" <joe@attorneyross.com>
To: "Dan Strassberg" <dan.strassberg@att.net>
Cc: "boston Radio Interest" <boston-radio-interest@rolinin.bostonradio.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2005 12:46 AM
Subject: Re: WILD 1950's Stunt


> On 16 Dec 2005 at 6:26, Dan Strassberg wrote:
>
> > I don't recall the stunt--but that doesn't mean it never happened. It
> > would most likely have happened when WILD was sold to Bartell Family
Media
> > around 1958 or so--if memory serves. (This was decades before "Family"
in
> > the name of a station owner implied a Christian format.) At the time,
> > Bartell owned top-40 ratings powerhouses WOKY Milwaukee and KCBQ San
> > Diego. I think the 1090 calls were WBMS until Bartell took over and
> > flipped them to WILD.
>
> What I remember is moving back to the Boston area from Albany in May 1957
and surveying
> the AM dial to see what stations were where.  I missed 1090 the first time
through because I
> did that part of the dial at night.  I didn't know about daytime-only
stations at that time -- we
> didn't seem to have them in Albany.  Later, I found WBMS at 1090.
>
> I don't remember any of the promotion of WILD, just that one day, as I was
going down the dial,
> I found 1090 and was surprised to discover that the call letters were now
WILD.  That was the
> first change of call letters that I experienced, and at first, I didn't
quite realize that was what it
> was and was puzzled by it.
>
> And yes, the 1150 call letters were still WCOP.  They stayed WCOP until
sometime in the
> 1970s.
>
> --
> A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                           617.367.0468
>  15 Court Square, Suite 210                 Fax 617.742.7581
> Boston, MA 02108-2503                    http://www.attorneyross.com
>
>