WCOP circa 1961 aircheck

[DonKelley@aol.com]

"Joseph Pappalardo" <joepappalardo2001@yahoo.com> writes:>>I caught the aircheck of Pat Patterson (aka, "Fat Pat" and "Mr's Patterson's>oldest and heaviest child"!) on WCOP in 1961 on the Northeast Airchecks web>site: http://northeastairchecks.com/>Just curious....what years would have been WCOP's most sucessful years.
WCOP, at least in the last 50 years, didn't have any particularly successful years.  WCOP was a Top 40 station in the late 50's, but was forced to switch to Country when WBZ went Top 40.  It hung around but did little in the way of numbers until about 1975 when, as Joe Pappalardo notes, it became WACQ (sor tof a Hot AC before it's time) for a short period.  
WACQ turned into Sunny, featuring Frank Sinatra, Dionne Warwick, Barbra Streisand, etc. Then it was WHUE, Beautiful Music.  I think it was also WCOZ for a day or two in the early 80's.  Around 1984 Greater Media picked it up and revived the old WMEX calls (they had beeen on 1510 for many years but were dropped in the 70's) and went Oldies.  WMEX 1150 would get a 1.0, maybe a 1.5, for about three years, but when WODS went on the air WMEX was toast.  In 1989 it became Business Radio 1150 but never showed in Arbitron.  In 1991 it became a simulcast of MAGIC 106.7, then became a brokered foreign-language station.  Around 1994 the station became WNFT (Nifty 1150), carrying KidStar - an early verison of the Radio Disney-type format.  The KidStar network went under. Back to foreign language.  In 1996 it became WROR.  This wa sa way for Greater Media to "warehouse" those calls in poreparation for the debut of the new 105.7 WROR later that year.  
Then it was sold to ARS, and subsequently to Mega, and it has been Spanish for the last several years.

>Was the signal always bad?
Yes, it was always a bad signal.
>I suppose the call letters 'COP had to do with COPley Square?>Did they ever have a studio there?
Probably WCOP stood for Copley Square - although I had also heard that it stood for Coppertone.  For many years WCOP was owned by Plough, the makers of Coppertone.  The TOH ID used to say "WCOP, Boston...a broadcast service of Plough, Incorporated!"
They did have a studio on Clarendon Street. 
>I was suprised not to hear any network newcasts on that 1961 >aircheck.  I would have thought that a station like WCOP >would have been dependent on a network.
On the aircheck there's a feed from a reporter named George Berkeley in Berlin who does a customized feed for WCOP, even mentioning the sponsors.  There's an obvious edit when he does the lockout.  He was probably an NBC or AP reporter.  I know that by the mid-to-late 60's WCOP was an NBC affiliate.
>Has WCOP always been thought of as an "also ran"?  Did the public always>think of this station as a 'second rate' effort?>Yes.
>What was NAC, HDH and BZ Doing in '61?)
WNAC was your Companion Station, 68.  A full-service station with some MOR music and lots of talk shows (they ahd a 3-person morning show..Roy, Jim and Gus).  They considered switchng to Top 40 in the early 60's...a few years before they actually did.
WHDH was a big gun.  Your dial's alive at 85.  MOR music (The Chairman of the Board, Mr. Francis Albert Sinatra; Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme; Miss Nancy Wilson; Tony Bennett, etc). Jess Cain in the morning, Fred B. Cole in Midday, Alan Dary in the afternoon, Ken & Bill in the early evening (a live piano and organ duet), Red Sox games, and Norm Nathan doing "Sounds in the Night" from his comfortable but not overly ostentatious studio.
WBZ was Top. W (snap) BZ, Radio 103.  Top 40 but with a big news image.  Carl DeSuze in the morning, Dave Maynard in midday, Kevin O'Keefe in PM DRive, a talk show called Contact with Bob Nelson (later Bob Kennedy) in early evening, Bruce Bradley at night, and Jefferson Kaye doing Club JK overnight.  O'Keefe and Kaye were switched, with Kaye taking over PM Drive and the overnight becoming Club OK. Kevin disliked the move to overnights and left to become a traffic reporter.  he was replaced on BZ by Dick Summer.   
All the kids listened to WBZ.  I had a great big sound and you could take it 'round the town.  Their parents listened to WHDH.     
-Don Kelley