WCOP circa 1961 aircheck

[A. Joseph Ross]

On 13 Mar 2005 at 2:22, Joseph Pappalardo wrote:

> 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.

I remember WCOP in 1957 to the summer of 1962, when it was a Top 40 station.  Since I 
lived in Bedford at the time, its signal was very strong on my radio, and it was the station 
most of us listened to, until it dropped the Top 40 format in the summer of 1962.
 
> I recall that in the late 70's 1150AM went thru numerous format
> changes...(Anyone remember WACQ?)

I remember that.  Back to the Top 40 format one more time.
 
> Was the signal always bad?

I don't know about downtown Boston, but in the mid-1980s, when they were WMEX, I found 
that I couldn't hear them at all in the Framingham area.
 
> 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.

In 1961, network radio was dying and provided mainly news.  A teenage Top 40 station 
doesn't really need anything more than five minutes of news per hour.  WCOP had its 
newscast five minutes before the hour, with news announcers who delivered the news in a 
shouting, Walter Winchell style.  Donna once told me that WCOP was an ABC affiliate at 
some point in the early 50s.  I remember that they were an NBC affiliate for awhile in the 
1970s.  
 
> HAs WCOP always been thought of as an "also ran"?  Did the public
> always think of this station as a 'second rate' effort?
 
I don't know about anywhere else, but at Bedford High, we never thought of it as a "second 
rate effort."  In fact, the WCOP DJs were the ones we most wanted at our record hops.

> With all that, I was suprised how good this aircheck was!  Pretty
> entertaining for 1961!  I can't imagine that WNAC was doing anything
> much better in 1961.  What was NAC, HDH and BZ Doing in '61?)

WNAC was playing Beautiful Music, with Yankee Network News on the hour.  WHDH was 
doing middle-of-the-road, with news on the half hour, and carried Red Sox baseball.  WBZ 
was doing pop music, including rock & roll, but with a somewhat more adult format that 
WCOP or WMEX, a lot of news around the dinner hour, and call-in talk later.

When WCOP changed formats in 1962, we were upset because there was no top-40 
programming to listen to after 10:00 on a local station.  WBZ and WMEX both had talk 
shows at that hour.  Some people listened to WPTR or WKBW on AM.  I had an FM radio 
and listened to WKBR in Manchester.
 
-- 
A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                           617.367.0468
 15 Court Square, Suite 210                 lawyer@attorneyross.com
Boston, MA 02108-2503           	         http://www.attorneyross.com