Boston Globe Item on WERS LMA Proposal

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Sun, 09 Apr 2006 01:27:01 -0400, "A. Joseph Ross" <joe@attorneyross.com> said:

> Just what I'm thinking.  That trust was set up to keep WCRB 
> classical, and I don't think it's going to be that easy to break.  
> What I'm wondering is who has the right to enforce the trust and what 
> can GM do to get them to back off from doing so.  

That's a very interesting question.  Another question might be: who
are the trustees and beneficiaries?  I can't answer as to
beneficiaries (I've got some good guesses) but I can answer as to the
former, since it's a matter of public record which must be reported
every six months to the FCC.

Charles River Broadcasting WCRB License Corp. is owned by CRB Media,
Inc.  CRB Media is 100% owned by Charles River Broadcasting Company.
CRBC has outstanding 1,848 shares of voting common stock and 11,945
shares of non-voting common stock.  CRBC's President, Treasurer, and
Clerk, Christopher S. Jones, owns a 7.79% voting interest.  CRBC vice
president Dave MacNeill owns 0.27% (voting).  Susan Paine, a director
of CRBC, owns 6.17% (voting).  Richard L. Kaye, who has no difficulty
hearing WCRB at his home in Waban, owns or controls an 11.15% voting
stake, but his actual interest is not stated.

The Jones Trust owns 50.84% of CRBC.  That leaves about 24% of the
voting shares unaccounted for; none of the remaining owners are
company executives or directors (that would have to be reported), so
they must own individually less than 5%.  The non-voting shares don't
need to be reported to the FCC; I would not be surprised if the
interest the BSO is supposed to have in the company were non-voting.

The Jones Trust is identified in the FCC filing (BOA-20051122AAC for
those of you following at home) as follows:

BRADLEY R. COOK, MARY L. MARSHALL, CHRISTOPHER S. JONES, TRUSTEES,
THEODORE S. JONES TRUST - 1979, 1010 WALTHAM STREET, F-13, LEXINGTON,
MA 02173

This address is a unit at the "Brookhaven at Lexington" retirement
community.  Mr. Cook, or a person of the same name, appears to be an
attorney at Taylor, Ganson & Perrin.  I also see a Mary L. Marshall as
a lawyer, with an individual practice in Wellesley.  Believe it or
not, there are lots of Christopher S. Joneses; I found at least five,
none of whom were the CRB chief executive.  (I have heard that this
Jones, who IIRC is Ted's son, is to buy WCRI, but there's nothing in
the FCC filings about that yet.)

One of the other interesting people on the CRBC board, by the way, is
Herb McCord, who is also on the board of Beasley Broadcast Group, the
licensee of WRCA.  The name should ring a bell for another reason,
though: McCord was head honcho of Granum Communications, which owned
WBOS and the then WOAZ (99.5 Lowell), now in Greater Media's hands by
way of Infinity.  According to his bio, prior to starting Granum,
McCord was Group VP for radio at Greater Media.  He was also once PD
of WCBS-FM.

-GAWollman