WROR/WBMX

[Eli Polonsky]

-----Original Message-----
>From: "A. Joseph Ross" <joe@attorneyross.com>
>Sent: Aug 9, 2007 12:15 AM
>To: Eli Polonsky <elipolo@earthlink.net>
>Cc: boston Radio Group <boston-radio-interest@rolinin.bostonradio.org>
>Subject: RE: WROR/WBMX
>
>On 8 Aug 2007 at 0:00, Eli Polonsky wrote:

> > #2): The original WMEX was always an AM station,
>> WROR was FM. For those who remember Boston radio, 
>> an FM revived as WROR seemed more "authentic" than 
>> reviving an AM-only call on an FM station. 
>
>I'm not impressed with this reason.  Plenty of call 
>letters have migrated from AM to FM, including WCRB 
>and WBOS.  An even better example is, several years 
>ago, when WPTR in Albany became WDCD, an FM station 
>in the area picked up the WPTR call letters... It 
>dropped them and 1540 resumed the calls.  Since then, 
>the format and calls were swapped with a co-owned FM.  
>So if the WPTR calls could migrate to FM, why not WMEX?

The WCRB and WBOS calls were on the air on FM while the
original AM's were still on the air. There was no gap
of time during which the calls were not on the air in
Boston, so the combination and eventual transition of 
the calls from AM to FM was uninterrupted and seamless
in the listeners perception.

By the time Greater Media put WROR on 105.7, there had
not been a WMEX on the air (playing oldies) in Boston 
for about seven years (Greater Medias 1150 incarnation)
and it was about twenty years since the demise of the
original 1510 WMEX, so there were big gaps of absence
in the public perception of those call letters.

The WPTR calls were brought back to the AM frequency
they had originally been on before they were directly
moved to FM. That gave "nostalgic" listeners a chance 
to find the call letters on AM where they once were,
and then follow them directly over to FM. That would
not have been the case if 105.7 had just become WMEX
out of the blue when the letters had never been on FM
before, and when they had also been absent from the AM 
band for a number of years as well.

EP