WEZE, WCOP and NBC

[A. Joseph Ross]

On 28 Jan 2008 at 21:31, Dan.Strassberg wrote:

> WNAC 680 was the NBC Radio affiliate, but IIRC, it was affiliated with
> another network as well and did not carry anything like the full NBC
> Radio schedule. Since we know that the other network couldn't have
> been CBS (because CBS was on its O&O, WEEI 590), it had to be either
> ABC (as I recall, there was still only one ABC Radio network) or
> Mutual. I think it was Mutual, but I'm not sure.

It was.  The Yankee Network was a Mutual affiliate and supplied 
Mutual programming to its affiliates.  WLLH was also an affiliate of 
the Yankee and Mutual networks at that time.  
 
> Now. was the Yankee Network still in existence in the summer of '56?
> WNAC had been a long-time Yankee affiliate (in fact, it had been the
> regional network's key station, as befitted the affiliate in the
> largest city of the region the network served). Like most Yankee
> affiliates, WNAC had carried Mutual as well. (Yankee was one of
> several regional networks that were more or less part of Mutual.) If
> WNAC remained a Yankee affiliate after becoming an NBC Radio
> affiliate, it would have had to continue carrying Yankee news because
> news was about the only programming--outside of the Mutual feed--that
> Yankee provided and was probably the ONLY programming that Yankee
> _originated_. My recollection is really fuzzy, but I think WNAC
> dropped Yankee news and replaced it with NBC Radio news, while
> continuing to carry Mutual's rntertainment product. 

If I remember correctly, WNAC carried both Yankee Network and NBC 
news, at different parts of the hour.  I don't remember whether they 
carried Mutual news at any point during the day.

> If so, and if Yankee continued to exist, it presumably moved (sans
> Mutual) to some other Boston station. WCOP? Dunno. The natural
> would have been WEZE 1260 (by then, I believe, the _former_ WVDA),
> which was the same facility that had been WNAC until around 1954,
> when General TeleRadio bought WLAW 680 and moved WNAC to the big
> 50-kW 680 spot. WEZE might have been the natural, but I don't think
> it did become the Yankee affiliate, although I'm far from sure. I'm
> quite sure, though, that it wasn't WHDH 850, which remained an
> independent as it always had been. 

At some point, around 1957 or 1958, I believe, NBC changed its 
affiliation to 1260.  I think it may still have been WVDA when it 
became an NBC affiliate, but it continued an NBC affiliate as WEZE.  
I think at some point, a couple of years later, WEZE dropped most NBC 
programming other than the news.  For some reason, though, they 
continued to carry Groucho Marx's "You Bet Your Life" as long as it 
remained on NBC radio.
 
> In that time frame (probably a little later) I seem to remember the
> radio networks doing something they had never done before: if they
> were unable to line up full-time stations as affiliates in major
> markets, they would take on daytimers just to be able to clear some
> network programming. That would have let WORL, WILD 1090, and WHIL
> 1430 into the game. It's even possible that, at some point, little
> WTAO 740 carried one of the national network news services for a short
> while.
 
WTAO was an ABC affiliate for a number of years in the late 50s 
and/or early 60s.  Occasionally some ABC evening programming may also 
have been carried on WXHR (FM).  By that time, ABC was mainly a news 
service, but Don McNeal's Breakfast Club was still around, as was an 
early-evening children's show called "The Story Princess" on Saturday 
or Sunday.  The Story Princess was Arlene Dalton, who earlier 
appeared in that role on the Howdy Doody Show during 1955-56.

-- 
A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                           617.367.0468
 92 State Street, Suite 700                   Fax 617.507.7856
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