WCOP

[Dan.Strassberg]

1956 certainly sounds reasonable for when Plough acquired WCOP, though
I think it could have been a couple of years earlier. IIRC, Plough (or
at least Plough Broadcasting--maybe not the entire pharmaceutical
company) was headquartered in Atlanta, where the O&O was WPLO (AM 590,
IIRC). Another Plough station was WMPS 680 Menphis. There were more
than three stations but I am drawing a blank on the others. Quite
possibly, one of them was WJJD 1160 in Chicago (then a limited-time
station, albeit one that ran 50 kW, but it had to sign off at sunset
in Salt Lake City). Plough might also have owned 1150 in Los Angeles,
but that's a pure guess on my part. Still, I think the group consisted
of five stations and all were programmed alike--very tightly formatted
top-40 with just the slightest whiff of personality DJs. Except for
the call letters, all of the Plough stations used the same jingle
package.

Interestingly, one of WCOP's DJs was Bill Marlowe--before he got the
m-u-s-i-c not n-o-i-s-e religion. In an ugly episode that probably
helped Marlowe to change musical religions, he hosted a record hop in
MIT's Rockwell Cage. Before the show, he exhorted his hoodlum
listeners to turn out en masse and also exhorted them to "wear a tie;
look collegiate." An ugly rumble ensued, in which an MIT sudent was
killed. I'm pretty sure that all of this happened before I got to
Cambridge in June of 1956, but people were still talking about it
after I arrived. Around that time, WBZ switched from a mostly network
format to locally programmed MOR. I think the DJs were collectively
called the Live Five and, IIRC, they consisted of De Suze in AM drive,
Maynard 9:00AM to 11:00AM, Marlowe 1:00PM to 3:00PM, Prescott PM
drive, John Bassett 6:00PM to 8:00PM. Leo Egan (best known as a news
guy), held down a DJ slot, I believe from 11:00AM to 1:00PM. I
remember a little of his theme jingle, which began with "Here comes
that Irish fella." Note that I have listed six members of the Live
Five, so my memory is clearly not completely accurate. Anyhow, after
Bassett, I've lost track. At 'BZ, Marlow played m-u-s-i-c and made
much of it, but he didn't stay long at BZ. (Who could stand working
with him?) IIRC, his next stop was either WHN in its beautiful music
incarnation or WNAC. At WNAC, he hosted the evening show, Music from
Studio X, which Gereral Tire had imported from co-owned WOR.

-----
Dan Strassberg (dan.strassberg@att.net)
eFax 1-707-215-6367

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Donna Halper" <dlh@donnahalper.com>
To: "Thomas Heathwood" <HeritageRadio@msn.com>
Cc: "boston-radio-interest"
<boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2011 2:57 AM
Subject: Re: WCOP


> On 7/23/2011 1:27 AM, Thomas Heathwood wrote:
>> When I was a junior program assistant/announcer trainee at WCOP in
>> the 1947-50 era, the station was owned by Plough, Inc.
>>
>
> Yes.  WCOP had an interesting history.  As Garrett noted, the CP
> said the calls were supposed to be WMFH but Joseph Kirby had trouble
> with the financing, plus he was in poor health, and by the time the
> station got on the air, he was either dead or at death's door; the
> call letters assigned by that time were WCOP, for the Copley Plaza
> Hotel.  Arde Bulova bought it in February 1937, from Mr Kirby's
> widow.  Bulova owned it till October 1944, when Iowa Broadcasting
> (later known as Cowles Broadcasting) bought it.
>
> But my record differ from yours, Tom.  WCOP was sold again several
> more times-- and yes, Plough absolutely owned it, but I don't have
> the ownership in the late 1940s-- my records say Plough bought the
> station after it was briefly owned by the soon to be defunct Boston
> Post newspaper. Plough purchased it from the Post in May 1956.