WCOP

[A Joseph Ross]

On 7/24/2011 7:37 AM, Doug Drown wrote:
> I don't remember WCOP from its Top 40 days, but I do remember it from 
> the mid-'60s to early '70s when it had a more-or-less full service 
> format and then, IIRC, country.  It had also picked up the local NBC
> affiliation after WEZE dropped it.  Plough owned the station the whole 
> time.
>
> Why did WEZE leave NBC?  The station went into oblivion after that.   
>   -Doug

I recall that WEZE left NBC in two stages.  The first stage, I think 
only a year or two after it affiliated with NBC, they dropped almost all 
NBC programming except the news on the hour.  That included most of 
Monitor, though for some reason they continued to run Groucho Marx's 
quiz show "You Bet Your Life,"  although I think by that time most 
people watched Groucho on television.  The second stage, a number of 
years later, was when it dropped the rest of the NBC programming.

As for why, one can only speculate.  According to the book /Say 
Goodnight, Gracie: The Last Years of Network Radio/, by Jim Cox (and not 
to be confused with another book of the same title about Burns and 
Allen), the networks in a way killed themselves by changing affiliate 
compensation so that it was much more lucrative for stations to run DJs 
with local ads than to carry network programs.  A lot of shows that 
still had good ratings were dropped because of affiliate demands.  By 
the end of the 1950s, WEEI was the only network affiliate in the Boston 
area that carried much of the network schedule, and that was undoubtedly 
because it was CBS-owned and operated.

-- 
A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                     617.367.0468
92 State Street, Suite 700          Fax: 617.507.7856
Boston, MA 02109-2004     http://www.attorneyross.com