Sports radio in the 1930s

[Dave Doherty]

I wonder how many of those stations still exist, and how many are at their 
original sites...

-d

-----Original Message----- 
From: Garrett Wollman
Sent: Saturday, October 29, 2011 6:11 PM
To: bri@bostonradio.org
Subject: Sports radio in the 1930s


I found the following advertisement in /Broadcasting/ magazine, April
15, 1939:

New England's Largest Sports Audience

For vivid descriptive accounts of baseball, racing, football,
hockey and other sports, direct from the scene of action, New
England sports fans listen to The Colonial Network.  These
broadcasts command the largest sports audiences in New
England.

Baseball is first in popularity.  Coincidental telephone
surveys show that The Colonial Network's play-by-play
broadcasts of American and National League games have by far
the largest afternoon audience of any New England radio
feature.  This year, with Frankie Frisch, former major league
manager, announcing, the Colonial stations are sure to
increase this tremendous following.

The broadcast of the first race direct from Suffolk Downs,
Rockingham Park or Narragansett is second only to the baseball
broadcast in the size of its daily audience.

The Colonial Network covers every important professional,
collegiate and amateur sports event, from a wrestling bout
at the Arena to the swimming meet at Harvard---gives the New
England audience its ports news /as it happens/, completely,
expertly, entertainingly.

Here is a ready-made audience, from all income groups, whose
size and loyalty offer rich sales possibilities.  Only through
The Colonial Network can you reach this audience.  It makes
seventeen important markets immediately accessible, a larger
productive sales territory than can be reached through any
other medium at equally low cost.

At this time, Colonial was heard on WAAB (Boston), WEAN (Providence),
WICC (Bridgeport and New Haven), WTHT (Hartford), WNLC (New London),
WSAR (Fall River), WSPR (Springfield), WHAI (Greenfield), WBRK
(Pittsfield), WLBZ (Bangor), WFEA (Manchester), WLLH (Lowell and
Lawrence), WNBH (New Bedford), WATR (Waterbury), WLNH (Laconia), WRDO
(Augusta), and WCOU (Lewiston and Auburn).

-GAWollman