Sports radio in the 1930s

[Kevin Vahey]

Nice overview of Colonial here - it was simply Shepard trying to do what
NBC had done with the Red and Blue networks.

http://books.google.com/books?id=tpxGeViyuPwC&lpg=PA103&ots=b2NkropJSE&dq=Colonial%20Network%20radio&pg=PA103#v=onepage&q&f=false

I am curious

WAAB was on 1440 in Boston as well and it can be traced back to WLEX in
Lexington.

Now did WAAB use the treansmitter site now used by 1150 (WWDJ but for
decades was WCOP)?

WCOP went fulltime in 1941 and that is at the same time WAAB moved to
Worcester.



On Sat, Oct 29, 2011 at 6:11 PM, Garrett Wollman <wollman@bimajority.org>wrote:

> 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
>
>