"It's the programming, stupid!"

[Jim Hall]

I grew up in "Meffa", and WHIL was the hometown station. Back in the days
when radio stations carried public service programming, WHIL broadcast
several weekly programs of interest to Medford.  They had a quiz show for
area high school students on Sundays, for example. I was one of the
representatives for my high school one time (we lost to the Medford High
School team) and got to visit the studios at 99 RBP.

 

George Fennell may have gotten his start at WHIL (he seemed to be the
announcer for most of the broadcast day) before moving on to "5 all night".
I always thought he had a great voice. 

 

An ID that WHIL used was "WHIL Medford.In the Air.Everywhere over Boston".
But the FCC cracked down on stations doing things like that in a protracted
legal battle with KABL Oakland (they used "in the air, everywhere, over San
Francisco"). The FCC seemed to think at the time that KABL was trying to
identify with the larger market across the bay rather than the city they
were licensed to serve. A far cry from today I'd say.  WHIL dropped the
"over Boston" part of the ID as a result of this.

 

From: Kevin Vahey [mailto:kvahey@gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2012 11:36 AM
To: Jim Hall
Cc: boston-radio-interest@tsornin.bostonradio.org
Subject: Re: "It's the programming, stupid!"

 

One reason why WHIL-FM limped along with country was that at night WCOP
(1150) could not be heard north of Revere. 

 

The old WHIL-AM had one show with a huge audience in the late afternoon -
the racing results from Suffolk Downs or Rockingham. The race results was a
big deal in the 50's and 60's as that is how the 'street number' was
calculated before the state lottery came to be. The old Record-American also
printed 2 editions based on the horse results - the 7 Races and Payoff
edition.

On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 10:39 AM, Jim Hall <aerie.ma@comcast.net> wrote:

Was the former WHIM in Providence (1110 AM) co-owned with WHIL during the
country music years? They also programmed country music and given the
similarity in the call letters I am wondering if they had the same
ownership. I vaguely remember reading that the reason WHIL went country was
that it had been successful in Providence for WHIM.



From: Kevin Vahey [mailto:kvahey@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2012 9:15 AM
To: Jim Hall
Cc: boston-radio-interest@tsornin.bostonradio.org

Subject: Re: "It's the programming, stupid!"



The wiki history says the switch from WHIL country to WWEL happened in late
1972 which is how I remember it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WXKS-FM


WWEL tried to make a big splash with quadraphonic sound which went nowhere.



On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 8:24 AM, Jim Hall <aerie.ma@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> It was still WHIL-FM at the time, with the FM antenna still in Medford, so
> it didn't get out as far as WXKS-FM does now from the Pru.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org
> [mailto:boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org] On Behalf
Of
> Bob DeMattia
> Sent: Monday, May 21, 2012 7:53 AM
> To: boston-radio-interest@tsornin.bostonradio.org
> Subject: Re: "It's the programming, stupid!"
>
> >
> >
> > * 107.9 still country*
> >
>
>
> I recall 107.9 was WWEL trying to complete against WJIB with beautiful
> music. I don't ever remember it being country.
>
>
> To make the picture more complete, you could also add the dozens of local
> /1kw stations like WJDA and WESX  that are now satellite fed and/or
> brokered.  These stations may never have been tops in the ratings but in
> local communities, their ratings were pretty good.
>
>
> -Bob
>
>
>
>
> >
>