WKLB Frequency Change?

[A. Joseph Ross]

On 7/10/2018 12:38 PM, Donna Halper wrote:

> On 7/10/2018 6:26 AM, Kevin Vahey wrote:
>> WEZE was in a good spot circa 1965 as 'The Wonderful World of Music' was
>> consistent and their major competitor was WHDH that tried to juggle 
>> music,
>> news and sports. NBC even dropped WEZE in favor of WCOP to get Monitor
>> cleared in Boston.  WBZ and WMEX fought for the younger audience with 
>> 1030 doing well in the
>> burbs and 1510 well in the city and the North Shore.
>
> And many of us who worked in Boston still remember walking past the 
> WEZE studios (street-level, Statler Office Building, in Park Square), 
> and watching the announcers on the air.

I remember doing that in the late '60s when I had a summer job in Park 
Square.

> Kevin wrote--
>> Donna - Have you ever looked into Kaiser/Globe's odd decision to have 3
>> separate offices and studios for TV, FM and AM?
>
> Bob Bitner might know something more about that.  It's been a while 
> since I did any research on Kaiser-Globe.  But as I recall, the 
> company made other puzzling decisions too. Kaiser was an Oakland CA 
> based firm, weren't they? And I do recall (vaguely) WKBG-TV going on 
> the air in late 1966.  It seems the company's execs weren't always 
> sure how to handle the various media properties they owned in Boston, 
> and evidently, they did not want to give the impression that they were 
> trying to consolidate them all into one unit-- this was, of course, 
> the era before media consolidation became popular. They also owned 
> individual properties on the west coast, including a TV station in Los 
> Angeles, and KFOG Radio in San Francisco.  Anyway, I'm fairly certain 
> they had separate GMs and even separate sales staff at their various 
> Boston properties. But I don't recall much more than that.

I don't understand that, since the properties were already one unit, as 
WXHR.  Circa 1965, WTAO 740 became WXHR, and 96,9 changed from WXHR to 
WXHR-FM.  This was an effort to compete with WCRB for the AM audience, 
but since 740 was a daytime-only station, they couldn't compete in 
evening drive-time for much of the year.  Channel 56 had been on for 
awhile in 1953 as WTAO-TV, but in the 1960s, when it was preparing to 
come back, it was running ads as WXHR-TV, though I'm not sure whether it 
ever got on the air with that call.

I think the separate locations and calls for the stations had to do with 
the branding they wanted to have.  As a community station for Cambridge 
and vicinity, WCAS had studios in Central Square, and the WJIB studios 
on the waterfront were because of the nautical image, supported by the 
WJIB call.  I think the TV station started out being at the FM and TV 
transmitter location in Woburn before the Morrissey Boulevard location.

-- 
A. Joseph Ross, J.D. · 1340 Centre Street, Suite 103 · Newton, MA 02459-2004
617.367.0468 · Fx: 617.507.7856 · http://www.attorneyross.com