American Top 40 in the Boston market

[Shawn Mamros]

BZ's "The Spirit of New England" slogan long pre-dated 1987!  I know they were using it in the early 80s at least, and though I don't have the personal knowledge to back it up, I would think it would date back to the 1970s, if not before.  The 70s is when Westinghouse (aka Group W) was doing serious branding of their stations, with jingles galore.  I grew up in Pittsburgh and remember well what they did with KDKA ("Someplace Special" was their equivalent to "The Spirit of NE") at the time.  Somebody who lived up this way or who has more historical knowledge of BZ (Scott?) might be able to identify when "The Spirit of NE" started.


-Shawn

________________________________
From: ADAM WOLF <adamnw@aol.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 3, 2021 4:10 PM
To: Ron
Cc: boston-radio-interest@rolinin.bostonradio.org
Subject: Re: American Top 40 in the Boston market

This was on WBZ's Wikipedia page. Not that I believe everything I read. The time line looks correct. I think AT40 ended on WBZ late in 1990.

......" ,[57] but listener complaints[58] led the station to return Brudnoy to the air by the end of September.[59] It was also late in 1985 that American Top 40 moved to WBZ from WROR (98.5 FM, now WBZ-FM), remaining on WBZ for the rest of its years as a full-service AC station, around the same time WBZ's most famous slogan, "The Spirit of New England" (made famous by a 1987 JAM Creative Productions jingle package of the same name), was introduced."

Sent from my iPad

> On Mar 3, 2021, at 12:42 AM, Ron <obrienron2@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ?
> There was a thinking among some programmers that the show started to lose it's way with the ever growing striations of the Top 40/CHR formats.
>
> When AT40 started (on WMEX), it used Billboards Hot 100 to define the Top 40.  As time went on, the billboard chart became a mishmash of songs that didn't all sound right on a mainstream Top 40 station.
>
> I think Casey Kasem ended up using Cashbox's(?) chart for awhile...but as we went into the 80's many variations of radio formats and the goalposts for each station became narrower.  It made it hard to place the show.
>
> There was a week I was listening to the end of the show on WBZ, and the #1 song was "Angel in the Centerfold".  Sounded really strange on BZ.  Wasn't quite the most popular song on Kiss108 (which always leaned rhythmic), or WZOU.
>
> AT40 didn't exactly define what WZOU and Kiss108 sounded like at that time.
>
> My $.02
>
> R
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matthew Osborne <mattosborne1976@yahoo.com>
> Sent: Monday, March 1, 2021 6:09 PM
> To: boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
> Subject: American Top 40 in the Boston market
>
> This weekend something popped into my mind from the past that never made much sense to me.  Maybe someone on this list might have some more insight into it...In the Boston market, the show 'American Top 40 with Casey Kasem' used to run on WBZ 1030 from 1985 until sometime around 1991.  Why in the world did this run here and not on Kiss 108 or even WZOU during this time period?  Did Sunny Joe White and/or whoever programmed WZOU at the time not care for the show?  Everywhere else I came across the show during this time, it was on a CHR FM station except for Boston.
> If anyone has any inside knowledge on why this was please share.
> Matthew OsborneWest Sand Lake, NY
>
>