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Boston CHR Wars History

A

AM-FM-DXer

I posted a similar thread on the NYC board and was thrilled with the detailed responses, so I am going to post the same for Boston. I know of two times where there were dueling CHR/Pop stations in Boston - the 2010s, which featured Kiss vs. Amp and the late 1980s to early 1990s, which featured Kiss vs. WZOU. Regarding Kiss and WZOU, does anyone know how long 'ZOU was CHR? I remember that they flipped to Rhythmic and became Jamn around April 1993.

Prior to Kiss and Jamn, was there ever a time that Boston had two CHR/Pop stations?
 
AM-FM-DXer said:
I posted a similar thread on the NYC board and was thrilled with the detailed responses, so I am going to post the same for Boston. I know of two times where there were dueling CHR/Pop stations in Boston - the 2010s, which featured Kiss vs. Amp and the late 1980s to early 1990s, which featured Kiss vs. WZOU. Regarding Kiss and WZOU, does anyone know how long 'ZOU was CHR? I remember that they flipped to Rhythmic and became Jamn around April 1993.

Prior to Kiss and Jamn, was there ever a time that Boston had two CHR/Pop stations?
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Generally speaking, you will find that most markets had CHR battles of two or more Top 40 stations dating back to the rise of the format in the mid to late 50s. The days of one single CHR per market is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Like NYC, many larger markets had 3 or 4 CHRs at one time, especially as the format peaked in the 80s (and before formats like Hot AC and Rhythmic Top 40 developed into their own.) In Boston, it was WXKS, WZOU and 103.3 WHTT battling it out at once in the mid 80s... WZOU jumped into the battle in October 1984, WHTT bowed out in 1986.

In the mid 70s, Boston had WRKO and WMEX on AM and WVBF on FM.... with WMEX having faced challengers in WBZ and WCOP at times in the 50s and 60s.
 
WHTT was the former WEEI-FM, which had been like an early Hot AC format in the early 1980s. It transitioned to CHR/pop in fall 1982 and adopted the moniker "Hit Radio 103-FM." It changed call letters from WEEI-FM to WHTT in March 1983. It later adopted the moniker "Power 103-FM." I think that was in 1986 before it dropped the format around the end of June or early July 1986.

WZOU floundered quite a bit in the 1980s. It wasn't until Steve Rivers came to Boston from KIIS-FM to be PD at WZOU in November 1989 that it really took off and beat Kiss for the first time in 1990. At the beginning of 1990, Steve Rivers would cross the street to Kiss. Former Kiss PD, Sunny Joe White, would eventually join WZOU in April 1991 on-air and would take over PD reigns from Steve Perun in July 1991 (after a mere six months for him).

WZOU became CHR/rhythmic in April 1993. The only real change was that they dropped non-rhythmic songs from their existing playlist and stopped day-parting most songs (especially rap). They adopted the "Jam'n" moniker in May 1993. They finally changed call letters to WJMN in June 1993.

[Edited a few typos.]
 
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And WHTT zoomed straight to the top.... for one book, and it was all downhill from there.

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Huff said:
In the mid 70s, Boston had WRKO and WMEX on AM and WVBF on FM.... with WMEX having faced challengers in WBZ and WCOP at times in the 50s and 60s.
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The original WMEX gave up on music in the mid '70s.

The original WBZ-FM 106.7 (pre-WMJX "Magic") was also somewhat popular with Top 40 (and some album tracks) in the '70s, though often automated.
 
Huff said:
Like NYC, many larger markets had 3 or 4 CHRs at one time, especially as the format peaked in the 80s (and before formats like Hot AC and Rhythmic Top 40 developed into their own.) In Boston, it was WXKS, WZOU and 103.3 WHTT battling it out at once in the mid 80s... WZOU jumped into the battle in October 1984, WHTT bowed out in 1986.
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In 1985 Boston also briefly had 100.7 WKKT "The Cat".
 
MikeyBos said:
WHTT was the former WEEI-FM, which had been like an early Hot AC format in the early 1980s. It transitioned to CHR/pop in fall 1982 and adopted the moniker "Hit Radio 103-FM." It changed call letters from WEEI-FM to WHTT in March 1983. It later adopted the moniker "Power 103-FM." I think that was in 1986 before it dropped the format around the end of June or early July 1986.

WZOU floundered quite a bit in the 1980s. It wasn't until Steve Rivers came to Boston from KIIS-FM to be PD at WZOU in November 1989 that it really took off and beat Kiss for the first time in 1990. At the beginning of 1990, Steve Rivers would cross the street to Kiss. Former Kiss PD, Sunny Joe White, would eventually join WZOU in April 1991 on-air and would take over PD reigns from Steve Perun in July 1991 (after a mere six months for him).

WZOU became CHR/rhythmic in April 1993. The only real change was that they dropped non-rhythmic songs from their existing playlist and stopped day-parting most songs (especially rap). They adopted the "Jam'n" moniker in May 1993. They finally changed call letters to WJMN in June 1993.

[Edited a few typos.]
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How long was Sunny Joe White at WZOU? I don't remember him there in the early 1990s. The first jocks I can remember on WZOU were Karen Blake, Human Numan, and Tom Jefferies. I think the legendary JoJo Kincaid was the last afternoon driver on WZOU before it became Jamn. JoJo stayed on with Jamn for a while after the flip.
 
AM-FM-DXer said:
How long was Sunny Joe White at WZOU? I don't remember him there in the early 1990s. The first jocks I can remember on WZOU were Karen Blake, Human Numan, and Tom Jefferies. I think the legendary JoJo Kincaid was the last afternoon driver on WZOU before it became Jamn. JoJo stayed on with Jamn for a while after the flip.
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Sunny Joe White was fired at the end of July 1992 (certain about this) following a station concert at City Hill Plaza that resulted in some violence (IIRC). The ratings were also pretty steadily decreasing throughout his tenure as PD. He took the station to the brink of CHR/rhythmic by spring 1992, but not quite there, while playing a lot of those so-called "Kiss classics" that had been staples on Kiss 108 during his tenure at that station.
 
This is kind of on the same topic, but maybe not completely. Does anyone know the history of American Top 40 airing in the Boston area? I know that WBZ carried it for awhile in the late 80s, and then I think it moved to 94.5 WZOU. And there was a period of time when Shadoe Stevens was doing American Top 40 and Casey Kasem was doing Casey's Top 40 under Westwood One. I remember it aired on 92 Pro FM, but did it ever air on any Boston station? I think AT40 with Shadoe Stevens aired on Kiss 108 until it got cancelled in 1995, and then they switched to Rick Dees.
 
ssetta said:
This is kind of on the same topic, but maybe not completely. Does anyone know the history of American Top 40 airing in the Boston area? I know that WBZ carried it for awhile in the late 80s, and then I think it moved to 94.5 WZOU. And there was a period of time when Shadoe Stevens was doing American Top 40 and Casey Kasem was doing Casey's Top 40 under Westwood One. I remember it aired on 92 Pro FM, but did it ever air on any Boston station? I think AT40 with Shadoe Stevens aired on Kiss 108 until it got cancelled in 1995, and then they switched to Rick Dees.
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I don't believe AT40 during the Shadoe Stevens aired in Boston...at least not in the 90s. Possibly it aired earlier on in the late 80s.

By the 90s, WZOU was definitely airing Casey's Top 40 and continued to do so until roughly the end of 1993, after the switch to WJMN. A local feature that also continued from the WZOU days through the end of 1993 was Sunday Night Club Classics with Vinnie Peruzzi. The "new" CHR/rhythmic format was definitely evolving as WJMN moved into 1994.

As far as Kiss goes, they were not airing AT40 with Shadoe in the 90s either. They were already airing Rick Dees and the Weekly Top 40 well before 1995. Living on the North Shore at the time, the only station I remember being able to hear AT40 with Shadoe, during its last few years, was 107.1 WERZ from Portsmouth, NH.
 
My memory of AT40 was on WCGY-93.7 in the late 70s and 80s.
 
I think a lot of different stations aired AT40 for a few years and then gave up on it. I know this because Casey would always mention some of the stations the show was aired on. I know it was on WCOD, WCAV, WROR and WFTQ, but all at different times.
 
Huff said:
In the mid 70s, Boston had WRKO and WMEX on AM and WVBF on FM.... with WMEX having faced challengers in WBZ and WCOP at times in the 50s and 60s.
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In the early '70s WMEX made a run against WRKO with John Garabedian as PD and afternoon drive. John introduced some innovations such as a commercial free 5-6 PM hour on weekdays (introduced with a clip from "Silence is Golden" by the Tremeloes). At the time Bill Drake was consulting WRKO, and I was once told that Drake came to Boston to personally tweak WRKO to prevent erosion of listeners to WMEX. I might have been told that by Garabedian in the late '80s or early '90s when I was CE at a big CHR that carried his Open House Party. IIRC John gave me a private number at Superadio, and I know I talked with him a number of times.
 


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