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Bygone Stations/Formats/DJs/Etc

Oldbones said:
I don't ever remember 'BZ-FM being live except for occasional specialty shows.
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They did carry live newscasts from the AM which clumsily switched over to simulcast for the 5 minute simulcast....and sometimes didn't switch back for awhile as intended.

Also, they had a live Saturday Morning talk show with Ken Shelton called "Talk to the People" for "Jr High and HS Students". (Interesting enough they used the same call-in number as the AM.....was it 254-5678? because of that I assumed it was being done from the AM talk studio.)
 
Wimmmex said:
When they had a conflict on AM....sometimes they'd switch a PBP sports game to the FM.
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What teams did WBZ(AM) have during the years we're discussing? Bruins and Patriots for sure, right? I know the Red Sox were never on 'BZ radio (although they were on Channel 4 for a while). How about the Celtics?
 
CTListener said:
What teams did WBZ(AM) have during the years we're discussing? Bruins and Patriots for sure, right? I know the Red Sox were never on 'BZ radio (although they were on Channel 4 for a while). How about the Celtics?
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The Celtics were on WBZ from 1969 through 1981, while the Bruins were on WBZ from 1969 through 1978.
When the Celtics and Bruins played games at the same time, the Celtics were heard on WBZ-FM, which was at 106.7 on the dial.
 
LetsShakeOnIt said:
What stations or formats that have gone by the wayside do you miss ?
I know WBCN and WFNX are at the top of everyone's lists, but I guess there's no way stations like those would succeed or come back in this environment and if they did they would be ultra sanitized versions of their old selves.
I know there are other subtle things we all miss.
Turning on Kiss 108 at 12 Noon every Saturday
The Open House Party with John Garabedian on Kiss on Saturday nights
WBZ 1030 AM playing Christmas music on location from Downtown Crossing
Maynard in the Morning on BZ, WBZ 1030 AM was a powerhouse in the 80s
WCOZ?
The old WZOU
The ill fated MIKE FM which I enjoyed its first year or so.
96.9 WTKK, a station that I think was taking a real chance in this market
But the one I miss the most if Eagle 93.7, the all 70s station from like 1993-1999. I loved it. The playlist was great.

Just my 2 cents. I know "remember when " is the lowest form of conversation but, it's Friday and I'm lonely and bored.
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WCGY had a wide oldies playlist which caused a lot of "oh yeah!" reactions when you heard "Evil Woman" by Crow or "Will You Be Staying After Sunday?" by the Peppermint Rainbow.
 
leegart3 said:
WCGY had a wide oldies playlist which caused a lot of "oh yeah!" reactions when you heard "Evil Woman" by Crow or "Will You Be Staying After Sunday?" by the Peppermint Rainbow.
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"Had" is the operative word. "Oh, yeah" reactions or not, a playlist with that many deep tracks, especially an Oldies station, had to be near the bottom of the ratings ... which means little or no ad revenue.
 
I remember WBOS 92.9 in 1992 with a AAA format (rock without the hard edge). I was in Boston for about five days with my boombox and blank cassettes recording for hours sometimes. I wish I had those tapes now. Also remember Kiss FM 107.9 was throwing in some late 70’s/early 80’s disco- maybe it was a trend back then.
 
K.M. Richards said:
"Had" is the operative word. "Oh, yeah" reactions or not, a playlist with that many deep tracks, especially an Oldies station, had to be near the bottom of the ratings ... which means little or no ad revenue.
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I believe it was an automated station running a syndicated format, IIRC. And a rimshotter to boot. I remember listening to it on my summer job in 1974.
 
CTListener said:
I believe it was an automated station running a syndicated format, IIRC. And a rimshotter to boot. I remember listening to it on my summer job in 1974.
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In 1974 WCGY was "The Rock Garden", automated Top 40 (with some popular album tracks mixed in), throughout most of the '70s, but their Oldies period that the poster above mentioned was in the early '80s, and they had a fully live airstaff for that.
At first they called the Oldies format "Blue Suede Radio" as it started with mostly '50s and early '60s oldies for a short time, then soon added later '60s and early '70s oldies.

The ratings were never great with the rimshot signal (then transmitting from Andover), but it had some listenership because it was Boston's only Oldies station at the time. Their only Boston Oldies competition in the early '80s was some of the music still on the original WROR 98.5, which had by then given up on the full-time "Golden Great 98" Oldies format they had in the '70s and was by then an AC/Oldies mix.

Toward the mid-'80s WCGY morphed the Oldies format into a tighter Classic Hits format (called "SuperHits" for a short time) with some current hits that fit in, which ended up becoming more of a Classic Rock format later in the '80s with air personalities including former WBCN DJ Jerry "Duke of Madness" Goodwin, but it couldn't get very competitive Boston ratings against the powerful up-and-coming WZLX with its full-power centrally located Prudential Tower transmitter.

In the mid-'90s the 93.7 transmitter was moved from Andover to Peabody, as close to Boston as they legally could on the frequency, when it was by then '70s hits WEGQ "The Eagle".
 
Eli Polonsky said:
In 1974 WCGY was "The Rock Garden", automated Top 40 (with some popular album tracks mixed in), throughout most of the '70s, but their Oldies period that the poster above mentioned was in the early '80s, and they had a fully live airstaff for that.
At first they called the Oldies format "Blue Suede Radio" as it started with mostly '50s and early '60s oldies for a short time, then soon added later '60s and early '70s oldies.

The ratings were never great with the rimshot signal (then transmitting from Andover), but it had some listenership because it was Boston's only Oldies station at the time. Their only Boston Oldies competition in the early '80s was some of the music still on the original WROR 98.5, which had by then given up on the full-time "Golden Great 98" Oldies format they had in the '70s and was by then an AC/Oldies mix.

Toward the mid-'80s WCGY morphed the Oldies format into a tighter Classic Hits format (called "SuperHits" for a short time) with some current hits that fit in, which ended up becoming more of a Classic Rock format later in the '80s with air personalities including former WBCN DJ Jerry "Duke of Madness" Goodwin, but it couldn't get very competitive Boston ratings against the powerful up-and-coming WZLX with its full-power centrally located Prudential Tower transmitter.

In the mid-'90s the 93.7 transmitter was moved from Andover to Peabody, as close to Boston as they legally could on the frequency, when it was by then '70s hits WEGQ "The Eagle".
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The summer job I had was in an office in Chelsea, and even from Andover, WCGY had a solid signal there. I lost track of the station after leaving the Boston area in the late '70s, and only listened occasionally after that on visits, so I guess I missed the fully staffed oldies format.
 
CTListener said:
The summer job I had was in an office in Chelsea, and even from Andover, WCGY had a solid signal there. I lost track of the station after leaving the Boston area in the late '70s, and only listened occasionally after that on visits, so I guess I missed the fully staffed oldies format.
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Chelsea could have been just north enough of Boston to get a clear air path from Andover. In Boston proper, it suffered from intermodulation interference from all the Pru transmitters, and multipath distortion from signal blockage from all the buildings. South and far west of Boston, it was just weaker than the Boston proper stations.
 
RockTheRadio said:
I remember WBOS 92.9 in 1992 with a AAA format (rock without the hard edge). I was in Boston for about five days with my boombox and blank cassettes recording for hours sometimes. I wish I had those tapes now. Also remember Kiss FM 107.9 was throwing in some late 70’s/early 80’s disco- maybe it was a trend back then.
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Kiss 108 signed on as a disco station in January 1979, so its roots were in disco. It segued to CHR/pop throughout 1981 but generally still kept a bit of a dance/rhythmic lean through the 80s and first half of the 90s (until John Ivey took over in late 1994, then it was downhill for quite a while), generally playing a lot of those "Kiss classics" as gold. Kiss 108's original MD and subsequent long-term PD was Sunny Joe White. Sunny had actually parted ways with Kiss at the end of 1990 and moved over to 94.5 WZOU by spring 1991. He became the PD of WZOU in July 1991 through July 1992. So, if you were in Boston prior to August 1992, WZOU would've actually been playing even more 70s disco/80s dance (Kiss classics) than Kiss was at the time.
 
LetsShakeOnIt said:
What stations or formats that have gone by the wayside do you miss ?
I know WBCN and WFNX are at the top of everyone's lists, but I guess there's no way stations like those would succeed or come back in this environment and if they did they would be ultra sanitized versions of their old selves.
I know there are other subtle things we all miss.
Turning on Kiss 108 at 12 Noon every Saturday
The Open House Party with John Garabedian on Kiss on Saturday nights
WBZ 1030 AM playing Christmas music on location from Downtown Crossing
Maynard in the Morning on BZ, WBZ 1030 AM was a powerhouse in the 80s
WCOZ?
The old WZOU
The ill fated MIKE FM which I enjoyed its first year or so.
96.9 WTKK, a station that I think was taking a real chance in this market
But the one I miss the most if Eagle 93.7, the all 70s station from like 1993-1999. I loved it. The playlist was great.

Just my 2 cents. I know "remember when " is the lowest form of conversation but, it's Friday and I'm lonely and bored.
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Friend of mine worked at the Eagle; I have a couple of t-shirts and a note written on station letterhead. The t-shirts are in storage and the note is in my desk drawer. He was paying his way through grad school.
 
LetsShakeOnIt said:
But the one I miss the most if Eagle 93.7, the all 70s station from like 1993-1999. I loved it. The playlist was great.

Just my 2 cents. I know "remember when " is the lowest form of conversation but, it's Friday and I'm lonely and bored.
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I have some Eagle swag somewhere in storage. Friend of mine worked there; paid his way through grad school.
 
Worcester's 100FM The Pike (WWFX-FM) basically became the new WAAF. Everything that was WAAF moved to The Pike including the music, Mike Hsu (morning drive) and Mistress Carrie (afternoon drive). If you go back far enough, you remember Bob and Zip doing morning drive back in the 80s. Bob and Zip did a Saturday afternoon show from noon to 4 (The Morning Show That Starts At Noon) for the last several years. As Bob passed away last year, it's now hosted solely by Zip.
 
WMC2006 said:
Worcester's 100FM The Pike (WWFX-FM) basically became the new WAAF. Everything that was WAAF moved to The Pike including the music, Mike Hsu (morning drive) and Mistress Carrie (afternoon drive). If you go back far enough, you remember Bob and Zip doing morning drive back in the 80s. Bob and Zip did a Saturday afternoon show from noon to 4 (The Morning Show That Starts At Noon) for the last several years. As Bob passed away last year, it's now hosted solely by Zip.
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Only problem is that its signal is pretty weak if you aren't in a specific area of Worcester County
 


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