REMEMBERING 'HIT RADIO' IN BOSTON, WHTT 103.3

[Don Juan]

How much did CBS lose in the mid 80s for it's decision to leave the softrock format it invented to go with the short-lived CHR format on its Boston FM? WMJX was a contemporized beautiful music with vocals when it began, but in a decision much like the JACK-FM move in New York decades later, they decided to kill off the more demographically appealing (at the time) WEEI-FM in favor of being the third Top 40 in a town..

WEEI-FM had it's time in the sun...a soft-rock AOR-ish station with a lot of unknown songs.

Over time they had more and more competition (WMJX-WSSH-WVBF-WROR) that filled the void with more popular songs. Although the formats were different, they filled the same need (mellow music for background, workplace, etc)....and suddenly a station playing the third unknown cut from a Cat Stevens or Alan Parsons Project album was cutting it while the other stations were soft popular hits.

WMJX was/is much more hip and has a much younger audience than they are given credit for. Are you thinking of WSSH which emerged from a Beautiful Music station?

WEEI-FM became the third top 40 because they were doing a "hot hits" format in a few markets and winning. And for awhile, they did very well here.

 

[elvisjock]

WMRQ "Q103," did not seem very interesting to me, and seemed like a step backwards with lots of grassy progressive rock songs, low production value, and low energy. Listeners agreed.

WMRQ was a completely different type of format. It was an early attempt at "AAA" ("Adult Album Alternative") that had nothing to do with CHR, Top 40, Hit Radio, etc... and it was aimed at a completely different (somewhat older) adult audience which it never really well developed before flipping to much more success with Oldies (WODS) in 1987. Though there was some good air talent on WMRQ, the format was not well executed, it didn't sound like the company put much initiative into WMRQ for programming or promotion during that period. Shortly after 103.3 flipped to Oldies in 1987, WBOS flipped from Country to "AAA" and had somewhat more success with it for a while.

The airstaff was instructed to present themselves as "hip musicologists." There were no jingles, and very little in the way of produced imaging. No talking over the music, front or back. No contests. An early slogan was "Music that's almost too good to be on the radio." New Age tracks and syndicated programming like Musical Starstreams and The Jazz Show with David Sanborn were featured.

The station earned barely a 1 share. It took more of an Adult AOR direction in the summer of '87, and some of the restrictions on the jocks were relaxed. Ironically, it sounded best that August and September, right before CBS blew it up. And when they did make the switch to Oldies, the majority of the talent was retained (Sandy Benson, Austin Davis, Rick Hunter, Mike Finegan, Jay Gordon, Gordon Hill, Dave Faneuf.)