Spanish, Asian and Irish - All in One

[jdlistener]

For all the posts speculating as to a new Spanish station in the market, I've heard little about 950 WROL. Until recently they've serviced a wide variety of cultures: they carry the Spanish Red Sox broadcast, they air "China Drive," an afternoon Asian hour, and Irish music and information throughout the week and weekends. Now it seems they air Spanish music at night - I don't know how long that has been in place.

It may be that some of the under-served cultures, like Eastern European or Balkan, may not have enough of a population to merit a full time frequency. But they are assuredly here in Boston, and it would be nice if they had a little niche program they can tune into. Maybe this fractionalizing is the way to go.

Whatever WROL is doing, it can't be all bad, because they're still going along, and I remember the station as being around since at least the Gus Saunders days, and probably well before. Despite their long history, it seems they are not afraid to change with the times.

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

WROL's history can be traced back decades under different owners and call letters.

As WORL at 920 (moving to 950 as the result of the 1941 NARBA agreement), they were a daytimer that was, as far as I know, the first Boston-area station (in the late 1930's) to devote the majority of it's broadcast day to disc jockeys playing popular music ("The 920 Club", later "The 950 Club"). This format was resumed when WORL returned to the air in 1950 (the previous year, the then owners of the station lost their license for some sort of impropriety, and the FCC ordered them off the air and invited applicants for a new station on 950).

During the 1940's, WORL's music and DJ approach actually competed quite successfully in the daytime hours against the city's network radio stations.

Although WORL's "glory days" ended around 1946 (I believe it was that year when the old WHDH-850 boosted power, decided on a similar music and DJ's format, acquired the Red Sox broadcasts, and became enormously popular), it still retained this format until the early 1960's.

I heard that around 1964 and 1965, WORL actually went Top-40 and had a great team of young personalities, although it's daytime status prevented it from truly competing for the Top-40 audience against WBZ-1030 and the old WMEX-1510.

Since 1966 or so, the station (renamed WRYT in 1966 and becoming WROL around 1977) has been mostly religious.

It's night signal is only 90 watts, but given it's transmitter location in a marshy swamp in Saugus, those 90 watts generally cover everything inside Route 128. The 5,000-watt daytime signal is quite strong throughout almost all of Eastern Massachusetts.

 

[DanStrassberg]

>
> It's night signal is only 90 watts, but given it's
> transmitter location in a marshy swamp in Saugus, those 90
> watts generally cover everything inside Route 128. The
> 5,000-watt daytime signal is quite strong throughout almost
> all of Eastern Massachusetts.
>
WROL has applied to change its COL to Revere, add two towers at its Saugus transmitter site, and increase its night power to 5 kW-DA. There would be no change in the daytime operation. The night pattern is basically all that can be done on 950--a single lobe to the southeast with radiation suppressed around the other 240 degrees, almost identical to the night patterns of co-owned WTTT and the station that diplexes with WTTT, WAZN 1470. The difference, of course, is that Boston lies to the southeast of the WTTT/WAZN site and the Atlantic Ocean lies to the southeast of the WROL site. WROL probably will have an excellent night signal in Provincetown, which is kind of ironic considering who lives in Provincetown and that, to accommodate Sean Hannity on WTTT, Dr Laura is reportedly about to move to WROL at night ;>) Actually, despite its 37 mV/m NIF contour, which will run just off the Boston shoreline, WROL is likely to have an excellent night signal in downtown Boston, Dorchester, Mattapan, Quincy, Braintree, and Weymouth, as well as in a bunch of communities on the North Shore. I think 37 mV/m is an unusually pessimistic estimate of WROL's interference-free coverage. I can get the station just fine almost every night in Arlington Heights, where the 90W ND night signal must be well under 1 mV/m.

Another interesting fact about the WROL transmitter site is that before WHDH (AM) moved to Needham in 1947 or 1948, the Saugus site belonged to WHDH. It's really a fantastic AM site because of the salt-water path to so much of the market. When WHDH used the site, it ran 5 kW DA-N. The night signal was nulled to the west to protect KOA. Despite being directional to the east at night from a site east of Boston, WHDH's night signal in downtown Boston must have been just about as good as the present 50-kW signal from Needham.

As for WROL's programming, the station has been owned for at least 10 years by Christian Broadcaster Salem Communications, which also owns WEZE and WTTT in this market and about 100 other stations nationwide. Salem has a long history of financial success with brokered-time AM stations. When Salem bought WROL for a surprisingly high price--considering that it is technically a daytimer--most of the brokered-time programming on its stations was religious, and I think that the plan was to dump the Irish Hour. However, Salem management is nothing if not pragmatic and they quickly overcame their anti-Catholic bias (both of the company's founders are alumni of the notoriously anti-Catholic Bob Jones University in South Carolina). The Irish Hour has been a huge financial success for Salem and for a while, WROL was home to a talk show hosted by a famous Boston Catholic, Ray Flynn. Even though Salem management is solidly ultra-right Republican and Flynn is a Democrat, Flynn's conservative social views fit very well with those of Salem's religious-Right listener base.

 

[JustinT]

> As for WROL's programming, the station has been owned for at
> least 10 years by Christian Broadcaster Salem
> Communications, which also owns WEZE and WTTT in this market
> and about 100 other stations nationwide.

Salem bought WROL in 2001 for $11 million dollars. Definately a high price for a station with such a signal.

Here's what's interesting with the WROL call letters. Back when the owners wanted the calls of 950 to return to WORL, they learned that the calls were taken, quite obviously, by a radio station in ORLando, Florida.

The irony: last year, Salem acquired WORL (technically in Altamonte Springs, FL). So if there were sufficent interest, WROL could become the long lost WORL. It'll never happen, but it's kinda notable.

 

[HHH]

> >
> > It's night signal is only 90 watts, but given it's
> > transmitter location in a marshy swamp in Saugus, those 90
>
> > watts generally cover everything inside Route 128. The
> > 5,000-watt daytime signal is quite strong throughout
> almost
> > all of Eastern Massachusetts.


Yes, I am constantly amazed at the WROL day signal, especially along the coast.
I was up in Winter Harbor, Maine--way up near Acadia National Park--and WROL was still coming in with a very listenable signal. And they are pretty clear over much of Cape Cod.


> >
> WROL has applied to change its COL to Revere, add two towers
> at its Saugus transmitter site, and increase its night power
> to 5 kW-DA. There would be no change in the daytime
> operation. The night pattern is basically all that can be
> done on 950--a single lobe to the southeast with radiation
> suppressed around the other 240 degrees, almost identical to
> the night patterns of co-owned WTTT and the station that
> diplexes with WTTT, WAZN 1470. The difference, of course, is
> that Boston lies to the southeast of the WTTT/WAZN site and
> the Atlantic Ocean lies to the southeast of the WROL site.
> WROL probably will have an excellent night signal in
> Provincetown, which is kind of ironic considering who lives
> in Provincetown and that, to accommodate Sean Hannity on
> WTTT, Dr Laura is reportedly about to move to WROL at night
> ;>) Actually, despite its 37 mV/m NIF contour, which will
> run just off the Boston shoreline, WROL is likely to have an
> excellent night signal in downtown Boston, Dorchester,
> Mattapan, Quincy, Braintree, and Weymouth, as well as in a
> bunch of communities on the North Shore. I think 37 mV/m is
> an unusually pessimistic estimate of WROL's
> interference-free coverage. I can get the station just fine
> almost every night in Arlington Heights, where the 90W ND
> night signal must be well under 1 mV/m.
>
> Another interesting fact about the WROL transmitter site is
> that before WHDH (AM) moved to Needham in 1947 or 1948, the
> Saugus site belonged to WHDH. It's really a fantastic AM
> site because of the salt-water path to so much of the
> market. When WHDH used the site, it ran 5 kW DA-N. The night
> signal was nulled to the west to protect KOA. Despite being
> directional to the east at night from a site east of Boston,
> WHDH's night signal in downtown Boston must have been just
> about as good as the present 50-kW signal from Needham.


Here's an interesting point. If I am not mistaken, WORL (WROL's ancestor)
originally had their transmitter site in Needham. I believe that it was near the Wellesley line, since the station (I think) was originally established by Babson College in Wellesley.

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

HHH wrote:

> Here's an interesting point. If I am not mistaken, WORL
> (WROL's ancestor) originally had their transmitter site
> in Needham. I believe that it was near the Wellesley
> line, since the station (I think) was originally
> established by Babson College in Wellesley.

Correct!

The original call letters were WBSO, for "Babson Stastistical Organization", which was the original name of what is now Babson College.