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WEEI on 590 & 1440 AM!

Fretter and Jordan Marsh is Gone. Its always sad looking back at the twin towers ( Car commercial )in New York( 9.11 SUCKS ). Was Fox 25, WEEI and The Boston Celtics under the same ownership back in 1992 ?
 
Rapking , the Celtics owned WEEI 590 and WFXT-TV 25 for several years in the early 90s. Celtics were owners when WEEI went to sports in fall of 91.
 
Andy & Eddie! WEEI moved to 850 and I believe a lot of shakeups occured. Didn't Claprood & Whitley move to WRKO and replaced Ted O'Brien & Janet Jeghelian?
 
I was at WHDH 850 in the early 1990s. VP/GM Dan Griffin had been hired away from WRKO by then WHDH owner David Mugar (who also owned channel 7-then WNEV). Dan began doing his magic at 850-and every ratings book WRKO dropped half a point or so, while WHDH went up the same amount. Dan created Clapprood and Whitley. Finally, there was but half a ratings point separating the two. After changing the channel 7 calls to WHDH-TV (instant credibliity) Mugar sold both TV and radio. TV went to Sunbeam who still owns it and radio went to Atlantic Ventures -owner of WRKO. Dan was so FURIOUS at how Mugar had lied to him (and he had hated working for Atlantic Ventures) that he got a new job and quit-not even telling Mugar where he was going (it was funny-Mugar's memo announcing that Dan was leaving said "We wish Dan well in his new assignment"). Of course we all knew where Dan was going-to be the VP/General Manager of WCBS 880 in NYC.

Atlantic Ventures GUTTED WHDH-moving Clapprood and Whitley, Ruch Limbaugh and also Howie Carr to WRKO-leaving a shell of a great radio station. They also fired most of the people responsible for the success of 850, including me. Through a shell company (owned by Peter Ottmar, but controlled by Atlantic's President, Joe something-he was best freinds with Peter they had formerly made a lot of money together in cable TV) they also controlled WEEI 590-and THEY changed it to sports. Finally the scam became known and Ottmar sold 590 to the Celtics-AFTER moving the WEEI calls and format over to 850. Later on they also bought 93.7.

Much later on Atlantic Ventures became known as American Radio Systems, and grew rapidly, until absorbed by CBS. Since CBS already had stations in Boston (both radio and TV) they had to spin off 3 of the original 4 stations (93.7, 850 and 680) and also WAAF, and Entercom bought them.

So now you know the true story.
 
I stand Corrected

I stand corrected-the President of Atlantic Ventures/American Radio Systems was Steven Dodge not Joe something. Joe Wynn was his executive VP there.
 
LA Guy, celtics owned WEEI 590 when it went sports in faLL 1991. Ottmar owned 590 in 1994 when the rights of WEEI went to 850 and 590 became WBNW.
 
Yes, you are correct. I had things backwards. The Celtics did change WEEI to sports. Then Ottmar bought it and sports moved to 850. Ottmar bought WEEI for its intellectual property-so Dodge could move it.
Ottmar changed 590 to business, which promptly bombed-and he sold the station to Salem for about what he paid for it.
 
LA_Guy said:
Yes, you are correct. I had things backwards. The Celtics did change WEEI to sports. Then Ottmar bought it and sports moved to 850. Ottmar bought WEEI for its intellectual property-so Dodge could move it. Ottmar changed 590 to business, which promptly bombed-and he sold the station to Salem for about what he paid for it.
Click to expand...

But there was more to Salem's acquisition of 590 than that. I don't recall all of the details, but Salem somehow acquired an option to buy 590 in Boston for a predetermined price (from ARS, I believe) when it sold an FM in Portland OR (to ARS, I believe). I think that's how it went, but if somebody knows for sure, please elaborate!
 
Too bad Peter Ottmar didn't hang onto the former WARA-1320 in the Providence market. It was during Ottmar's ownership that the station was last worth listening to.

Ever since he sold it off......well......why bother?. You folks can guess the rest. ;)
 
At one point Ottmar owned three stations in Providence, 1320, 550 and 106.3 FM. He sold them and started AAA Entertainment, a smallish group operator.
 
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