Anyone remember during which years WEZE had a studio in a hotel facing the street?
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WEZE Beautiful Music
- Thread starter Cosmopolite
- Start date
http://bostonradio.org/stations/48403
>>The WEZE calls were meant to suggest “Easy”, and for many years the station programmed a light pop format aimed at older listeners. In the mid-1970s, the station experimented with a top-40 format, complete with DJs in a picture window facing Copley Square.
This goes on to say they were sold in 77 and became a religious station with studios in Quincy. I don't know if they were ever "beautiful music" but note above the bit about "easy" music, "light pop" and it then says top 40 in the mid 70s. I do remember being in downtown Boston with my father in the 70s and noticed the studios with the "picture window" and I was pretty sure it was
WEZE. Hotel Statler or something?
WHDH 850 also broadcast from a hotel at one point, including during the Bob and Ray years...
>>The WEZE calls were meant to suggest “Easy”, and for many years the station programmed a light pop format aimed at older listeners. In the mid-1970s, the station experimented with a top-40 format, complete with DJs in a picture window facing Copley Square.
This goes on to say they were sold in 77 and became a religious station with studios in Quincy. I don't know if they were ever "beautiful music" but note above the bit about "easy" music, "light pop" and it then says top 40 in the mid 70s. I do remember being in downtown Boston with my father in the 70s and noticed the studios with the "picture window" and I was pretty sure it was
WEZE. Hotel Statler or something?
WHDH 850 also broadcast from a hotel at one point, including during the Bob and Ray years...
WEZE was in the street-level window of the Statler Hotel (now Park Plaza Hotel) in Park Square
Actually, it was NOT the Statler Hotel; if I'm not mistaken, it was the adjacent (and connected) Statler Office Building. As for the format, I don't know how the owner (Air Trails) branded it, but I think anyone who was around in those days would most likely have referred to it as beautiful music. AM was still king but was near the end of its run. WEZE 1260 ran head to head against the old WJIB 96.9, which was most definitely a beautiful-music station. I believe that WJIB was first with such a format in Boston and between being a little late to the party and having a decidedly inferior signal, I think WEZE was pretty consistently an also-ran.
DanStrassberg wondered: said:
Actually, WEZE (based on research I have done and seeing an ad for it in the October 19th, 1959 Boston Globe) launched "The Wonderful World Of Music" on that date.
The ad identified the 'EZE format as being uninterrupted fifteen-minute segments (half-hours at night) of easy, relaxing music. It also carried (until 1965) hourly newscasts from the NBC Radio Network, but I don't think they carried much, if any, of that network's weekend "Monitor" service.
Although too young to having recalled listening to it (or anything else) that early, I do recall occassi9onally hearing it in its later "easy listening" years when one of my parents would tune it in. From what I recall, I would consider it "beautiful music".
WJIB-96.9 changed to beautiful music in September of 1967.
For several years prior to that, based on what I have read and heard, WEZE was actually one of Boston's most popular radio stations, despite it's signal (which at night couldn't be heard much outside of the 128 belt).
Remember that prior to 1966 or so, there was very little listening to FM, and in the 1960's, the 495 belt west of Boston was relatively sparsely populated. WEZE's signal was beamed north after dark from the banks of the Neponset River in North Quincy near the Southeast Expressway. The current occupant of 1260, Radio Disney affiliate WMKI, still uses those three towers and the same directional pattern.
It was only after WJIB-FM came on the scene that WEZE's ratings began to suffer, and in 1972, the plug was pulled on easy listening/beautiful music. For about three years, 'EZE tried the contemporary music sound Dan Strassberg remembers.
In 1975, WEZE went back to an easy-listening sound, hoping that it would attract commuters, few of which had FM radios in their cars back then. The format wasn't successful, and in early 1977, the station flipped to an early version of AAA that remained until Salem Communications bought the station in 1978 (had 'EZE not been sold in 1978, the station may have remained with that early form of AAA for another couple of years).
It's my understanding that the main air studio, newsroom, and production studio were all in picture windows of the Statler Office Building facing the corner of Columbus Avenue and Providence Street.
Today, the Finale Restaurant uses what was the WEZE space.
>>WJIB-96.9 changed to beautiful music in September of 1967.
Have mentioned it before but years ago I had a local paper--something about Nahant and Saugus, not the Lynn Item but some short lived paper--from early 1967. Now long gone but I remember an ad from it showing a smiling cartoon bee floating over a flower. "Beautiful...the X/R All Time Hit Parade--WXHR AM 740/ FM 97" (or 96.9?)
Under the listing for WBQT 96.9 http://bostonradio.org/stations/25050
>By the early 1960s, WTAO became WXHR(AM), and WXHR(FM) became WXHR-FM.
In November 1966, WXHR AM-FM-TV were sold to Kaiser-Globe Broadcasting, a joint venture of Kaiser Broadcasting and the Boston Globe. In early 1967, the FM calls were changed to WJIB and the studios were relocated to 68 Commercial Wharf, on the waterfront in Boston's North End. The station's new format was beautiful music.
740 of course became WCAS.
Have mentioned it before but years ago I had a local paper--something about Nahant and Saugus, not the Lynn Item but some short lived paper--from early 1967. Now long gone but I remember an ad from it showing a smiling cartoon bee floating over a flower. "Beautiful...the X/R All Time Hit Parade--WXHR AM 740/ FM 97" (or 96.9?)
Under the listing for WBQT 96.9 http://bostonradio.org/stations/25050
>By the early 1960s, WTAO became WXHR(AM), and WXHR(FM) became WXHR-FM.
In November 1966, WXHR AM-FM-TV were sold to Kaiser-Globe Broadcasting, a joint venture of Kaiser Broadcasting and the Boston Globe. In early 1967, the FM calls were changed to WJIB and the studios were relocated to 68 Commercial Wharf, on the waterfront in Boston's North End. The station's new format was beautiful music.
740 of course became WCAS.
Actually, WEZE switched from beautiful music to oldies in the early 70s as Solid Gold WEZE and later Solid Gold z-1260. It was after McCormack bought the station, he was a former GM or GSM for WNAC TV in its RKO General days. Something called Tech-Ops bougt his company. It then drifted into more gold-based AC by playing "future gold" and eventually became one of Clark Schmidt's many failures before going back to BM. The jok lineup was pretty good, Alan Colmes did AM drive from the Statler Office Building (but Big Al Your Morning Pal would draw the curtains closed), Bill Lowell, Neil Gran Cannon was there, as was Keith Simmons and overnight Bob Stuart with Paul Cunningham and Wally O'hara (the inspiration for Bob and ray's Wally Ballou) on news later joined by Linda Albin, now ABC London radio correspondent.
......................In 1975, WEZE went back to an easy-listening sound, hoping that it would attract commuters, few of which had FM radios in their cars back then. The format wasn't successful, and in early 1977, the station flipped to an early version of AAA that remained until Salem Communications bought the station in 1978 (had 'EZE not been sold in 1978, the station may have remained with that early form of AAA for another couple of years).....................
My first radio gig was as a salesman (and later jack-of-all-trades) at WEZE, starting with the easy listening days in the mid-70s and then during the switch to Clark Smidt's album oriented format (which he tweaked at WEZE and then took to WEEI-FM. to some success.) Since it was a non-union shop, it was a great opportunity to learn everything a radio station does hands-on. I was there when it was sold to Salem (which we promptly checked out and discovered they were a religious broadcaster.) I had the luck of being in the station when Stuart Epperson, Salem's owner, came to visit. I was sitting at the traffic desk typing logs (the traffic manager had gone on medical leave to get this prostate worked on) with a smoldering heap of cigarette butts in the overflowing ashtray by my side next to an open beer can, and cursing on the phone to some ditz at a production house. Epperson came in and shot me a look that would melt glass. Figuring I had nothing to lose, and trying to score a few points with the new guy, I stood up, spread my arms, and said "I have a great idea for your new ad campaign...I Listen to WEZE...RELIGIOUSLY !!!!!!! " Epperson said nothing and walked out. Later, the GM/GSM's secretary came over to me and said.."I overheard Stuart talking to Al....it might be a good idea if you started looking for a new job."
......................It's my understanding that the main air studio, newsroom, and production studio were all in picture windows of the Statler Office Building facing the corner of Columbus Avenue and Providence Street..............................
Yep, and it was a pretty tough neighborhood in the 70s (anchored by the bus terminal and two mobbed-up strip clubs, the Mouse Trap and the Teddy Bear on one end and a sleezy corner whose most famous denizen was a well-known DJ who was a chicken hawk in his spare time on the other.)
One evening I was board-operating the Disco Vinnie (Peruzzi) Show remote originating from some club in Lynn. Some drunk who had been freshly beat up in front of the Mouse Trap stumbled across the street and slammed face-first into the studio window. In the studio with me was one of Vinnie's groupies (boy, was she barking up the wrong tree) who'd been invited to sit in and watch how the show was produced. We both looked up and the guy spread-eagled against the window started to slowly slide down to the sidewalk, leaving three copious trails of blood; from his mouth and both hands. Yikes! The girl flipped out, knocked over the stacks of carts I had piled up for the breaks, and then started picking them up and throwing them at the window (which must have been bullet-proof glass), screaming all the time. We called the police, but before they arrived the guy picked himself up and stumbled off into the darkness of a parking garage across the street. I set the girl to gathering up the carts and answering the request line in order to get her settled down, because, as you know, the show must go on.
I'm not sure that radio is a much fun as it was during the make-it-up-as-you-go-along gun-slinger days of the 70s and 80s.
Regards,
TSB
My first radio gig was as a salesman (and later jack-of-all-trades) at WEZE, starting with the easy listening days in the mid-70s and then during the switch to Clark Smidt's album oriented format (which he tweaked at WEZE and then took to WEEI-FM. to some success.) Since it was a non-union shop, it was a great opportunity to learn everything a radio station does hands-on. I was there when it was sold to Salem (which we promptly checked out and discovered they were a religious broadcaster.) I had the luck of being in the station when Stuart Epperson, Salem's owner, came to visit. I was sitting at the traffic desk typing logs (the traffic manager had gone on medical leave to get this prostate worked on) with a smoldering heap of cigarette butts in the overflowing ashtray by my side next to an open beer can, and cursing on the phone to some ditz at a production house. Epperson came in and shot me a look that would melt glass. Figuring I had nothing to lose, and trying to score a few points with the new guy, I stood up, spread my arms, and said "I have a great idea for your new ad campaign...I Listen to WEZE...RELIGIOUSLY !!!!!!! " Epperson said nothing and walked out. Later, the GM/GSM's secretary came over to me and said.."I overheard Stuart talking to Al....it might be a good idea if you started looking for a new job."
......................It's my understanding that the main air studio, newsroom, and production studio were all in picture windows of the Statler Office Building facing the corner of Columbus Avenue and Providence Street..............................
Yep, and it was a pretty tough neighborhood in the 70s (anchored by the bus terminal and two mobbed-up strip clubs, the Mouse Trap and the Teddy Bear on one end and a sleezy corner whose most famous denizen was a well-known DJ who was a chicken hawk in his spare time on the other.)
One evening I was board-operating the Disco Vinnie (Peruzzi) Show remote originating from some club in Lynn. Some drunk who had been freshly beat up in front of the Mouse Trap stumbled across the street and slammed face-first into the studio window. In the studio with me was one of Vinnie's groupies (boy, was she barking up the wrong tree) who'd been invited to sit in and watch how the show was produced. We both looked up and the guy spread-eagled against the window started to slowly slide down to the sidewalk, leaving three copious trails of blood; from his mouth and both hands. Yikes! The girl flipped out, knocked over the stacks of carts I had piled up for the breaks, and then started picking them up and throwing them at the window (which must have been bullet-proof glass), screaming all the time. We called the police, but before they arrived the guy picked himself up and stumbled off into the darkness of a parking garage across the street. I set the girl to gathering up the carts and answering the request line in order to get her settled down, because, as you know, the show must go on.
I'm not sure that radio is a much fun as it was during the make-it-up-as-you-go-along gun-slinger days of the 70s and 80s.
Regards,
TSB
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WEZE 1260 was a "Good Music" institution in Boston of WPAT 930 caliber. Class act!
I believe that WEZE was the first major AM station in the entire Southern New England region to be done in by an FM. WJIB FM with it's stereo, zero noise floor and quality audio was just too much for 1260 to overcome. WEZE (and WJIB FM for that matter) were huge losses for Boston's radio dial!
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I believe that WEZE was the first major AM station in the entire Southern New England region to be done in by an FM. WJIB FM with it's stereo, zero noise floor and quality audio was just too much for 1260 to overcome. WEZE (and WJIB FM for that matter) were huge losses for Boston's radio dial!
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M
MickeyD
Guest
I recall looking in the announcer types when they played the easy listening stuff. Does anyone know what equipment that was behind them? I had no idea what it was back then but as I think back today it could have been a transmitter. A quite colorful transmitter.
Also, across the street from the sidewalk studio - the old Boston Playboy Club (where Four Seasons Hotel is now)
IIRC, the studio set-up during the easy listening days was 2 Revox open reel decks (that tripped on tones from the tapes, which I believe were from Bonneville, but I could be wrong), a multi-position cart machine, two turntables, boom mike, and a mixing board. The newsroom was behind the studio facing the DJ's back. The transmitter was in the Quincy marshes at Neponset, a little west of the WMEX array.
Regards,
TSB
I recall the day that it was announced that Roger Saunders was going to buy the Statler hotel and turn it into the Park Plaza. When he mentioned he was going to 'turn it into Boston's family hotel', we all stared out the windows at Park Square and wondered what he could possibly be thinking. Wouldn't ya know it, the next week the city discovered that the two strip joints were actually owned by, get this, 'straws' fronting for gangsters with records who couldn't legally hold liquor licenses, and shut them both down. The city started hassling all the other lower-rent venues on the square and they started fading away. Besides the Playboy Club (which I think had just about run its course), there had been a Batchelors Three (Namath's operation with, IIRC, Derek Sanderson as one of the partners) a Mickey Ds, etc. In one of Boston's great 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' deals, it didn't take long to find out that the Saunders were really wired into City Hall.
Regards,
TSB
...and Hillbilly Ranch, around the corner (now State Transportation building) - one of the few (only?) country venues in the city,
behind a neon orange picket fence.
behind a neon orange picket fence.
In the earlier years as an easy-listening outlet, the old WEZE-1260 may have used selected cuts from commercially available albums that were played on turntables, but I don't know that for sure.
I would think that by the 1970's (a couple of years before dumping easy listening), 'EZE was indeed playing music on tapes which may well have been from Bonneville Productions (since Schulke Radio Productions supplied beautiful-music tapes to the old WJIB-96.9 by the mid 1970's, likely much earlier).
The main reason many Easy/BM stations had started using tapes from syndication services was that new commercially-available recordings by lush orchestras (some with choral vocals) were becoming quite rare by the early 1970's. Several such distributors recorded their own custom music for the format.
I would think that by the 1970's (a couple of years before dumping easy listening), 'EZE was indeed playing music on tapes which may well have been from Bonneville Productions (since Schulke Radio Productions supplied beautiful-music tapes to the old WJIB-96.9 by the mid 1970's, likely much earlier).
The main reason many Easy/BM stations had started using tapes from syndication services was that new commercially-available recordings by lush orchestras (some with choral vocals) were becoming quite rare by the early 1970's. Several such distributors recorded their own custom music for the format.
.........................In the earlier years as an easy-listening outlet, the old WEZE-1260 may have used selected cuts from commercially available albums that were played on turntables, but I don't know that for sure..........................
I think you're right. After Clark arrived, they started cleaning out a huge collection of old vinyl, everything from Steve and Edye and Elvis to stuff like 1001 Strings Play the Beatles Songbook. They looked pretty well used, and the jackets all had notes taped to them giving open times and what cuts were allowed to air. There was also space to note when the different cut were played. I think I still have a few of them.
Regards,
TSB
I think you're right. After Clark arrived, they started cleaning out a huge collection of old vinyl, everything from Steve and Edye and Elvis to stuff like 1001 Strings Play the Beatles Songbook. They looked pretty well used, and the jackets all had notes taped to them giving open times and what cuts were allowed to air. There was also space to note when the different cut were played. I think I still have a few of them.
Regards,
TSB
A transmitter is unlikely. I don't think 1260 or any other broadcast station (AM or FM) ever transmitted from the Statler Hotel or the Statler Office Building. Plenty of FMs transmitted from nearby buildings and still do so, however.
BTW can anyone remind me what FM 96.9's format was before it became WJIB (FM)?
BTW can anyone remind me what FM 96.9's format was before it became WJIB (FM)?
Stuart Epperson had a partner--Ed Atsinger. AFAIK, they remain today the two major shareholders in Salem Communications, which is a publicly traded company. AFAIK, neither Epperson nor Atsinger holds 50% of Salem's voting stock, but together, their holdings represent more than 50% of all voting shares. These two original partners hold roughly equal numbers of shares. I believe that Salem is regarded as a very well managed company, especially in the broadcasting business, which I don't believe is thought of by stock analysts as a particularly well managed industry.
No specifics but this page said 96.9 had been classical for awhile before WJIB (WXHR-FM, tho it prob went to beaut. music before the switch to WJIB) http://bostonradio.org/stations/25050
If immediately blowing me out of WEZE is any indication, they are a very well managed company.
Regards,
TSB
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