WHO REMEMBERS THE SHORT-LIVED WACQ-AM 1150?

[pqgeorge]

A sign of the times, I guess, that they spent money on talent for the AM and used La Machine for the FM -- and this was after RKO General, Blair, Fairbanks and CBS awakened their sleepy automated FMs with live formats aimed at a demographic younger than those who had been listening to their FM signals in the late 60s and early 70s (average age: dead) and did relatively well. I do recall hearing the tale that The New Q was intended to make it possible to eventually dump the properties without having some transplanted hillbilly file against the transfer on the ground that the buyer would dump the fiddlin' banjo crap. There had been a challenge elsewhere over a country music format, in the back of my hed I think it was Chicago (and no, I'm not confusing it with WNCN.) IF I recall correctly, right before the switch to TTK, WCOP-FM had been either oldies or a really sappy happy music format they tried for a while that was targeted at (and delivered) nobody in particular.

Well, by 1970, WCOP-FM was pretty much 50% //with WCOP-1150. The other half was dentist music in Stereo for the remainder. By '72, it was 100% beautiful music with "your Yankee Weatherman" twice hourly "where your dial is set at 100 point 7". The late Gus Saunders' "Boston Kitchen" was on every weekday on the FM side. All that would change. In October of 1973. WCOP-FM switched to "Drake/Chenault's Solid Gold", all oldies all the time. WROR (also playing oldies at the time) was in the midst of being sold to Summit Broadcasting, who planned to switch WROR to beautiful music. This seemed like a good opportunity for WCOP-FM to get on the "oldies bandwagon". However, the WROR sale to Summit was delayed and eventually was rescinded due to RKO General's license issues with the FCC, Which eventually cost co-owned WNAC-TV Channel 7 to lose its' license. By December '73, WROR was no longer for sale (for the time being) and John Long (an excellent radio programmer) revitalized WROR to become "The Golden Great 98!", with a home-brew all-oldies format which did very well for many years. With WROR not leaving the oldies arena after all, WCOP-FM dumped the oldies almost a year to the day they started. Obviously, the Drake/Chenault contract was for only one year. In spite of WCOP-FM's very good ratings with oldies, they decided to do something else. For the next two years, WCOP-FM went automated Country music playing the same music that WCOP-AM was, but without jocks and very little interruption. It was cheap and they already had the music to do it. You could say that Plough was already getting ready to make the big exit from the Boston market. Personally, I think Plough should have put WACQ on 100.7 and let WCOP alone and maybe sold the AM to a company who would supported the country format. WACQ was a good live oldies/Top-40 hybrid which IMHO could have done well in the market on FM. Who knows?

 

[raccoonradio]

Popular country music in the 70s wasn't exactly "fiddlin' banjo crap"...maybe you could get
older, more authentic sounds from Hillbilly at Harvard but not exactly on WCOP, or WDLW later

 

[thirdendorsed]

Country music just didn't make it in Boston until the 90s when WCLB and WBCS battled it out. The format was not major-market viable on WDLW or on WBOS, and when Mariner used a country jingle to introduce Bruins hockey they were nearly laughed out of the market. There were stations beyond the rimshot region that made it with country, in particular in Dover N.H., but they were helped by putting their city grade signal into an area dominated by yahoos. Country became a viable format when commercial country music evolved from the fiddlin' banjo crap of the 60s and 70s to the more modern version heard today.

When did Gus Saunders bring Yankee Kitchen to the Rosary Station, WRYT ("one teaspoon paprika...)

 

[Oldbones]

WACQ was the best iteration of Top 40 in Boston, despite all people like to go all nostalgic over the Dan Donovan of the Month at WMEX and the Drake revolving door at WRKO. It was tight, well programmed, lots of forward momentum and a really awful signal.

As well as having the biggest collection of cue-burnt oldies of any major market top 40.

Personally, I think Plough should have put WACQ on 100.7 and let WCOP alone and maybe sold the AM to a company who would supported the country format. WACQ was a good live oldies/Top-40 hybrid which IMHO could have done well in the market on FM. Who knows?

The writing was certainly on the wall for Top 40 music on AM by 1977, though Plough was far from the only company to read it.
Sheesh, with programming blunders like the ones mentioned in this thread, is it any wonder why Plough's Boston properties were under performers?

 

[JIBGUY]

Country became a viable format when commercial country music evolved from the fiddlin' banjo crap of the 60s and 70s to the more modern version heard today.

It had help in its evolving.... yes, true, it became today's mainstream rock. But the help it got was from rap/hiphop infiltrating top 40. That drove many people to the new country we hear today.

 

[Unregistered]

First, who is Halibut. I will figure it out sometime, probably on 128 at quarter to two in the morning,but if someone wants go jog the aging memory I will appreciate it.

WACQ was the best iteration of Top 40 in Boston, despite all people like to go all nostalgic over the Dan Donovan of the Month at WMEX and the Drake revolving door at WRKO. It was tight, well programmed, lots of forward momentum and a really awful signal.

Any airchecks of WACQ around?

I'll have to look, I had some a few years ago..

Bill Daniels

 

[houlivan]

Who remembers the short- lived wacq-am 1150?

Yes, I remember WACQ. Also, remember a station at 1150 called Sunny that was short-lived and when WHUE was all-news at 1150. Might have been the NBC News and Information Service.

 

[Wimmmex]

I remember PSA's were referred to as "Q-Tips"....with lots of "On the 'Q'!" ..and from Boston's NEW 'Q'!"

 

[aerie]

One of WCOP's biggest problems (which I assume was the same for WACQ) was that you couldn't hear them at the beaches. WMEX on the salt marsh in Quincy hit the south shore beaches, and also rocketed up the north shore beaches too. WCOP's signal was pure static at most of the beaches. When you're trying to attract teenagers, and you have the long summer days, you have to make it to the beaches. I listened to WCOP during the winter, but once we went to our summer house at the beach, it was WMEX for months.