WXKS-FM founder dead

[thirdendorsed]

News accounts have been berift of any mention that former U.S. Rep. Cecil Heftel, who died last week, launched WXKS-FM, beginning the station's remarkable three decades of dominance in the Boston market. Heftel Broadcasting took a sleepy FM, that was the third-rated beautiful music station in the market, spent a bundle on talent and promotion, and took aim at a station that was enjoying its first-ever success with a disco format and drove that competitor to another format within a year -- and the station he created continues at or near the top of the ratings pile more than thirty years later.

While subsequent managers have kept the station on top by adapting to changes in taste, it is still what Heftel created -- a music station that plays the hits. Since its creation, every other commercial radio station in Metro Boston, and both full-powered non-commercials, have changed formats, calls or dial position at least once with the exception of WHRB (which has no format), and other than 'HRB, there is only one other commercial FM station with the same calls in the same dial position as it had the day WXKS went on the air (and that, ironically, is WBOS, the station WXKS knocked from its disco perch 30 years ago).

Less well known is that his company also took WXKS Everett from simulcast to Music of Your Life and made the weak signal at a bad dial position profitable for years -- and again spent money to do it, by hiring well-known jocks from the AM MOR era rather than simply run the packaged automation version of MOYL24/7. Eventually, the audience died off and first the jocks went, and then the format. But the AM made money for years.

I find it amusing that radio "watchers" missed the Boston angle to this obituary, but did manage to regurgitate popular press obituaries that mentioned Heftel's presence in other markets in the region.

 

[raccoonradio]

I saw the obit and was almost about to say something; when the whole Kiss 108 deal started I remember something about a Hawaii senator named Heftel being involved somehow but I couldn't remember if he
was involved, or if he had tried but failed to buy the station...what I remember is that sometime around 1/15/78 (79? did I get the yr right?) there was an abrupt switchover at midnight (I think) from beautiful music to disco and I wonder how many surprised btfl music listeners tuned to the radio to find disco the
next morning.
Soon after came the "Kiss 108 Disco" bumper stickers, soon lampooned as "Kiss OFF--Disco Sucks"

 

[DanStrassberg]

Less well known is that his company also took WXKS Everett from simulcast to Music of Your Life and made the weak signal at a bad dial position profitable for years -- and again spent money to do it, by hiring well-known jocks from the AM MOR era rather than simply run the packaged automation version of MOYL24/7.

Who are you thinking of? Alan Dary? Bette Daye? Bill Marlowe? I don't believe that those three were on WXKS (AM); they were on WHET 1330, a station that was full time for several years before 1430 became a fulltimer. WXKS may have prospered with a NOS format but WHET never did. Or are you talking about the talent that the outfit that syndicated MOYL brought together for the tape-delivered syndication before it morphed into satellite delivery? If you are talking about those folks, the only thing you may be able to credit Cecil Heftel for was latching onto MOYL for 1430. I suppose that took some vision, but Heftel did not think up the idea of MOYL; Al Hamm did that and he did it at WDJZ, a station in Bridgeport CT, not at WXKS (AM).

 

[Don Juan]

Less well known is that his company also took WXKS Everett from simulcast to Music of Your Life and made the weak signal at a bad dial position profitable for years -- and again spent money to do it, by hiring well-known jocks from the AM MOR era rather than simply run the packaged automation version of MOYL24/7.

Who are you thinking of? Alan Dary? Bette Daye? Bill Marlowe? I don't believe that those three were on WXKS (AM);

Alan Dary was on XKS-AM for sure. Along with George Fennel(sp?)

 

[DanStrassberg]

Alan Dary was on XKS-AM for sure. Along with George Fennel(sp?)

Fennell was at 1430 when the station was WHIL. Bob Walsh, the fellow who did AM drive in that era, was extraordinarily talented (did dozens of voices). He was what I'd call a low-budget Jess Cain, waiting for his big break, which he richly deserved but AFAIK, never got. I don't recall that either Fennell or Walsh was there after the calls had changed (first to WWEL and then to WXKS (AM)). My inability to recall them being there after the station became WXKS (AM) doesn't necessarily mean that one or the other or both weren't there at that time--just that I don't remember them being there.

 

[Don Juan]

Alan Dary was on XKS-AM for sure. Along with George Fennel(sp?)

Fennell was at 1430 when the station was WHIL.

George was definitely on as WXKS-AM.

 

[ret vet]

I have a little story concerning the birth of KISS-108. Back then I worked got Selcom Radio which was the national rep for what was then WWEL-AM/FM which did beautiful music out of Medford. One fine day we were notified that the stations were changing hands and were invited to the first ever KISS Party.

My boss and a couple of others from Selcom NY accompanied me to the disco on Landsdowne Street (was it Boston-Boston?). When we arrived we were a little nonplussed to find that the entire hierarchy of rival rep, Major Market Radio, was present. It soon became apparent that Selcom wasn't going to be the rep under the new ownership.

To my knowledge we never got an apology or explanation for why we were summoned to Boston without being told we were no longer to rep the stations. I assume it was a transition screwup.

It worked out well for me in that Selcom became the Rep for WSSH/99.5, then a low-ranked Beautiful Music outlet but quite salable because WJIB was constantly sold out. I got to know the managers and owners of WSSH and went to work for them in 1983 after a post-Selcom stint in Maine and had some of my best years there.

 

[JIBGUY]

I highly believe that Music Of Your Life was not brought there by Heftel. Credit goes to Richie Balsbaugh and Arnie Ginsberg for doing that. Al Ham's MOYL was first on WDJZ in Ct, then WMAS-Springfield, then WXKS-Medford. MOYL was such a success by 1983 that it scored over a 4 in the ratings while Kiss-FM scored in the high 4's. FM jocks, seeing the then low ratings for the FM, were wide-eyed at the AM's ratings.

Bill Marlowe was never on the MOYL WXKS-1430. He was doing his Saturday show on WNTN from 1978 to past 2000. In the mid-1980's, the jocks were George Fennell, Alan Dary, Bob Bittner, Bill Cusack. Weekends: Chris Clarke & Kate Murray. Some of the afore-mentioned were there longer than others. Genenral Manager of the AM was John Mitchell, who previously worked as a successful salesperson at WCBS.

Al Ham did not morph his format fast enough as years went on. MOYL was relatively dull , with too many really slow ballads and not enough big band. WXKS-AM was in the low-to-mid 2's in the ratings in the mid-late-80's and early 90's. Then into the 1's territory in the later 90's,then low 1's in early 2000's. Al Ham's format was replaced by a satellite service about 10 to 12 years ago, excepting for a live 'n local morning show. Then by 2004, a few zero-point-somethings appeared now & then. The 250-watt flame-thrower down the street was getting some high 0-somethings and an occasional 1-something by 2003. I don't think that flame-thrower ever beat 1430, but it sure was close sometimes.

 

[thirdendorsed]

Actually, WXKS became MOYL around Christmas of 1979. And yes, Alan Dary and George Fennell were among the early announcers, and yes they were among the most well known of the MOR personality jocks. And no, WHET was not a factor; it never held the format for much time at all, and this around the time of the Martin-Trigona era; the former WCRB AM never made it with standards, sports, country, AC, or "variety," before entering the world of brokered-time foreign language.


Marlow didn't work at WXKS, and he is remembered more by people in the business as an MOR jock than by listeners; he simply moved around too much and had too much time on the beach after his frequent firings/walkouts to be much of a factor with audience movement. Dary was among the last of the exceptional old line MOR staff at WHDH until the switch to AC after the remnants of the Herald Traveler Corp. sold it to Blair. His weekend all request shows (by mail!) were very popular with the aging population. Fennell had worked at the station when it was WHIL, and did relatively stable stints at Plough's WCOP and at WHDH and had a certain star status as the result of his never-seen presence on WCVB-TV -- and then became legend after being gassed for showing previews he was not authorized to air.

I may, however, have made a rare error by referring to WWEL as the third ranked beautiful music station in the market. It could have been 4th, trailing not only WJIB and WSSH but maybe even WSRS as well.

 

[BoscoGoldBear]

WHUE (WTTK until late 1978 or early 1979) was the final straw for WWEL. The rest, of course, was history, with the first Kiss 108 song being T-Connection's then popular club hit "At Midnight" (I have the 45 edit in my CD collection).

The only question going forward, of course, is what happens to Kiss when Matty (there for 29 years) retires/dies/gets fired? I'd say it crumbles and Magic takes over at #1.

Anyway, I too was shocked by the lack of mention of Heftel's Boston radio background. BTW, when exactly did Balsbuagh and company buy Kiss 108? (I know it was finally sold for good in 1995 because of a bitter and vindictive ex-wife.)

 

[DanStrassberg]

BTW, when exactly did Balsbuagh and company buy Kiss 108? (I know it was finally sold for good in 1995 because of a bitter and vindictive ex-wife.)

Buy it??? I thought they built it and put it on the air as WHIL-FM. It was on 107.9 from day one but originally the antenna was on the WHIL (AM) tower and the power was 20 kW. With an antenna height of only about 100' AAT, the signal was quite marginal in many places in the market. The move to the Pru was as important as the programming changes in putting the station into the major leagues. I do not remember what year that was, but I believe that the programming changes were made simultaneously with the Tx move.

 

[RadBos]

Bob Bittner was station manager and fii-in. Every day started at 6 AM with Kate Smith and God Bless America.The daytime schedule was Bill Cusack followed by Alan Dary and George Fennell. Kate Murray did early evenings and Chris Clark went 10 PM to 1 AM. There was a board operator on the overnights till 6 AM (I was the first overnight board operator when they went 24 hours). Weekends had Bette Day, Kate Murray, Chris Clark. Alan Dary did his Mailbag show on Sundays (I helped him organize it). Bill Marlowe was on for a very short time on Saturday afternoons. He would do 2 hours of music followed by a 3 hour Sinatra Saturday Night show full of all Sinatra music. The guy who produces Ron Della Chesea's Strictly Sinatra on WPLM also produced Marlowe's show. When management decided to go with the Transtar/Unistar MOYL format all the jocks were dropped except fot George Fennell who was moved to mornings.

 

[Don Juan]

BTW, when exactly did Balsbuagh and company buy Kiss 108? (I know it was finally sold for good in 1995 because of a bitter and vindictive ex-wife.)

Buy it??? I thought they built it and put it on the air as WHIL-FM.

No, Balsbaugh (and company) purchased it from Heftel.

Heftel purchased it in 1979(?) from.....?

 

[fybush]

Heftel bought the stations from Conant Broadcasting, aka Sherwood Tarlow.

Maybe those who were there can answer a question I've had about Heftel's ownership of WXKS: the trade magazines of the era portrayed Cecil Heftel himself as having a hands-off role at the Heftel Broadcasting stations once he went into Congress in 1976. Was he more active behind the scenes?

 

[DanStrassberg]

The guy who produces Ron Della Chesea's Strictly Sinatra on WPLM also produced Marlowe's show.

I guess "produces" is the operative word, though I always thought that he bought the time for both the Marlowe and Della Chiesa shows and then pounded the streets to sell those over-long (and--to me--rather cheesy-sounding) commercials, mostly for restaurants. The guy's name is Paul Neumann-Schlossberg. He probably wrote the copy for the Marlowe "The meat fall off the bone" spot for a restaurant in Charlestown or Chelsea (Charlie Floramo's?) Cheesy-sounding or not, that hard-sell commercial ran for years and years and became a New England radio classic.

 

[thirdendorsed]

Sure, Heftel was hands-off.

And so was Lyndon ("Bird owns the damn stations") Johnson.

Sure thing.

Who owned the property when the filing ws done for the transmitter upgrades?