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From: gds@mit-eddie.UUCP (Greg Skinner)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: Boston's Hit Radio station (Is Springsteen losing it?)
Message-ID: <1962@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 27-May-84 19:07:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.1962
Posted: Sun May 27 19:07:37 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Jun-84 02:08:21 EDT
References: <1948@mit-eddie.UUCP> <1956@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Organization: MIT Lusers and Hosers Inc., Cambridge, Ma.
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> Although the "top-40" genre of radio does indeed exist, calling
> such things "#1" is rather silly.

I was not "calling" these stations #1 -- I was quoting Arbitron
ratings determined month-to-month for radio in selected cities.

> Most people I know would probably consider WBCN the number 1 radio
> station in Boston.  But they play rock music, old and new, not just the
> same songs over and over.  I consider variety to be an important part of
> a station's format.

I will give 'BCN credit for being a highly diversified radio station.
It is the only rock music station I have ever heard which played a
cross-section of music (r&b and some new wave included).  'BCN suffers
from the fact that it's frequency (104 MHz) is usually picked up on our
data lines for our digital design course :-)

> About other stations in Boston:  I would guess that WFNX is the
> "up and coming" radio station to watch.  It appeared at about the
> time that WCOZ sold out (went from "kick-ass rock and roll" to
> "your all-hit station", or something like that -- we all know
> stations that have wimped out like this).

To you, it may appear as if they were "wimping out", but to them, it was
a clear case of losing audience (=> losing money).  Many other former
rock stations around the country have done similarly -- not all of them
wanted to do this but the times were calling for it.  When HitRadio dies
out (as it probably will in 2-3 years -- these things are generally
cyclic) the rock stations will be back.

> All in all, there seems to be quite a few good FM stations in Boston
> (the AM stations suck).

AM in general is not doing too well these days, for similar reasons
(read earlier article on how WABC became a talk show).  Most AM radio
these days that was rock, pop or other has gone to talk/sports format.
Some AM which is r&b has managed to survive, but the stations are mostly
local (ie. they don't service the whole metropolitan area of their
respective cities).  Cambridge has one (WCAS) that has a pretty good
selection of current r&b (not just the pop) but you can't get it outside
of Cambridge (also due to FCC rules you can't get it after 8:00 pm --
they clear the airwaves for the clear-Canadian stations (WABC NY, CKLW
from Detroit) which operate between 700-800 KHz.  By the way, does
anybody know if CKLW is still on the air and what they're playing?

> Listening to "all hit" radio stations that play from a hit list seems to
> be the most limiting thing that a music affectionado could do. 

Why?  Some people *like* top 40!  That is like saying that programming
in one language is the most limiting thing a computer scientist can do.
If it suits him, why care?

-- 
                                                  Let fly the bits!

Greg Skinner (White Gold Wielder)
{decvax!genrad, eagle!mit-vax, whuxle, ihnp4}!mit-eddie!gds

And he who wields white wild magic gold is a paradox ...