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Let's all remember that this is not the Politics forum. If you want to characterize Rush Limbaugh, go do it in another forum. (Otherwise, I'll have to correct you. )
Great thread.........I never knew that much about AM history.
One of the best gifts in the 60's for me was a transitor Am radio. I rember picking up those distant radio stations some nights but not the how or why behind being able to pick them up.
I to had a Spark-O-Matic FM Convertor for my AM radio in my car in 76
I went to the WBZ website to see if I could figure out what on-air personalities you're talking about and found it of very little help. Terrible site, IMHO, in both function and content. Surprising for a station as big and as legendary as WBZ. In college in upstate NY, WBZ came in like a local station at night and their QSL card was the largest on my wall of many. This was circa 1968.
Anyway, sounds like your open-minded guy is not purely political. Most big-city talk stations have one or more resident Trump bashers and they are typically revered in major metro environs as "open minded" . I just assumed you were talking about one of those.
Since you've never heard Rush, I would suggest you listen to him sometime. Moderator cut: Keep the Politics in the Politics forum. He is about the conservative values <<cut>>
Yeh, the radio stations are at risk in the last several years. At risk of local programming being shut down in favor of nationwide syndicated stuff. Recently I think WBZ was bought out by iheart radio. I find WBZ on the internet now by typing in "WBZ listen live." I think there's an iheart ap, but you have to pay for it.
Must have been ten years ago that one of the favorite night time WBZ hosts was abruptly fired--on the air! I happened to be awake at 4:30 am and heard it happen! They handed him a written note and told him to say good bye. Well, it went viral and someone started a website to get him back. We all wrote in that we would boycott their advertisers unless they hired him back. So they hired him back. It worked and he stayed on the overnight show for several more years. A very popular, humorous guy.
Now they have Dan Rea at 8pm (although he's been missing for a few weeks...) and he's a lawyer who is relatively conservative and his show is mainly politics but also sports or cars or any other topics. People call in and he's pretty polite but not too open minded.
Next, if you are still awake, comes Bradley Jay at midnight. I like him. He's a rural New Hampshire guy who is trying to be an urban Boston dude--kind of funny. Very intelligent and I think he enjoys learning from his callers. Lately he's on a health kick and people are calling him up and offering suggestions--he's kind of clueless about health but it's fun to hear him thinking out loud and learning as he goes. For politics, he initially had no opinion, but has asked and wondered and I'd call him an Independent now as he takes each issue as it comes. He's had important authors come and discuss their books--plenty of variety, but as always, there's the chance the station will just terminate him. Maybe that's why he takes a lot of time off to travel on the cheap and also to pursue his interest in music.
I missed the whole Larry Glick era on WBZ. It was pre-internet and I wasn't living within the broadcast area. There must have been stations that got in the way or just the fact that I lived in a valley, not up on top of a mountain where reception could have been better.
Back in the late '50s WBZ had an affiliate, WBZA. Through that affiliate, I could listen to WBZ even though I didn't live close enough to get WBZ itself. They had Norm Prescott playing the top 40 tunes and I would tune in the minute I got home from school. He had a great personality, and of course, you always HAD to know what the top tunes were, especially what number One was. But Norm got canned for partaking of Payola--being PAID to play certain songs.
I never believed that he was guilty but anyway, he got fired and I think payola was a nationwide scandal. It really hurt the local guys who played the top tunes, all the clever names and popular programs that we listened to. I got programs in NY- "10 10 WINS New York" and some station that sang, "serving Albany, Schenetady, and Troy." I can't remember the names of the various dj's (except Norm Prescott on WBZ) but they all had clever nicknames and seemed to compete for listeners. Fun fines, while they lasted.
Listening to am radio was nearly addicting during the '50s; carrying your transistor everywhere, making sure you didn't miss out on hearing the top 40 hits that day or week, entering contests, calling in and requesting your favorite song or asking for a song to be dedicated to a particular someone.
Yeh, the radio stations are at risk in the last several years. At risk of local programming being shut down in favor of nationwide syndicated stuff. Recently I think WBZ was bought out by iheart radio. I find WBZ on the internet now by typing in "WBZ listen live." I think there's an iheart ap, but you have to pay for it.
Must have been ten years ago that one of the favorite night time WBZ hosts was abruptly fired--on the air! I happened to be awake at 4:30 am and heard it happen! They handed him a written note and told him to say good bye. Well, it went viral and someone started a website to get him back. We all wrote in that we would boycott their advertisers unless they hired him back. So they hired him back. It worked and he stayed on the overnight show for several more years. A very popular, humorous guy.
Now they have Dan Rea at 8pm (although he's been missing for a few weeks...) and he's a lawyer who is relatively conservative and his show is mainly politics but also sports or cars or any other topics. People call in and he's pretty polite but not too open minded.
Next, if you are still awake, comes Bradley Jay at midnight. I like him. He's a rural New Hampshire guy who is trying to be an urban Boston dude--kind of funny. Very intelligent and I think he enjoys learning from his callers. Lately he's on a health kick and people are calling him up and offering suggestions--he's kind of clueless about health but it's fun to hear him thinking out loud and learning as he goes. For politics, he initially had no opinion, but has asked and wondered and I'd call him an Independent now as he takes each issue as it comes. He's had important authors come and discuss their books--plenty of variety, but as always, there's the chance the station will just terminate him. Maybe that's why he takes a lot of time off to travel on the cheap and also to pursue his interest in music.
I missed the whole Larry Glick era on WBZ. It was pre-internet and I wasn't living within the broadcast area. There must have been stations that got in the way or just the fact that I lived in a valley, not up on top of a mountain where reception could have been better.
Back in the late '50s WBZ had an affiliate, WBZA. Through that affiliate, I could listen to WBZ even though I didn't live close enough to get WBZ itself. They had Norm Prescott playing the top 40 tunes and I would tune in the minute I got home from school. He had a great personality, and of course, you always HAD to know what the top tunes were, especially what number One was. But Norm got canned for partaking of Payola--being PAID to play certain songs.
I never believed that he was guilty but anyway, he got fired and I think payola was a nationwide scandal. It really hurt the local guys who played the top tunes, all the clever names and popular programs that we listened to. I got programs in NY- "10 10 WINS New York" and some station that sang, "serving Albany, Schenetady, and Troy." I can't remember the names of the various dj's (except Norm Prescott on WBZ) but they all had clever nicknames and seemed to compete for listeners. Fun fines, while they lasted.
Listening to am radio was nearly addicting during the '50s; carrying your transistor everywhere, making sure you didn't miss out on hearing the top 40 hits that day or week, entering contests, calling in and requesting your favorite song or asking for a song to be dedicated to a particular someone.
Was it a top-40 format? If so, I'm guessing it was WPTR in Albany. 50,000 watts on 1540. It was on mine and most other radios at RPI more than any other local station.
At night, though, it was mostly CKLW, WCFL, WLS, and WBZ now and then. I don't remember WBZ's format being very exciting, but it was cool just to get a station from Boston.
Was it a top-40 format? If so, I'm guessing it was WPTR in Albany. 50,000 watts on 1540. It was on mine and most other radios at RPI more than any other local station.
Yes! WPTR. That was it. Thank you. That sounds very familiar now, but I couldn't think of it offhand. That and 10 10 WINS NY. KDKA too. I mostly liked top 40 and would switch from station to station, putting up with static and interference just to get the different versions of the top 40. I must have been nuts in those days but everything was about rock 'n roll and Elvis and Chuck Berry and then that plane crash when "the music died."
Last edited by in_newengland; 01-16-2019 at 10:28 AM..
Smaller stations closed down at night for economic reasons: no one was listening in the low population areas. Chicago, located centrally, was heard over many states on its several high powered (50,000 Watts)
stations-- WLS (owned by Sears- World's Largest Store) WGN (owned by Chicago Tribune- World's Greatest Newspaper) & WCFL (Chicago Federation of Labor)
I grew up in Chicago and had a little crystal radio set (no power needed) and regularly listened to ball games at night when atmospheric conditions were right from St Louis, Milwaukee, Cincinnati & Detroit.
I just barely remember radio shows like Jack Benny or Amos 'n Andy in their last yrs in the early 50s. Regular shows lost out to TV and radio became mostly news & music. Teenagers were never far away from their portable transistor radios that became available in the late 50s, listening to the pop music stations. ...Prior to transistors, radio used delicate vacuum tubes & a lot of juice, so portable wasn't an option. ..Motorola (motor--ola) got big because they developed tubes tough enough to stand bumpy car rides in the 30s.
It occurs to me that AM radio connected a whole generation and for the first time gave young people economical power. It tilted the sociological growth and direction of the United States.
Hearing the Payola scandals mentioned reminded me of the "scare" about Rock and Roll and teen-age delinquency. I think it made us all feel delightfully naughty.
It occurs to me that AM radio connected a whole generation and for the first time gave young people economical power. It tilted the sociological growth and direction of the United States.
Hearing the Payola scandals mentioned reminded me of the "scare" about Rock and Roll and teen-age delinquency. I think it made us all feel delightfully naughty.
That's interesting insight about how we were connected by the radio. True, we were all listening to the same songs and following the same singers and musicians. Of course the previous generation had their musical heroes too but I guess they followed them in the movies or in live performances. WE had our little radios glued to our ears though.
But I bet you're right and that advertisers aimed their products at us through radio.
"Scare" about rock 'n' roll--I read about that. Apparently some stations, mainly in the south? banned some of the songs? It wasn't like that where I lived and I watched Elvis on the Ed Sullivan tv show with my mother. We both kind of went, "meh?" Not impressed. But I was too young to figure out that his wiggling came across as sexy to some people. Really, it was just that the moving to the music was new. Previously, the singers mostly just stood there and sang.
The music did unite our generation though. In high school they taught us that the entire concept of "teenager" was something new. I guess the transistor radio generation was ready for their own music, made for them, played for them, aimed at them. We certainly felt a bit special with our own music and it was kind of fun seeing our parents hate our music so much, lol. (They said it wasn't any good because you couldn't even understand the words.)
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That sounds very familiar now, but I couldn't think of it offhand. That and 10 10 WINS NY. KDKA too. I mostly liked top 40 and would switch from station to station, putting up with static and interference just to get the different versions of the top 40. I must have been nuts in those days but everything was about rock 'n roll and Elvis and Chuck Berry and then that plane crash when "the music died."
