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WRKO
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WRKO (680 AM) is a radio station based in Boston, Massachusetts, currently owned by Entercom. Its transmitter is located in Burlington, Massachusetts, next to the Burlington Mall.
ling on 1230 kilocycles (kilohertz) in 1922, WNAC was founded by John Shepard, a Boston businessman who's father John Shepard Jr. had a department-store empire throughout New England and saw the potential of radio to publicize himself and his stores enough to finance his son's venture.
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Encyclopedia
WRKO (680 AM) is a radio station based in Boston, Massachusetts, currently owned by Entercom. Its transmitter is located in Burlington, Massachusetts, next to the Burlington Mall.
History
1920-1940
Settling on 1230 kilocycles (kilohertz) in 1922, WNAC was founded by John Shepard, a Boston businessman who's father John Shepard Jr. had a department-store empire throughout New England and saw the potential of radio to publicize himself and his stores enough to finance his son's venture. The previous month WEAN another Shepard owned radio station went on air in Providence Rhode Island. In 1927, WNAC became one of the sixteen charter members of the CBS Radio Network, and remained a CBS affiliate for the next decade.
Shepard also launched a regional network to serve radio stations throughout New England; called "The Yankee Network", it was also a pioneer in radio news coverage. For many years, the Yankee Network was one of the best local/regional radio news operations in the country.
Shepard also purchased a second Boston station, WAAB, which became an affiliate of the Mutual Radio Network in 1935. He also launched a second regional network, "The Colonial Network", with WAAB as its flagship station. Outside of Boston, Yankee and Colonial programming were usually heard on the same station; additionally, Colonial carried Mutual programming to its affiliates.
1935 also saw the hiring of Fred B. Cole, a disc jockey who would spend more than 50 years on the air in Boston at various stations. Cole left WNAC for WHDH in 1946.
In 1937, WNAC became an NBC Red affiliate after losing CBS to WEEI. Four years later, WNAC's frequency changed to 1260 kilocycles (kilohertz). In 1942, to comply with FCC anti-duopoly regulations, WAAB was moved to Worcester. At the same time, WNAC lost NBC
"Red" to WBZ and with WAAB having been moved, took over the Mutual affiliation.
1940-1981
By 1949, WNAC was sold to General Tire and Rubber. For a brief time in 1956 and 1957, WNAC - which moved to 680 kHz when General Tire bought 50,000 watt WLAW (based 25 miles north of Boston in Lawrence, Massachusetts) in the early 1950s - was affiliated with both Mutual and NBC. The station would remain a Mutual affiliate until the network, of which General Tire was a part-owner, was sold in the late 1950s. WNAC lost NBC to WEZE (the station, ironically, that took over WNAC's original 1260 frequency) in 1957, and would lose Mutual as well.
After MOR music, a brief attempt at top-40, and a format featuring a variety of chat programs, major changes came to WNAC in early 1967. The station's call letters would be changed to WRKO, the format to rock and roll, and the Yankee Network would cease to exist.
The complete history of WRKO, complete with airchecks and official reproductions, may be found at http://wrko.org.
The move to a rock format in March 1967 was an enormous success. For the next decade, WRKO was one of Boston's top-rated radio stations, and absolutely dominant among its target audience of listeners under the age of 35. Known to its listeners as "The Big 68" and a Top 40 station of considerable influence, WRKO was home to such well-known personalities as longtime morning man Dale Dorman, Joel Cash, J. J. Wright, J. J. Jeffrey, Shadoe Stevens, Frank Kingston Smith (who was known as "Bobby Mitchell"), Steve Anthony and many others.
By the end of the 1970s, however, rock and top-40 radio had begun to migrate from AM to FM. In a three-year period from 1978 to 1981, WRKO lost much of its audience. The station tried to compete with the surge in FM listening, first with a short-lived focus on album cuts and later by switching to Adult Contemporary music, featuring a morning program with market legend Norm Nathan. A switch to a country music format was also reportedly briefly considered. On September 27, 1981, the station switched to an all-talk format: at 6pm on that date Justin Clark played the last song, "American Pie" by Don McLean. (Ironically, WRKO's sister station WROR-FM also switched to a talk format around the same time, although it soon went back to music programming.)
WRKO has been a news and talk station ever since.
1981-Present
After switching to the talk radio format, the station ran a number of service oriented and general chat programs during the day. Moving to more issue-oriented talk, the station enjoyed a resurgence of popularity with some of the most prominent talk-program hosts in the country such as Gene Burns, Jerry Williams, Ted O'Brien and Paul Parent. The station was often the highest rated station in Boston during the 1980s and early 1990s. But while WRKO was growing and changing formats, its parent company, General Tire and Rubber, later renamed Gencorp, was under multiple federal investigations and ultimately under an FCC investigation due to its "lack of candor" for failing to disclose unlawful operations by General Tire. In the midst of the investigation into its parent company's problems, RKO General found itself under investigation for reciprocal trace practices involving several of its properties, and later for double billing by a radio network it organized, the RKO Network. The FCC license hearings culminated in the loss of the company's license to operate WNAC-TV, Channel 7 in Boston before the commission.
Several years later, the FCC denied renewal of all RKO General's broadcast licenses (with the exception of WOR-TV in Secaucus, N.J. which gained a permanent license by agreeing to relocate to New Jersey from New York City) and the assignment of the licenses to designated competing applicants. Gencorp appealed, but rather than be stripped of the valuable licenses without compensation, the company's broadcasting subsidiary, RKO General, entered settlement agreements with the competing applicants that allowed the sale of its stations to third parties by making settlement payments to the applicants that had been awarded the licenses. At the time, Gencorp was strapped for cash as the result of a hostile takeover bid in which management decided to buy back the company's own stock to fend off the takeover. As part of the settlements worked out in Boston, New York, Memphis, Chicago, Ft. Lauderdale, Los Angeles and San Francisco; WRKO and its FM sister station, WROR, were sold to a neophyte broadcaster, Atlantic Ventures Corp., which was operated by a former cable television executive.
After several mergers, Atlantic Ventures (renamed American Radio Systems) decided that owning broadcast and cellular telephone towers was its preferred business and merged with CBS, Inc. WRKO was spun off to Entercom since the merger brought CBS over FCC ownership limits.
In recent years, WRKO has featured such local talk hosts as John "Ozone" Osterlind, Scott Allen Miller, John DePetro, and Howie Carr, as well as nationally-syndicated hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage.
The station was the flagship radio station of the 16-time National Basketball Association champion Boston Celtics from 2005-2007. Entercom Communications in Boston (parent company for WRKO and its sister station, Sports Radio WEEI) assumed the broadcast rights in 2005 from WWZN and WRKO became the flagship station. Beginning in 2007, Entercom moved most of its Celtics coverage to WEEI.
WRKO was, from 1986 to 1994, the flagship station for the Boston Red Sox. In 2006, Entercom inked a 10-year deal to make WRKO co-flagship station for the Red Sox Radio Network along with incumbent WEEI. WRKO airs most night games, while WEEI generally carries day games plus any weeknight game on a specific day of the week.
On November 3, 2006, the station fired host John DePetro for calling gubernatorial candidate Grace Ross a "fat lesbian" across the airwaves. His 9am - noon time slot was taken by Todd Feinburg.
On January 11, 2007, former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, Tom Finneran, was announced as the morning drive-time host on WRKO, replacing Scott Allen Miller.
On December 19, 2007, Reese Hopkins took over the 10am - noon time slot from Todd Feinburg.
The 10am-noon slot was taken over by syndicated talker Laura Ingraham in fall 2008, and, as of January 5, 2009, she will be on from 9am-noon.
Programming
Programs
The programming currently mostly consists of conservative syndicated programming found on most talk stations nationwide, including a locally-based conservative talker: Howie Carr. Morning drive is devoted to locally produced programming by former Democratic state House of Representatives Speaker Tom Finneran and co-host Todd Feinburg . Late Mornings are occupied by nationally syndicated conservative host Laura Ingraham. The current afternoon and evening lineup includes the syndicated Rush Limbaugh on early afternoons, Howie Carr on afternoon drive, Michael Savage on evenings, the syndicated Jerry Doyle on nights, and the syndicated "Coast to Coast AM" with George Noory overnight. If there is an early Red Sox or Celtics game, Savage's show is tape delayed and run after the game.
Notable Saturday programming includes Doug Stephan's Talk Radio Countdown, Mariellen Burns, the syndicated "Money Talk with Bob Brinker", the syndicated Glenn Beck, the syndicated "ABC Perspectives", the syndicated Jerry Doyle, and the syndicated "Coast to Coast AM" with Ian Punnett overnight.
Notable Sunday programming includes "Talking Religion", "The Jim Zoppo Garden Show", the syndicated "Unconventional Wisdom", "Senior Financial Focus", "The Pat Whitley Restaurant Show", the syndicated "Money Talk with Bob Brinker", "Pundit Review Radio" with Kevin Whalen, the syndicated "Live on Sunday Night, It's Bill Cunningham", and the syndicated "Coast to Coast AM" overnight.
News
As of November 16, 2006, all of the on-air news anchors have been fired by station management. WGBH's Beat the Press reported that the news staff was aware of the situation, one by one, and they got their severance checks. As of November 2006, the hourly news updates (including traffic and weather) during the day is provided by Metro Networks. WRKO said in the announcement after the decision that the station's local news and issues would be driven by the talk show hosts, instead of the news anchors. Former News Director Rod Fritz, can now be heard on rival WBZ in Boston, after spending a year in New York at Fox News. Metro's Malcom Alter is now the lead anchor.
Sports
WRKO is the flagship station of the Boston Red Sox radio network. All games are broadcast on WRKO, except for weekday day games and Wednesday night games which are part of "Red Sox Wednesday" on sister station WEEI AM.
Skyway Patrol
The title "Skyway Patrol" was first used by the old WHDH radio in 1961 for their aerial traffic reports. After Entercom moved WEEI's call letters and programming to the old home of WHDH radio, WRKO inherited the rights to the name "Skyway Patrol". In November 2006, along with the layoffs of the news department, the "Skyway Patrol" was replaced with "WRKO News" as their signoff every 20 minutes. Traffic reports come from Metro Networks traffic desk.
Weekday "Skyway Patrol" reporters include Malcolm Alter, Chris Adams, and Joe Stapleton. Weekend reporters include Bruce Adams, Steve Hartman, and Lisa Jackson.
Massachusetts state trooper Grant Moulison, who for 21 years reported to WRKO listeners on the morning and afternoon drivetime situations, left in April 2006 after retiring from the force with 32 years of service behind him. Matt Hillas reported for "Skyway Patrol" from May 1999 to June 2006.
External links
- - A retrospective of WRKO's history as the most popular Top 40 music station in Boston*
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