WWZN
Encyclopedia
WWZN is an AM radio station
licensed to serve the Boston
media market
. Its programming is a time-brokered mix between progressive talk radio
during the daytime (as "1510 Revolution Boston"), sports talk (as "1510 The Zone") and religious programming in the overnight hours (as "1510 Victory Radio"). WWZN is also the radio station for the Boston University hockey team
as well as Boston University
men's basketball, Boston College High School
football, and Harvard football. On March 31, 2010 it was announced that WWZN will carry all Boston Red Sox
games in Spanish.
The station's entire daytime lineup of progressive talk is brokered by current morning-drive host Jeff Santos, who also has helped furnish airtime for Stephanie Miller
, Ed Schultz
and Thom Hartmann
in an arrangement with syndicator Dial Global
.
On October 18, 2011, it was reported in All Access that the station had been sold to Media Americas Corporation.
remote broadcast from a Boston club survives.
In 1957, the Pote family sold WMEX to the Richmond Brothers. Max Richmond, one of the brothers, changed the format of WMEX to a rock and roll dominant pop music format (one of the first in the nation) and hired Arnie Ginsburg
, whose nightly rock and roll broadcasts on WBOS (now WUNR) were very popular. The format lasted from 1957 until March, 1975. Max Richmond was reportedly a challenge to work for, with his alleged micro-managing and abrasive personality, yet there is no denying his uncanny ability to spot deejay talent, and to keep his station--despite a poor nighttime signal in many suburban locations--a major player and innovator for many years.
Among Max Richmond's innovations was the hiring of Jerry Williams
to conduct a nighttime telephone talk show
, with the caller heard on the air, a revolutionary concept in the late 1950s. With the weekday-only Williams show beginning at 10 PM (after many of the young rock and roll audience was in bed), Richmond shrewdly was able to expand the appeal of his station to the adult community in the late night hours. Malcolm X
was a favorite guest of Williams, and many WMEX broadcasts featuring Williams and Malcolm X survive. When the Beatles
broke in the USA, WMEX was at the forefront, playing virtually every Beatles song available and fueling the already rabid Boston fans. In the early 1960s, main personality Arnie (WooWoo) Ginsburg
began his Saturday night Oldies Show, one of the first in the nation to feature early pioneer rock and rhythm and blues recordings in a specialty show.
In the late 1960s, WMEX received a power upgrade to 50,000 watts daytime, still with 5,000 watts at night. Station engineers had to constantly adjust the phasing network as tides in the Neponset River would play havoc with the station's directional pattern. However, the salt-water marsh area provided the station with an excellent coastal signal. While the night signal could not be heard clearly inland to many Boston suburban locations (especially in the growing and affluent western and southwestern suburbs), the station's nighttime transmissions were heard very clearly across the salt water to the Boston city neighborhoods and the working class North Shore areas, which gave the station's programming a more gritty, earthy sound. The salt-water path nighttime transmissions kept going right up to Nova Scotia and Labrador, gaining the station an audience in those areas as well.
, which featured a tight playlist, a more "suburban oriented" polish, and a 50,000 watt day and night signal which was heard clearly in all suburbs. However, under the programming of John Garabedian
, WMEX countered with an expanded playlist featuring some "progressive rock
" album cuts. WMEX shot back up in the ratings and actually beat WRKO in a few demographics and time periods, but it was a temporary--and final--victory for the venerable station. Shortly thereafter, Max Richmond died, and FM radios became more common, especially in cars where WMEX was getting the FM audience who didn't have an FM car radio yet. WMEX decided to abandon top-40 in 1975. Although briefly a MOR station with some talk programming, WMEX captured the broadcast rights to the Boston Red Sox
beginning with the 1975 playoffs and became an all-talk station in 1976. In 1978, to better promote its talk format and sports coverage, the station changed call letters to WITS ("We're Information, Talk and Sports")
Adding the Boston Bruins
hockey team in the 1978-79 season boosted WITS' sports profile, but the station came in for considerable criticism after the 1978 baseball season when it fired the popular Red Sox commentary duo of Ned Martin
and Jim Woods
. Although Martin was able to continue broadcasting the Red Sox on TV, Woods never again broadcast the team's games on a regular basis.
Long a 5,000-watt station, WMEX/WITS in the 1970s had a daytime power output of 50,000 watts and a nighttime power of 5,000 watts, which led to a less-than-perfect signal in parts of the Boston area, especially at night. WKBW, with 50,000 watts, right next door to WMEX on the dial, at 1520 from Buffalo, New York, and directional straight at Massachusetts, all but buried the weaker 5,000-watt WMEX after dark, in the western Boston suburbs (like Wellesley). On the other side of WMEX, was an equally strong signal from a Washington, DC station (then WTOP), which, together with WKBW, would really put the squeeze on WMEX's signal at night. One would really have to "eke out" the 1510 signal, in the face of these 50 kW blowtorches. In 1981, the station moved its transmitter to Waltham and was able to boost power to 50,000 watts day and night. But while some areas did get an improved signal, especially at night, other areas did not.
In 2002 WMEX came back on in Rochester, New Hampshire on the FM dial at 106.5FM until June of 2008 until that frequency was sold to a Christian Group. Under the direction of Gary James who was the Station Manager and Gene Vallee the Marketing Manager for WMEX 106.5 the station hosted a top oldies format for nearly 6 years.
Not long afterwards, WITS owner at the time, Mariner Communications, suffered financial problems. The station lost the Red Sox and Bruins, and had to abandon its talk format.
. For a time, there were local sports talk hosts on WWZN such as Sean McDonough
, Ryen Russillo
and Boston sports-talk legend Eddie Andelman
.
During this time, Paul Allen
's Rose City Broadcasting
held the license. Allen also owned Sporting News Radio and The Sporting News
magazine. For a few years, WWZN had the local radio broadcasts of the Boston Celtics
basketball team, but the station did not renew the deal when it expired at the end of the 2004–2005 NBA season.
Prior to the station's sale, WWZN started to rely on time-brokered programming in addition to its coverage of Sporting News Radio. On May 31, 2007, Blackstrap Broadcasting completed its purchase of this station and WSNR
in the New York City
area (licensed to Newark, New Jersey
). In the fall of 2007, WWZN moved from Burlington, MA to brand new studios overlooking the ocean at Marina Bay
in Quincy, MA.
Starting with coverage immediately before and on Election Day, 2008, WWZN began to air progressive talk, a format that had existed in Boston on WKOX
and WXKS from late 2004 until December 2006. On December 1, 2008, local progressive radio personality Jeff Santos began hosting a 6 to 9 a.m. show, with syndicated host Peter B. Collins from 6 to 9 PM. Collins dropped out in early 2009. Beginning on May 4, 2009, Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz and Thom Hartmann were added to the schedule, all but relegating sports programming to solely the evening hours and for part of the weekends.
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
licensed to serve the Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
media market
Media market
A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area , Television Market Area , or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same television and radio station offerings, and may also include other types of media including newspapers and Internet content...
. Its programming is a time-brokered mix between progressive talk radio
Progressive talk radio
Progressive talk radio is a talk radio format devoted to expressing liberal or progressive viewpoints of issues, as opposed to conservative talk radio...
during the daytime (as "1510 Revolution Boston"), sports talk (as "1510 The Zone") and religious programming in the overnight hours (as "1510 Victory Radio"). WWZN is also the radio station for the Boston University hockey team
Boston University Terriers
The Boston University Terriers are the nine men's and twelve women's varsity athletic teams representing Boston University in NCAA Division I competition. The men compete in basketball, cross country, ice hockey, rowing, soccer, swimming, tennis, indoor and outdoor track, and wrestling...
as well as Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
men's basketball, Boston College High School
Boston College High School
Founded in 1863, Boston College High School is an all-male Jesuit Roman Catholic college preparatory secondary school with historical ties to Boston College. It has an enrollment in grades 7-12 of approximately 1,500 students and is located on a campus on Morrissey Boulevard in the Dorchester...
football, and Harvard football. On March 31, 2010 it was announced that WWZN will carry all Boston Red Sox
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are a professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, and a member of Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight charter franchises, the Red Sox's home ballpark has been Fenway Park since . The "Red Sox"...
games in Spanish.
The station's entire daytime lineup of progressive talk is brokered by current morning-drive host Jeff Santos, who also has helped furnish airtime for Stephanie Miller
Stephanie Miller
Stephanie Catherine Miller is an American comedienne and host of The Stephanie Miller Show, a progressive talk radio program produced in Los Angeles and syndicated nationally by Dial Global. Talkers magazine ranked her as the 24th most important radio talk show host in America for 2010.-Early...
, Ed Schultz
Ed Schultz
Edward Andrew "Ed" Schultz Is an American television and radio host and a liberal political commentator . He is the host of The Ed Show, a daily news talk program on MSNBC, and The Ed Schultz Show, a talk radio show, nationally syndicated by Dial Global, promising "straight talk."-Early...
and Thom Hartmann
Thom Hartmann
Thom Hartmann is an American radio host, author, former psychotherapist and entrepreneur, and progressive political commentator. His nationally-syndicated radio show, The Thom Hartmann Program, airs in the United States and has 2.75 million listeners a week...
in an arrangement with syndicator Dial Global
Dial Global
Dial Global is a radio syndication company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Triton Media Group and is a sister company to Townsquare Media, both of which are owned by Oaktree Capital Management....
.
On October 18, 2011, it was reported in All Access that the station had been sold to Media Americas Corporation.
WMEX: Influential jazz and Top 40 station
Founded in 1934 as WMEX by Bill and Al Pote, the station was originally on 1500 kHz, with 500 watts day, 100 watts night from a transmitter site off West Squantum Road in Quincy, near the then-WNAC/WAAB (now WMKI) site in the Neponset River valley. After several unsuccessful attempts to move to 1470 with a power upgrade to 5,000 watts, WMEX finally made the move (with power increase) in 1941, just in time for NARBA to move that channel to its current frequency, 1510 kHz. Throughout this period, WMEX operated as an independent (non-network) station with a program schedule filled with everything from live music remotes to ethnic programming. In the early 1950s, the station featured some notable jazz programming, and the recording of a WMEX originated Billie HolidayBillie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
remote broadcast from a Boston club survives.
In 1957, the Pote family sold WMEX to the Richmond Brothers. Max Richmond, one of the brothers, changed the format of WMEX to a rock and roll dominant pop music format (one of the first in the nation) and hired Arnie Ginsburg
Arnie Ginsburg
Arnie Ginsburg was a well-known American disc jockey in the Boston radio market from the mid-1950s to the 1970s. Following this period, he became involved in the business side of radio as a business manager, president and owner of WVJV-TV , and later as an executive with Pyramid Broadcasting and...
, whose nightly rock and roll broadcasts on WBOS (now WUNR) were very popular. The format lasted from 1957 until March, 1975. Max Richmond was reportedly a challenge to work for, with his alleged micro-managing and abrasive personality, yet there is no denying his uncanny ability to spot deejay talent, and to keep his station--despite a poor nighttime signal in many suburban locations--a major player and innovator for many years.
Among Max Richmond's innovations was the hiring of Jerry Williams
Jerry Williams
Jerome Ralph "Jerry" Williams was an American football player and coach who served as head coach of two Canadian Football League teams, as well as the National Football League's Philadelphia Eagles.-Early life:...
to conduct a nighttime telephone talk show
Talk radio
Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often feature interviews with a number of different guests. Talk radio typically includes an element of listener participation, usually by broadcasting live...
, with the caller heard on the air, a revolutionary concept in the late 1950s. With the weekday-only Williams show beginning at 10 PM (after many of the young rock and roll audience was in bed), Richmond shrewdly was able to expand the appeal of his station to the adult community in the late night hours. Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
was a favorite guest of Williams, and many WMEX broadcasts featuring Williams and Malcolm X survive. When the Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
broke in the USA, WMEX was at the forefront, playing virtually every Beatles song available and fueling the already rabid Boston fans. In the early 1960s, main personality Arnie (WooWoo) Ginsburg
Arnie Ginsburg
Arnie Ginsburg was a well-known American disc jockey in the Boston radio market from the mid-1950s to the 1970s. Following this period, he became involved in the business side of radio as a business manager, president and owner of WVJV-TV , and later as an executive with Pyramid Broadcasting and...
began his Saturday night Oldies Show, one of the first in the nation to feature early pioneer rock and rhythm and blues recordings in a specialty show.
In the late 1960s, WMEX received a power upgrade to 50,000 watts daytime, still with 5,000 watts at night. Station engineers had to constantly adjust the phasing network as tides in the Neponset River would play havoc with the station's directional pattern. However, the salt-water marsh area provided the station with an excellent coastal signal. While the night signal could not be heard clearly inland to many Boston suburban locations (especially in the growing and affluent western and southwestern suburbs), the station's nighttime transmissions were heard very clearly across the salt water to the Boston city neighborhoods and the working class North Shore areas, which gave the station's programming a more gritty, earthy sound. The salt-water path nighttime transmissions kept going right up to Nova Scotia and Labrador, gaining the station an audience in those areas as well.
WITS: Information, talk and sports
By the late 1960s, WMEX was facing tough competition in the top-40 format from WRKOWRKO
WRKO is a radio station based in Boston, Massachusetts, currently owned by Entercom. Its transmitter is located in Burlington, Massachusetts, next to the Burlington Mall.-1920-1940:...
, which featured a tight playlist, a more "suburban oriented" polish, and a 50,000 watt day and night signal which was heard clearly in all suburbs. However, under the programming of John Garabedian
John Garabedian
John H. Garabedian is an American radio personality and disc jockey, known as the host of Open House Party. He has been involved in Massachusetts radio and television stations for around fifty years. John lives in Southborough, Massachusetts....
, WMEX countered with an expanded playlist featuring some "progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
" album cuts. WMEX shot back up in the ratings and actually beat WRKO in a few demographics and time periods, but it was a temporary--and final--victory for the venerable station. Shortly thereafter, Max Richmond died, and FM radios became more common, especially in cars where WMEX was getting the FM audience who didn't have an FM car radio yet. WMEX decided to abandon top-40 in 1975. Although briefly a MOR station with some talk programming, WMEX captured the broadcast rights to the Boston Red Sox
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are a professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, and a member of Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight charter franchises, the Red Sox's home ballpark has been Fenway Park since . The "Red Sox"...
beginning with the 1975 playoffs and became an all-talk station in 1976. In 1978, to better promote its talk format and sports coverage, the station changed call letters to WITS ("We're Information, Talk and Sports")
Adding the Boston Bruins
Boston Bruins
The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . The team has been in existence since 1924, and is the league's third-oldest team and its oldest in the...
hockey team in the 1978-79 season boosted WITS' sports profile, but the station came in for considerable criticism after the 1978 baseball season when it fired the popular Red Sox commentary duo of Ned Martin
Ned Martin
Edwin Martin was an American sportscaster, known primarily as a play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball's Boston Red Sox from to...
and Jim Woods
Jim Woods
James M. Woods was an American sportscaster, best known for his play-by-play work on Major League Baseball broadcasts.-Early life:...
. Although Martin was able to continue broadcasting the Red Sox on TV, Woods never again broadcast the team's games on a regular basis.
Long a 5,000-watt station, WMEX/WITS in the 1970s had a daytime power output of 50,000 watts and a nighttime power of 5,000 watts, which led to a less-than-perfect signal in parts of the Boston area, especially at night. WKBW, with 50,000 watts, right next door to WMEX on the dial, at 1520 from Buffalo, New York, and directional straight at Massachusetts, all but buried the weaker 5,000-watt WMEX after dark, in the western Boston suburbs (like Wellesley). On the other side of WMEX, was an equally strong signal from a Washington, DC station (then WTOP), which, together with WKBW, would really put the squeeze on WMEX's signal at night. One would really have to "eke out" the 1510 signal, in the face of these 50 kW blowtorches. In 1981, the station moved its transmitter to Waltham and was able to boost power to 50,000 watts day and night. But while some areas did get an improved signal, especially at night, other areas did not.
In 2002 WMEX came back on in Rochester, New Hampshire on the FM dial at 106.5FM until June of 2008 until that frequency was sold to a Christian Group. Under the direction of Gary James who was the Station Manager and Gene Vallee the Marketing Manager for WMEX 106.5 the station hosted a top oldies format for nearly 6 years.
Not long afterwards, WITS owner at the time, Mariner Communications, suffered financial problems. The station lost the Red Sox and Bruins, and had to abandon its talk format.
Since 1983: Multiple call signs — and formats
WITS flipped to an adult standards format under the call sign WMRE "The Memory Station", but was not successful. Other formats quickly followed, one after the other. Among them were a return to talk (featuring Morgan White Jr. and Bob Katzen), soft adult contemporary (as WSSH-AM), country (as WKKU), and (as WNRB) first, brokered religious programming and then Spanish-language programming, before settling on sports under the call letters of WWZN. Most WWZN programming came from the One-On-One Sports Network, and from One-On-One's successor, Sporting News RadioSporting News Radio
Yahoo! Sports Radio, formerly Sporting News Radio is a United States sports radio network that broadcasts sports news, talk, scores, and highlights 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. On August 1, 2011, it was announced the network would change its name to Yahoo! Sports Radio, effective...
. For a time, there were local sports talk hosts on WWZN such as Sean McDonough
Sean McDonough
Sean McDonough is an American sportscaster, currently employed by ESPN.-Early life and career:The son of Boston Globe sportswriter Will McDonough, Sean graduated from Syracuse University in 1984. It was in Syracuse where McDonough began his broadcasting career in 1982 as the play-by-play announcer...
, Ryen Russillo
Ryen Russillo
Ryen Russillo is an American sports host. He has worked for ESPN Radio as the co-host of The Scott Van Pelt Show since May, 2009....
and Boston sports-talk legend Eddie Andelman
Eddie Andelman
Eddie Andelman is an American sports radio talk show host. He has worked over 40 years in sports talk radio in Boston and has appeared on over 100 sports stations all over the country.- Career :...
.
During this time, Paul Allen
Paul Allen
Paul Gardner Allen is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. Allen co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates...
's Rose City Broadcasting
Rose City Radio Corporation
Rose City Radio Corporation was the owner of two radio stations in Portland, Oregon, NewsRadio 750 KXL and KXTG-FM 95.5 The Game, until those stations were sold to Alpha Broadcasting. Rose City also owns the Radio Northwest Network which airs programming on KXL to 17 affiliates throughout Oregon...
held the license. Allen also owned Sporting News Radio and The Sporting News
The Sporting News
Sporting News is an American-based sports magazine. It was established in 1886, and it became the dominant American publication covering baseball — so much so that it acquired the nickname "The Bible of Baseball"...
magazine. For a few years, WWZN had the local radio broadcasts of the Boston Celtics
Boston Celtics
The Boston Celtics are a National Basketball Association team based in Boston, Massachusetts. They play in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. Founded in 1946, the team is currently owned by Boston Basketball Partners LLC. The Celtics play their home games at the TD Garden, which...
basketball team, but the station did not renew the deal when it expired at the end of the 2004–2005 NBA season.
Prior to the station's sale, WWZN started to rely on time-brokered programming in addition to its coverage of Sporting News Radio. On May 31, 2007, Blackstrap Broadcasting completed its purchase of this station and WSNR
WSNR
WSNR, AM 620, is a radio station in the New York metropolitan area with a brokered time format owned by Blackstrap Broadcasting. On Saturdays and Sundays WSNR, AM 620, is a radio station in the New York metropolitan area with a brokered time format owned by Blackstrap Broadcasting. On Saturdays and...
in the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
area (licensed to Newark, New Jersey
Newark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
). In the fall of 2007, WWZN moved from Burlington, MA to brand new studios overlooking the ocean at Marina Bay
Marina Bay (Quincy, Massachusetts)
Marina Bay is a mixed-use development neighborhood of condominium, commercial and entertainment facilities in Quincy, Massachusetts. It includes five housing complexes and one assisted living complex, office complexes, numerous restaurants, a 685-slip marina and a seaside boardwalk...
in Quincy, MA.
Starting with coverage immediately before and on Election Day, 2008, WWZN began to air progressive talk, a format that had existed in Boston on WKOX
WXKS (AM)
WKOX is a radio station in the Boston radio market, licensed to Everett, Massachusetts. The station is owned by Clear Channel Communications and carries a Spanish Hits format.- History :...
and WXKS from late 2004 until December 2006. On December 1, 2008, local progressive radio personality Jeff Santos began hosting a 6 to 9 a.m. show, with syndicated host Peter B. Collins from 6 to 9 PM. Collins dropped out in early 2009. Beginning on May 4, 2009, Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz and Thom Hartmann were added to the schedule, all but relegating sports programming to solely the evening hours and for part of the weekends.