Rod West on WEEI-FM Boston | January 15, 1983 (42:12) Scoped
November 7, 2004 
4 Comments
One of my prized possessions is this aircheck I received from Contributor Steve McVie about 2 years ago. WEEI-FM, soon after this aircheck to become WHTT, had been a favorite of mine as AC “Soft Rock 103″. Looking back to that era (I had just graduated from Mahar Regional High School in Orange, MA), I think it was New Year’s day or darn close to it, 1983 that the format flip to CHR occurred. It matters for historic purposes.
WEEI-FM as a CHR station was fantastic! Before the call letter change to WHTT later that year, “HitRadio 103″ as it was known really had quite a balanced playlist. It seems to me that station management kind of eased into CHR, musically speaking. After the call letter change, the music seemed much harder edged.
Oh well, I could talk to the moon forever concerning 103 FM back then. It was my favorite station that year. So, I’ll be quiet now and just let you listen to Rod West – a guy who would hang with HitRadio 103 FM for a couple of years, and the NEW WEEI-FM from 1/15/03!
Actually, WEEI-FM began the transition to CHR as Hit Radio 103 in the Fall of 1982. I recall because I was in negotiations for a position on the airstaff with Rick Peters who was the PD. I may have a Hit Radio 103 WEEI-FM logo I can share with you.
Hot aircheck!
by the summer of l985, Boston had 3 fulltime CHR’s. WHTT 103.3, WZOU 94.5, and WKKT 100.7 and KISS l08 which was dance/pop crossover.
WHTT changed format in the summer of ’86 to WMRQ which was pretty much a collection of ‘soft stiffs’ and no ratings until it went oldies as WODS. ‘KKT became classic rock WZLX. from 4 pop stations down to l today which is KISS 108.
Oh yes I remember this era in Boston well. WHTT of course was the old WEEI-FM (Soft Rock 103) that flipped to CHR early in ’83. CBS sold the FM to Papa Ginos, thus the need for a call letter change, since back then, FCC rules wouldn’t allow for the WEEI call letters to be held by different owners on AM and FM. WXKS-FM had evolved from Disco 108 to CHR in 1981, and it was a painfully slow process, as I recall. Sunny Joe White was PD from day one of the Disco era the day the WWEL-FM calls were dropped and he slowly moved towards CHR from Disco… and really, it was more like a move toward what we know as an Urban format in late 80/81. Kiss didn’t get to full blown CHR till almost ’82. And even then it stayed mainly Rhythmic. Probably the only thing keeping Kiss from being a true Top 40 was WILD AM 1090. Then, there was the old WCOZ. 94.5 was on top of things as an AOR giant through 1981, then the bottom fell out of the format. It hit WCOZ very hard because Sebastian’s “Kick Ass Rock n Roll” format burnt itself out with the same liner card reads and the same Ozzy / Foreigner / Boston tracks every hour. So, by 1983, 94.5 was ready and did bail on the format. They first tried a New Wave Rock format, which failed miserably… that was the “Rock of the 80s” thing they tried. Then WCOZ tried a version of AC that they twisted around… I remember how the trades had it written up: they actually called the format “Contemporary Adult”, as if reversing the words would mean something to advertisers. It didn’t. The AC version of WCOZ started in August of ’83. They blew it all up in ’84 and went CHR as WZOU, “Boston’s Zoo!”. By 1986 it was “Z94″. Lastly, 100.7 was Beautiful Music WHUE for quite a while… A Sconnix station if I remember correctly. I don’t remember the exact date of format changes, but I do recall that sometime in 83 or 84, they had a fire at the transmitter building which seriously damaged the TX. Running on greatly reduced power for a while they tried to hang on to the BM format but in the end, they tried, first, COUNTRY of all things (The Cat, that’s where the WKKT calls came in), then CHR… for a very short period of time, then blew the whole thing up and started over with the WZLX calls and Classic Hits.
That’s how things were in 1985. WHTT would give up in ’86 and go to that ill fated “Qualtiy Rock” WMRQ format for about six months, then they blew that up and took 103.3 Oldies as WODS. The WMRQ calls shortly ended up in Hartford at 104.1 and stayed for a number of years until the Urban format came along and they ditched the calls for WPHH… only to get WMRQ back about a year ago when they brought back the Active Rock format. As for the WHTT calls, they shipped off to Buffalo, where they remain today. WZOU was interesting. They went Urban in 1992 as WJMN “Jammin’ 94-5″. The WZOU calls landed at a NH AM station that I can’t recall at the moment. Not even sure if they are still currently issued. Then, WJMN and WXKS-FM got gobbled up by the same company that eventually was Clear Channel. Might have been Evergreen or AMFM at the time. At the time, both WJMN and WXKS-FM were playing much of the same music. Kiss had to do a big move to the center as full blown CHR and add a lot more Rock in order to separate itself from it’s now sister station @ 94.5.
And of course, we all know how the dial is today. Its tempting to say a barren wasteland, but not completely. The radio landscape in Boston is so radically different though, even from just a few years ago, it’s almost unrecognizable. Gone are the AORs… including WBCN, which is relegated to an HD2 and an HD3 and the internet – in two different incarnations on a different frequency. Gone is the old WROR at 98.5, that replaced by WBMX, which moved down to 104.1 and replaced the old WBCN. 98.5 is Sports as WBZ-FM. Gone is the old WVBF 105.7 (EX onetime WKOX-FM) and WCLB – as 105.7 became WKLB, merged with WBCS 96.9 and then moved to 99.5 (which then moved a few years ago to 102.5 when Classical WCRB swapped frequencies with WKLB)… and now 105.7 is WROR. And, ironically, as fate would have it, in 1981, at the start of this CHR trek, the current station at 106.7 was the old automated WBZ-FM AOR station, which Westinghouse Broadcasting in its infinite wisdom had no idea what to do with, and sold it off to the then owners of what became WMJX – Magic 106.7.
And, to confuse you people even further, WMJX was a former Top 40 station in Miami in the 70s, and WBMX was a former FM Top 40 station in Chicago in the 70s.
In writing this comment, I realized that as much as I always seem to whine about ‘heritage’ when it comes to call letters, the amount of Call Letter recycling in Boston has surely amounted to an enormous amount of Call Letter confusion. How can the ratings MEAN anything? Just asking.
Now, aren’t you glad I chimed in to make your head spin?
-West