Doug Alling, 103.3 WHTT Boston | December 20, 1984

Is Santa Claus coming to Natic this year?…

Curator’s Notes:

The complexities of the Boston Radio Market being what they are, radio stations tend to come and go – but some frequencies have been prone to change more than others. Consider that up until 1982, 103.3 held the call letters WEEI-FM (since 1947) and was considered a very stable and successful radio station. The “Soft Rock 103” era was very popular and it may well be that the Soft AC format they had through the 1970s and very early 80s was the most memorable in the history of the signal – besides the WODS “Oldies 103.3” era. That’s another story altogether.

By 1984, WHTT, the successor to WEEI-FM, was at its peak of popularity but had a lot of competition. Shortly after the station changed call letters to WHTT, ex Rocker WCOZ flipped to CHR as WZOU (after a six month period trying out soft AC). Then, WXKS-FM “Kiss 108” with Sunny Joe White at the helm had also evolved into a monster CHR. Kiss always leaned Rhythmic, having exited both Disco and then primarily Urban by 1984. Some Rock hits were appearing there, along with WHTT and WZOU. Even WROR, the former Oldies (then Full Service AC) station jumped in by 1983 and did CHR for about a year and a half before sliding back to Adult Contemporary. Add in some out of market signals that affected the South Shore area, like WPRO-FM, and the off and on pseudo Top 40 format of WCGY Lawrence, and the CHR format was well saturated in Boston.

But man, did it sound GOOD. All this competition made for some very exciting radio. WHTT was at the top of it’s game here in 1984. It would last another year and a half before the format – and the call letters left for good. Oh, and WHTT? Those call letters wound up in Buffalo, NY! (Website)