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Sports Radio Stations Boston
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The Sports
Hub Launches
August 13, 2009
By
James Reed and Erin Ailworth, Globe Staff
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Taken from
Boston Financial Guide for entire story
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It was more than 40 years ago, on
a March night in 1968, when WBCN-FM (104.1) decided to break from its
classical music format. Instead of Bach, listeners that evening heard
“I Feel Free,’’ by the Eric Clapton-led rock band Cream, and right then
Boston’s local music scene was transformed.
Yesterday, it was upended yet again,
by the same station.
CBS Radio Boston, which owns WBCN,
announced it would pull the plug on the station, which helped make household
names of some of the biggest musical acts to come out of Boston, so
it could accommodate other changes in local radio.
Next month ( August 2009), a
sports talk radio station, The Sports Hub, will replace the music station
WBMX, or Mix 98.5 FM, adding a third sports radio show in a town that
seems to have an insatiable appetite for all things sports. Mix 98.5
will then take its “modern rock, conservative format’’ to WBCN’s slot.
And WBCN, whose slogan, “The Rock
of Boston,’’ had become as seminal as some of the performers the station
championed early on – including Aerosmith, The Cars, J. Geils Band,
U2, and Elvis Costello – will morph into an online-only station available
at wbcn.com.
New sports talk station will
take on WEEI.
“Once their ratings started going
down the tubes, I thought to myself, ‘Somebody’s not getting it in corporate,’
’’ Charles Laquidara, one of WBCN’s quintessential personalities from
1969 to 1996, said from his home in Hawaii. On his Facebook page, he
addressed WBCN’s fans: “It was a great station. It was also a great
time in radio history. I know we can never go back to that, but there
will be something someday.’’
Mark Hannon, senior vice president
and market manager of CBS Radio Boston, said in an interview yesterday
it is a “sad moment to see a station with 40-plus years of heritage
coming out of format.’’ But, he said, “the rock genre in this marketplace
is extremely crowded, and ’BCN has struggled in the past few years to
stay competitive.’’
The decision, which will take
effect Aug. 13, will ripple well beyond the airwaves, too, given the
station’s longtime support for local bands.
In addition to “Boston Emissions,’’
’BCN’s two-hour, weekly program showcasing local talent, the WBCN Rock
’n’ Roll Rumble has been a popular battle of the local bands since 1979.
Occasionally, its winners went on to find national success. After winning
the Rumble in 1983, ’Til Tuesday, Aimee Mann’s new-wave band, was signed
to Epic Records; the cabaret-punk duo the Dresden Dolls emerged victors
in 2003.
Despite its founding in 1955 as a
classical station, ’BCN became “the underground rock station in Boston,’’
said Scott Fybush, editor of NorthEast Radio Watch, an industry trade
journal. “They were playing stuff that had no other home on the radio
and people who had never had a reason to own an FM radio before were
going out and buying an FM radio to hear this.’’
The station struggled for at least
the last decade, propped up by its coverage of the Patriots and, at
least for a time, Howard Stern’s syndicated show
Fybush called CBS Radio’s emphasis
on building a sports station with Patriots coverage, a “smart move,’’
because it gives listeners something they can’t necessarily load onto
their iPods – live coverage of games.
Of course, more sports and more
talk means less rock for Boston listeners.
But Sean Ross, vice president of music
and programming at Edison Media Research, said for many around Boston,
that change had already begun.
“The ’BCN that most people are going
to be sad about losing this afternoon,’’ Ross said, “went away a while
ago.’’
Mark Shanahan and Don Aucoin of the
Globe staff contributed reporting.
© Copyright 2009 The New York Times
Company
It’s
war on the Boston sports radio airwaves as
CBS Radio shutters rock
giant WBCN [website]
next month
and aims its big guns
straight at Entercom powerhouse WEEI with a new
FM sports talk station.
 Opie
& Anthony
WBCN THE ROCK
OF BOSTON 104.1
Opie
(Gregg Hughes, b.
May 23,
1963) and Anthony (Anthony Cumia, b.
April 26,
1961) are the hosts of The Opie & Anthony
Show, a
talk radio program airing on
XM Satellite Radio,
XM Canada,
DirecTV, and syndicated on terrestrial radio stations
nationwide. It is co-hosted by stand up comedian
Jim Norton. The show is currently based in
New York City; it was previously on
WNEW-FM in New York, and prior to that, on
WAAF-FM in
Worcester, Massachusetts.
The show airs weekdays live from 6am
ET through 11am. The first three hours of The
Opie & Anthony Show (at 6-9 am) are broadcast from
CBS Radio's
WFNY-FM 92.3 FREE FM studio in New York and are
simulcast on
XM uncensored. From 9am through 11am, Opie and Anthony
broadcast exclusively on
XM Radio Channel 202 "The
Virus". If the live show is not running long, a
"worst-of" segment will be broadcast from 11am to 12pm.
Replays are available throughout the day on their
XM channel as well as on
Direct TV channel 879.
On
April 26, 2006, Opie and Anthony returned to the
terrestrial airwaves after a four year absence, replacing
CBS Radio's
David Lee Roth Show which aired mainly on the
East coast of the United States. Syndication of The
Opie & Anthony Show is handled by Robert Eatman
Enterprises. ( Courtesy of
Wikepedia)
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