ESPN Boston move out of Charlestown

[rapking]

ESPN( 890-1400 ) is Leaving its longtime studio home The Schraffts Building in Charlestown and heading for the suburban Waltham ( WCRB 99.5 Studio ).

[MRBIboredop]

that has to be pushing the 25 mile rule for WLLH's main studio location requirement.

Anyone know what the line of sight distance is from the center of Haverhill to Waltham?

[Scott Fybush]

that has to be pushing the 25 mile rule for WLLH's main studio location requirement.

Anyone know what the line of sight distance is from the center of Haverhill to Waltham?

Irrelevant. There's a second piece of the main-studio rule which says the main studio can be more than 25 miles from the COL, as long as it's within a certain contour of ANY station licensed to the same COL. Given that the South Street studio is already the main studio of WCRB-FM 99.5, licensed to Lowell, it is automatically eligible to be the main studio of WLLH, also licensed to Lowell.

(Hey - how about that! 99.5 and 1400, back together again after all these years... 

[DanStrassberg]

Irrelevant. There's a second piece of the main-studio rule which says the main studio can be more than 25 miles from the COL, as long as it's within a certain contour of ANY station licensed to the same COL. Given that the South Street studio is already the main studio of WCRB-FM 99.5, licensed to Lowell, it is automatically eligible to be the main studio of WLLH, also licensed to Lowell.

(Hey - how about that! 99.5 and 1400, back together again after all these years... 

But WLLH is a special case--dual transmitters and dual CoLs. Is there a special rule covering WLLH--if a studio location meets the criteria for Lowell, it is therefore automatically also OK as WLLH's Lawrence studio? Or is the rule for WLLH that is needs only one studio and a location that meets the criteria for EITHER Lowell or Lawrence will do just fine for both communities?

[Scott Fybush]

But WLLH is a special case--dual transmitters and dual CoLs. Is there a special rule covering WLLH--if a studio location meets the criteria for Lowell, it is therefore automatically also OK as WLLH's Lawrence studio? Or is the rule for WLLH that is needs only one studio and a location that meets the criteria for EITHER Lowell or Lawrence will do just fine for both communities?

In this particular case, it still doesn't matter - as long as the Waltham studio location is within the 60 dBu contour of Lawrence-licensed WMKK 93.7, which it is, it's fine.

But if the question were ever put to the test, here's how I think the answer would go (with the usual caveat about my not being a lawyer, etc.) like this -

It's my understanding that the Lawrence station is licensed as a synchronous repeater of the Lowell license, and the FCC has never enforced main-studio requirements for repeaters. So there need be only one main studio, and it has to follow the Lowell rules.

[chrish]

Scott is correct, it is based on WLLH Lowell. As the crow flies Waltham may actually be closer to Lowell than Charlestown.

[encarta95]

Is there really room in the WCRB building for WAMG/WLLH? I was always under the impression that it was a tight fit, though I suppose the area where the WRCA transmitter was would be free.

[Eli Polonsky]

Is there really room in the WCRB building for WAMG/WLLH? I was always under the impression that it was a tight fit, though I suppose the area where the WRCA transmitter was would be free.

I've never been inside the facility, but there was another time when two live staffed broadcast stations with separate formats originated programming from there in the mid to late '70s, when 1330 made its first change from having been WCRB (AM) to a Big Band/Standards format with live hosts as WHET.

In the late '70s or around 1980, WHET flipped from Big Band/Standards with live hosts to a very short-lived Easy Listening / Beautiful Music background format simply promoted as only "1330". The call letters were still WHET, but were only mentioned very quickly near the top of the hour. Even advertising and newspaper listings for this format listed no call letters, just "1330". Anyone else remember this barely a blink of an eye in Boston radio history? I didn't think so.

That was the last format for the AM station produced at the South Streets studios with WCRB-FM and under the same original ownership. All subsequent formats on 1330 (beginning in the early '80s with WDLW "Boston Country") were with a succession of different owners from different studio locations.

[DanStrassberg]

That was the last format for the AM station produced at the South Streets studios with WCRB-FM and under the same original ownership. All subsequent formats on 1330 (beginning in the early '80s with WDLW "Boston Country") were with a succession of different owners from different studio locations.

WRCA's current studios are in Central Sq Cambridge. I believe that more than a decade ago, while WRCA and WLYN were co-owned (by Peter Arpin, I believe), they shared the Central Sq location. But aside from South St and Central Sq, where else has 1330 had its studios?

[Eli Polonsky]

That was the last format for the AM station produced at the South Streets studios with WCRB-FM and under the same original ownership. All subsequent formats on 1330 (beginning in the early '80s with WDLW "Boston Country") were with a succession of different owners from different studio locations.

WRCA's current studios are in Central Sq Cambridge. I believe that more than a decade ago, while WRCA and WLYN were co-owned (by Peter Arpin, I believe), they shared the Central Sq location. But aside from South St and Central Sq, where else has 1330 had its studios?

WDLW, "Boston Country" for most of the 1980s, was from studios on Winter St. in Waltham, a few miles north of South St.

When WDLW flipped to WRCA in 1990 in AM Stereo with a short-lived "show-biz" format (music from Broadway musicals and film soundtracks, comedy, etc... with live, local personality hosts including Jim Sands and Marcia Masters), the studios were, at first, in One Kendall Square, Cambridge.

When that format gave way to brokered programming within the next couple of years, WRCA moved to its current Central Square location.