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| Carter Alan |
As it turns out, radio ratings king Howard Stern was the man
who killed WBCN, according to The Boston Herald.
So says longtime ’BCN jock Carter Alan in a new book, “Radio
Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN,” which chronicles the station’s journey
from oddball, lefty broadcast free-for-all to Rock of Boston domination and
eventual death after an incredible 41-year run.
“Howard Stern made a lot of money for a lot of stations and
gave ’BCN huge ratings,” Alan said. “But ultimately, the addition of Stern in
the morning created a schizophrenic station. People tuned in in the morning to
hear Howard, then they were gone. People who listened to ’BCN for the music, it
was hard to get them back if other stations were doing music better.
“’BCN became the Howard Stern Station, a music station, then
a football station and it was very difficult to determine what ’BCN was.”
For years, 104.1 FM (Now HotAC WBMX Mix 104.1) was the city’s dominant rock signal, a
station that invented album-oriented music programming in the Top 40 era and
launched or helped launch musical acts including Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Bruce
Springsteen, The Clash and U2.
It had a crazily creative morning guy, Charles
Laquidara,
who surrounded himself with a cast of compelling characters, pioneering a
morning show format that has been emulated by nearly every morning DJ in the
country — including Stern. It was the voice of the counterculture in Boston and for a long time
the hippest place on the dial.
But it was only a matter of time until competitors began
emulating ’BCN’s format and ratings
declined. CBS bought ’BCN and, as
radio became more corporate, ratings were all that mattered. When Stern
eventually left CBS to go to satellite radio, ’BCN’s fate was sealed.
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