Boston Radio: John Garabedian Has Plans For WJIB

Nearly a year after its longtime proprietor passed away, it appears that beloved Cambridge-based easy listening station WJIB will live on — likely with a broader reach.

The Boston Globe reports longtime Boston radio personality John Garabedian finalized a purchase of the station this week, with plans to carry on the format and style of its previous operator, Bob Bittner, who ran the station single-handedly until he died last May at the age of 73.

“I just thought it was a wonderful opportunity to continue on with the 20-year legacy that Bob Bittner built up,” Garabedian said Wednesday. “He created a very unique radio station, unlike any radio station I know of in the country.”

John Garabedian

Bittner purchased the 740 AM frequency at auction in 1991 and launched WJIB the next year. It was analog, commercial-free, listener-funded, and fully curated from the mind of Bittner, who assembled a massive catalog of what he called “beautiful music” from long-past eras: a mix of instrumental and vocal tracks that dated back decades.

The station’s only on-air voice talent, Bittner contributed warm banter and anti-corporate commentary between tracks, from his home in West Bath, Maine.  The effect — a mix of nostalgic favorites and oddball curiosities — could be soothing, strange, or funny, and stalwart artists ranged from Artie Shaw to Dionne Warwick, Rod Stewart to Peggy Lee. Fans included those who remembered when those tracks once debuted, as well as those who simply cherished Bittner and his esoteric musical mélange.

Since Bittner died unexpectedly in May. Now Garabedian — a former WBCN DJ who for 30 years broadcast “Open House Party” every Saturday night from his own home — will buy the station’s AM and FM broadcasting licenses, some equipment, and even WJIB’s package of jingles from Bittner’s estate for $575,010. He’ll also lease on Bittner’s antenna tower, which is near Fresh Pond in Cambridge, for up to a year, and Bittner’s estate will share files for more than 15,000 tracks he had amassed through the years, often through listener gifts of vinyl records.

The station’s aesthetic — musical and otherwise — will continue, said Garabedian, who does not plan to take a salary and will likely continue WJIB’s annual fundraising drive to support the low-cost operation.

WJIB 740AM (250 watts-D, 5 watts-N)

Garabedian is planning one significant change, though. To listen to Bittner’s WJIB, you needed a radio. When the new owner takes over, one of his first moves will be to make the station available online, for all to hear.