Thanks to Tony Matt for sharing this with Village 14…
WNTN 1550 AM, currently located on Rumford Avenue next to the city recycling center, has filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission to move their City of License to Cambridge. The transmitter and antenna would be relocated to the WJIB (740 AM) site in the Fresh Pond area of Cambridge. No word yet on plans for a new studio, but it’s expected that owner Colt Communications will sell the entire Rumford Avenue property.
WNTN has been broadcasting from Newton since 1968, and is notable for being the first radio station to employ Howard Stern.
If the application is approved by the FCC and WNTN follows through with the move, two radio stations (licensed to Newton) will remain: WZBC 90.3 FM at Boston College, and WXKS 1200 AM. A number of local FM stations transmit from the FM-128 tower off of Chestnut Street in Upper Falls, but most of those are licensed to Boston.
A little nostalgia here. Have you ever been to the broadcasting offices of WNTN on Rumford Avenue? Somewhere before (who remembers when?) the election of the Waban Area Council in 2013, Chris Steele, Maureen Reilly-Meagher and I were asked to come in to the offices to be interviewed. Our conversation was taped and aired a week or so later. I have no idea what I said (stage fright) or who listened to it, but it was a delightful trip to a past era of low tech, low cost, local outreach. The interview was taped in an aged office at a table with 3 chairs facing the interviewer. The building and office are definitely vestiges from another era. I doubt that the office was ever grand, in fact, it fits in well with the surrounding Rumford Street uses, but the romance of a local radio broadcast from there might well have been grand and even riveting. It made me think of the radio station that George Clooney and his compatriots visited in the movie “O, Brother, Where Art thou?”. I wondered then who it was that tuned into WNTN 1550 AM. I still do! I would bet they’re not millennials, unless from an earlier millennium!
I went inside once to hang out in 1975. From Sallee’s description, it sounds like much hasn’t changed since then. But that’s cool. I always smile every time I drive by. It always reminded me of the scene in American Graffiti when Richard Dreyfus drove out to the tiny radio station in the middle of nowhere and unknowingly met Wolfman Jack broadcasting into the night.
I agree Mark and Sallee: It’s like taking a walk back in time. I’ve been lucky enough to know some of the folks who operate the place and work there. They work their behinds off as they practice a lost art with skill and conviction. Newton’s loss in Cambridge’s gain.
Any word if they will change their call lettees from WNTN TO WCMB?
This is real moment in time to me.
WNTN was my first paid professional job in broadcasting….in 1975. I worked in that building for 3 years while still attending Meadowbrook (Brown), and NSHS.
I spent countless hours in those small studios as a “Board Op” for owner Mr D’s greek show, and then on air playing music and reporting the news.
In those studios, I interviewed Mayor Mann, and a host of other Newton notables. During the blizzard of ’78, with roads closed, I hitched a ride on a Newton snow plow from Newton Highlands across town to get to the studios and provide info to the community.
When I stopped in while campaigning a couple years ago, seeing my picture on the wall of WNTN from when I was a kid was a real kick.
That job was directly responsible for starting a successful career in broadcasting and gaining a better understanding and appreciation of how people make up a community.
I’m sad to see it physically leave Newton, but it makes perfect business sense to move it to Cambridge and sell the valuable property where the tower and current building are situated.
I wish Rob, John, Paul, and everyone at the station the very best.
I was fortunate to be an in-studio guest at WNTN a couple of times when I ran for Mayor. And I’m really sorry that Newton will be losing this gem of a station. But I very much enjoyed reading Charlie Shapiro’s recollections of his time at WNTN. Thanks to Charlie for sharing those great memories.
My older brother, Steve, worked there, around 1969.
Hey Charlie, some of us remember you when you worked there.