WCRB - History of WCRB Intellectual Property

History of WCRB Intellectual Property

WCRB began broadcasting on 1330 kHz out of Waltham on January 30, 1948. In 1950, the station was sold entirely to Theodore Jones, who would own the station under the name of Charles River Broadcasting until his death in 1991. Prior to that time, “Ted” Jones set up the Charles River Broadcast Trust to guarantee that his establishment would continue in perpetuity.

Around the time Jones first acquired the station, WBMS, a daytime AM radio station that had programmed classical music, changed format. Jones decided to change WCRB's format from that of a typical suburban AM station of the era to fulltime classical music. FM service at 102.5 megahertz was added by 1954 upon the purchase of the WHAV FM transmitter. FM brought WCRB's classical music format to parts of the Boston area that did not get good reception of WCRB's directional AM signal, and made improved audio quality available.

In 1961, WCRB-FM became the first Boston-area station to broadcast in multiplex stereo; for a few years prior to that, WCRB had broadcast some of its programming in stereo by carrying one channel on AM, the other on FM. WCRB was directly involved with the development of FM multiplex stereo. Station WCRB and H.H. Scott, then of Maynard, Massachusetts developed prototype stereophonic equipment that was used to prove the “General Electric” multiplex method being evaluated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). H.H. Scott was an early stereophonic receiver manufacturer that developed and manufactured high-quality home stereo equipment. Once the FCC approved stereophonic broadcasting, WCRB created a special “stereo” studio in downtown Boston, the first in the world. There was no dual channel (stereo) studio equipment at the time. Much of the equipment was handmade by the engineering staff. Many can remember the call-letter announcements, made on the half-hour as required by the FCC; “You are tuned to WCRB, Waltham, thirteen-thirty AM, one-oh-two-point-five FM, with downtown studios in the elegant hotel Sheraton Plaza, featuring more than seventy hours weekly of FM stereo programming.”

WCRB is noted for many other innovations. It was the first radio station to obtain a permanent waiver of the FCC rules requiring average modulation in excess of eighty-five percent. This was necessary to preserve the dynamic range of the concert music broadcasts. The station also obtained a permanent waiver of the FCC rule that required a station identification announcement every thirty minutes. This meant that a live concert performance no longer had to be interrupted for station identification.

The WCRB engineering staff worked with the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) to codify the RIAA LP record frequency-response curve, and create the NAB standard. Other technical innovations followed. Before the early days of FM stereo broadcasting, nobody had encountered the necessity of amplitude- and phase-matching two 15 kHz stereo leased lines. The telephone company called such a channel type; “Program channel A.” To them, as long as the frequency response and noise level matched their specifications, stereo simply meant that there would be two lines. It was just a matter of labeling them! Not so. WCRB engineering worked with AT&T to generate a specification involving matching both the phase and frequency response. This became the standard of the industry. Eventually, as stereo caught on across the country, these methods and specifications were used to install stereophonic leased lines to transmitters across the country, until they were made obsolete by the development of composite-signal studio-transmitter links. In the early days of radio, stations had full-time engineers on duty. Therefore, the WCRB engineering staff also recorded live performances for the Boston Symphony Orchestra Transcription Trust.

Although Charles River Broadcasting had acquired other radio stations, WCRB remained as the company's flagship station.

In 1975, WCRB ended simulcasting of WCRB-FM, changing call letters to WHET, and its format to big-band/adult standards. In 1978, Charles River Broadcasting sold off WHET (later renamed WRCA), but retained WCRB, which became increasingly successful over the years as a 24/7 classical music station.

WCRB was under a long-term commitment by Charles River Broadcasting Trust, established by Theodore Jones, to continue to air classical music in perpetuity, and it carried no non-classical music programs. However, the decision to interpret the commitment as a request rather than a demand resulted in the announced sale of the station to Greater Media on December 19, 2005. The trustees of the Charles River Broadcast Trust had already sold off portions of the trust’s property so that there was little physical property and real estate left. The AM transmitter site in Waltham was sold to a developer who built the Watermill Complex. This, and the sales of stations such as WCRQ in Providence, Rhode Island, marked the beginning of the gradual dissolution of the Theodore Jones trust. It was upon the death of Richard L. Kaye, an early manager, minority stockholder, and trusted associate of Jones, that the Charles River Trust would no longer maintain the commitments made by its founder.

Greater Media already owned five FM stations in the Boston market - the maximum allowed by the FCC - and one of Greater Media's Boston stations would have to be sold before the company could acquire WCRB. Speculation arose that Greater Media would sell off 99.5 WKLB-FM, as its Andover transmitter location provided poor overall coverage of the Boston market, in contrast to the company's other stations. These thoughts were confirmed on July 31, 2006, when Greater Media announced that it would sell the physical property of WKLB-FM and the intellectual property of WCRB to Nassau Broadcasting, thus saving the commercial classical format for the Boston area, albeit on a station with poorer coverage of Boston. At the same time, Greater Media announced that the country format and intellectual property of WKLB would relocate to the prime signal of 102.5 MHz. WCRB's transition from 102.5 to 99.5 was completed on Friday, December 1, 2006 at noon local time. The first selection broadcast on the new frequency was the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah.

It was announced on September 21, 2009 that the WGBH Educational Foundation would acquire WCRB from Nassau and convert the station to non-commercial operation, complementing sister station WGBH (89.7 FM). The sale was completed on December 1. Since assuming control of WCRB, WGBH has sought to expand the reach of the station, particularly to areas that had been served by the station prior to the frequency shift in 2006; WCRB's programming was added to WNCK, which formerly simulcast WGBH, concurrent with the sale's completion, and April 8, 2010, W242AA also switched from carrying WGBH to WCRB, via the 89.7 HD-2 simulcast. WJMF began carrying WCRB programming in September 2011; since the frequency change in 2006, Providence had been one of the largest markets without access to a full-time classical music station. Because of this expanded reach, the station rebranded from 99.5 All Classical (the branding used since the sale to WGBH) to Classical New England on October 3, 2011.