| City of license | Boston, Massachusetts |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Greater Boston |
| Branding | Sports Radio WEEI WEEI Sports Radio Network |
| Slogan | "The Number One Rated Sports Radio Station in the Country" |
| Frequency | 850 kHz 93.7 MHz |
| Repeaters | WAAF 107.3 MHz HD-2 WKAF 97.7 MHz HD-2 |
| First air date | 1930 (frequency, as WHDH) |
| Format | Sports talk |
| Power | 50,000 watts |
| Class | B |
| Facility ID | 1912 |
| Transmitter coordinates | (NAD83) |
| Callsign meaning | Edison Electric Illuminating (original owner of 590 kHz) |
| Former callsigns | WHDH (1930–1994) |
| Affiliations | Boston Red Sox Radio Network Boston Celtics Radio Network ESPN Radio Boston College Boston University Providence College Former: CBS Radio Network Fox Sports Radio New England Revolution |
| Owner | Entercom Communications (Entercom Boston License, LLC) |
| Sister stations | WAAF, WEEI-FM, WKAF, WRKO, WVEI, WVEI-FM, WWEI |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | weei.com |
WEEI is a sports radio station in Boston, Massachusetts, that broadcasts on 850 kHz from a transmitter in Needham, Massachusetts, and is owned by Entercom Communications. The station is one of the top-rated sports talk radio stations in the nation. Studios are located in Brighton, Massachusetts. The station is simulcast on WEEI-FM (93.7 FM), and its local programming is heard on the "WEEI Sports Radio Network" that broadcasts throughout the New England region.
WEEI is the flagship station of the WEEI Red Sox Radio Network. It is also the flagship station of the Boston Celtics, beginning with the 2007–2008 season. In addition, WEEI broadcasts games of the Boston College football and basketball teams in season. When local programming is not on WEEI, usually ESPN Radio will air. The station had been an affiliate of Fox Sports Radio from 2005 until November 2009, and was that network's highest rated station; WEEI had a prior stint as the ESPN Radio affiliate before switching to Fox.
The station is popular with fans of the Boston professional sports teams, especially the Boston Red Sox. WEEI calls itself "the #1 rated sports radio talk station in America," in terms of the percentage of the area radio listening audience tuned-in. WEEI isn't alone in providing 24/7 sports radio in Boston; local competition includes WBZ-FM "98.5 The Sports Hub."
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WEEI traces its roots to its original owner, Edison Electric Illuminating (hence the call letters). Edison placed the station on the air on 590 kHz in 1924.[1] In 1926, WEEI became a charter member of the NBC Red Network and remained an NBC Red affiliate until 1937, when the station was purchased by CBS and became an affiliate of that network. Until 1960, WEEI, through CBS Radio, was the last Boston radio station to devote a large amount of its program schedule to "traditional" network radio programming of daytime soap operas, comedy shows, variety shows, and similar fare.
For the remainder of the 1960s, WEEI was New England's first talk radio station and home of such hosts as Howard Nelson, Jim Westover and of Paul Benzaquin, one of the most popular radio talk show hosts in Boston history. In the 1960s, the daily WEEIdea feature presented cleaning and cooking tips from housewives.
By May 1972, WEEI had six full days of call-in talk programming. On weekdays, morning drive time from 6 am to 10 am was hosted by newsman Len Lawrence (Leonard Libman), followed by Ellen Kimball from 10 am to 2 pm. Kimball was hired from WIOD in Miami, where she had replaced broadcaster Larry King after he was arrested on December 20, 1971. Ellen is believed to be one of the first women to host a daily, four-hour, call-in talk show, six days a week. Originally called Boston Forum with Ellen Kimball, the name was eventually changed to The Ellen Kimball Show. Later, newsman Ben Farnsworth took over the Saturday call-in segment from 10 am to 2 pm. Paul Benzaquin handled 2 pm to 6 pm weekdays.
Although its talk radio format was popular, the station went all-news in 1974, following the lead of several other CBS-owned stations. At first, WEEI was not 24/7 all-news; the station's late-night schedule featured the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, an attempt to revive radio drama, as well as a local overnight talk show with Bruce Lee (no relation to the martial-arts actor), a holdover from the previous format. But by the end of the 1970s, WEEI was all-news around the clock.
On December 27, 1977, while engaged in traffic reporting, a Hughes 269B helicopter operated by WEEI lost power and crashed into an apartment building in Quincy while attempting an emergency landing, killing pilot Richard Banks and reporter Chip Whitmore. A fire developed in the building following the crash.[2]
In 1982, CBS sold WEEI to Helen Broadcasting, which retained the all-news format. In 1991, the station was sold to the Boston Celtics, and became a sports station. Upon the change to all-sports, WEEI featured the Andy Moes show and Glenn (Ordway) and Janet (Prensky), a short-lived experiment in bringing a "Bickersons"-type format to sports radio. Also part of the roster was Boston sports talk pioneer Eddie Andelman.
The original occupant of 850 kHz (and until 1941, 830 kilohertz), WHDH, had a long history.
WHDH could trace its history back to WEPS, a small radio station in Gloucester, Massachusetts, founded in 1929 by R.G. Matheison. Much of WEPS' programming consisted of broadcasts to, for, or about fisherman, given Gloucester's status as a major port for the fishing industry.
Within a few years, the station moved to Boston, and took the call letters WHDH. It was a daytime-only station broadcasting at 830 kilocycles (leaving the air at local sunset in Denver, about two hours after sunset in Boston, to protect the signal of KOA in the Colorado capitol city), and broadened its programming, but still included some reports for fishermen.
The 1941 North American Radio Broadcasting Agreement moved WHDH to 850 kilocycles, and allowed the station to broadcast on a fulltime basis. WHDH was able to increase power to 5,000 watts and go fulltime , but not without protests from KOA. For two years, from 1943 until 1945, WHDH was the local affiliate of the Blue Network, the former "NBC Blue", replacing WBZ as Blue affiliate.
Shortly after World War II, the Boston Herald-Traveler newspaper purchased WHDH, by this time again an independent station. In 1948, the station moved its transmitter site from Saugus, to Needham, west of Boston, where the station would be able to increase power to 50,000 watts with a directional signal aimed east to protect KOA and other stations on 850.
While not first in Boston to adopt a popular music and disc jockey format with hourly newscasts (WORL was the first), a combination of a powerful signal, top-notch personalities like Ray Dorey, Fred B. Cole, Bob Clayton, Norm Nathan, news anchor John Day, and a mid-morning woman's show hosted by Christine (also billing herself as Chris) Evans; along with live coverage of Boston Red Sox baseball, Boston Bruins hockey, and Boston Celtics baskletball, made WHDH one of the most popular stations in the region in the post-World War II era. In the late 1950s, Jess Cain joined the station, first co-hosting the morning show with Dorey, then as solo host when Dorey moved pover to television. Cain would remain at WHDH for 34 years. By the early 1960s, Hank Forbes and Alan Dary had joined Cain, Clayton, and Nathan on the WHDH staff.
In the 1950s and 1960s, WHDH, along with WBZ, had the strongest lineup of personality disc jockeys in Boston radio history. While the two stations for the most part programmed different kinds of music, both had very talented air personalities who were "household names" in the Boston area.
Perhaps the station's best-known on-air personalities outside of Boston were the legendary comedy team of Bob and Ray, who did a comedy-and-records show at WHDH before they departed for national fame in New York City. The station employed a popular MOR (what today would be called "adult standards") music format featuring artists like Frank Sinatra, Patti Page, Duke Ellington, Johnny Mathis, Nat "King" Cole, Ray Charles, Artie Shaw, Pat Boone, Perry Como, Connie Francis, Bobby Vinton, and others. By the end of the 1960s, the station also played soft rock songs by artists like Elvis Presley, Everly Brothers, Ricky Nelson, Beatles, Buddy Holly, Petula Clark, Fifth Dimension, and others. The station also had specialty shows playing jazz and big band music.
While WHDH was never "all sports," it was easily Boston's top sports station during the 1950s through the end of the 1960s. It called itself "The Voice of Sports". For 30 consecutive years (1946–75), WHDH was the flagship station of the Boston Red Sox, featuring play-by-play announcers such as Jim Britt, Ford C. Frick Award-winning Curt Gowdy, Ken Coleman and Ned Martin. From 1946 through 1949, it also broadcast the Boston Braves, the city's National League baseball club (the Red Sox and Braves then only broadcast home games, thus the teams shared the same announcers and did not have schedule conflicts). After the Braves left WHDH for WNAC (now WRKO) in 1950, WHDH began broadcasting all Red Sox games, home and away.
During the winter months, WHDH and WHDH-FM (94.5 FM, now WJMN) were the flagship stations of the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association and the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League, employing such legendary announcers as Johnny Most, Fred Cusick and Bob Wilson. For a single season, Jim Lang was the announcer for Bruins games and brought unprecedented candor to the job. In the mid- and late 1960s, when both the Bruins and Celtics played, one of the teams (usually the one playing at home) was heard on AM; while the other (usually the team playing on the road) was heard on FM. WHDH also was the radio home of Harvard University football in the autumn, including 1968, the year of Harvard's famous 29-29 "win" against arch-rival Yale, considered one of the greatest college-football games ever played.
In addition, the original WHDH-TV (channel 5) was the flagship station of the Red Sox TV network from 1958 through 1971, while WHDH radio produced an early weekly sports roundtable show called The Voice of Sports, featuring sportswriters from the co-owned Herald-Traveler, various figures from Major League Baseball, and longtime WHDH-TV/WCVB-TV sports director Don Gillis. No calls were taken during the show, which featured lively debate among the writers. In 1972–73, The Voice of Sports became a daily, afternoon drive telephone-talk program hosted by longtime Boston sportscaster Leo Egan, but it failed to take root.
WHDH began to lose its valuable properties in 1969, when the Bruins and Celtics were wooed away by WBZ. Soon afterward, the Herald-Traveler Corporation's license to operate channel 5 was revoked by the Federal Communications Commission, and was given to one of the groups of businessmen that challenged its license (Boston Broadcasters); on March 19, 1972, channel 5 became WCVB-TV (Metromedia bought that station in 1982 and Fox Television Stations bought Metromedia in 1986, of at which time WCVB was spun-off to the Hearst Corporation). Stung by the loss of its highly profitable TV station, the Herald-Traveler Corp. was put on the market, and acquired by the Hearst Corporation in June 1972. Less than two years later, WHDH and its FM sister station (by this time called WCOZ) were sold to Blair Radio, a national radio station advertising representative. WHDH then lost the Red Sox after the 1975 regular season; it did not carry their games again until 1983–85. The station's last major sports property was the New England Patriots during the late 1980s.
By the early 1970s, WHDH evolved into more of an adult contemporary format playing artists such as Dionne Warwick, Elton John, James Taylor, Carpenters, Beatles, Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkle, Kenny Rogers, Billy Joel, Carole King, and even soft songs by rock artists. In a way the station played Top 40 without any hard rock and with more non current product. By the early 1980s, WHDH began to focus even less on music and more on personality, while playing more music and having less talk than rival WBZ. Air talent then consisted of people such as Dave Supple, Tom Kennedy (the DJ, not the game-show host), Jim Sands (who did a popular Saturday-night oldies show), and Tom Doyle (who by the early 1980s was Cain's co-host).
By the mid-1980s, WHDH was moving toward more of a talk format and in 1987 dropped music abruptly; although the station had been playing more music than WBZ, that station would gradually phase out music over the next few more years. During their talk radio days, programs hosted by Larry Glick (who moved from WBZ in 1987), Avi Nelson, David Brudnoy (who would later go to WRKO, and finally, to WBZ), among others, were featured.
On August 7, 1989, WHDH was sold to local businessman David G. Mugar, whose New England Television owned CBS affiliate WNEV-TV (channel 7). On March 12, 1990, WNEV's call letters became WHDH-TV to correspond with WHDH radio. Mugar was hoping to bring back a main competitor to WBZ radio and TV, with a renewed emphasis on a news and straight talk format with some political programming. Some sports programs remained, but news and talk were main priorities. Among the personalities to arrive in the early 1990s were mostly talents from within NETV, including TV newscaster Ted O'Brien. However, by 1993, NETV & Radio was already in trouble due to increasing debt incurrede by the Channel 7 acquisition. When Mugar announced WHDH-TV was being sold to Sunbeam Television later that year, there was speculation that WHDH radio would also be sold-off. After WHDH-TV was sold off, the radio station remained the last property under Mugar's company, and remained such for one year. By the following spring, it was announced that WHDH radio would vacate the Boston airwaves entirely, and sell the 850 AM dial position & transmitting facilities to American Radio Systems. WHDH's final broadcast, in August 1994, was the death of a heritage radio station in Boston, but had its void filled by the eventual success of WEEI on 850 AM.
In 1994, WEEI on 590 was acquired by Back Bay Broadcasting, which sold the call letters and all-sports programming of WEEI to American Radio Systems.[3] American Radio Systems placed the WEEI callsign and intellectual property on the 850 kHz frequency that was previously home to WHDH. AM 590 changed its callsign to WBNW, and later became WEZE.
With the Red Sox coming to WEEI in 1995, they returned to the 850 kHz frequency.[4]
In 1998, American Radio Systems was acquired by CBS. As a result of the merger, the combined company was forced to sell several of its Boston stations. In late 1998, Entercom announced plans to acquire WEEI, along with WAAF, WRKO, WWTM (now WVEI) and WEGQ (now WEEI-FM), from CBS for $140 million.
In April 2005, WEEI began streaming its broadcasts live online by way of a free membership at its official website. The exception is for Red Sox and Celtics games, as these are streamed only through the team and league websites as part of subscription packages.
WEEI was awarded its first Marconi Award in September 2006 for sports station of the year. WEEI was also named large market station of the year.
The station had an ongoing feud with The Boston Globe. In 1999, the Globe's executive sports editor, Don Skwar, banned the newspaper's sports writers from appearing on the station's afternoon The Big Show after columnist Ron Borges used a racial slur while on the air in reference to New York Yankees pitcher Hideki Irabu. Two weeks later, the ban was extended to WEEI's Dennis & Callahan morning show. WEEI retaliated by banning Globe staffers from all its shows. Nevertheless, WEEI host Michael Holley is a former Globe columnist.[5] The ban came to an end on August 4, 2009, when Bob Ryan appeared on The Big Show, with host Glenn Ordway stating that "we have all come to our senses."[6]
In September 2009 there was speculation that WEEI could move to one of Entercom's properties on the FM dial (such as the 93.7 FM facility occupied by WMKK), with the AM 850 signal switching to ESPN Radio (which was being dropped by WAMG) and some "overflow" play by play (for example, the Celtics would be on AM while the Red Sox were on FM).[7] While such a move never took place, Entercom announced on October 7, 2009 that starting on November 2, 2009, WEEI would once again carry the ESPN Radio affiliation. WEEI began to carry ESPN Radio's overnight programming, including All Night with Jason Smith from 1–5 a.m. and some weekend programming.[8] In addition, WEEI began to simulcast on 93.7 FM, renamed WEEI-FM, on September 12, 2011.[9]
Red Sox broadcasts are a daily feature of the WEEI Red Sox Radio Network slate from March through October. Each broadcast consists of:
During game broadcasts, WEEI is also made available through the Major League Baseball web site (for a fee), and (for home games) on XM Satellite Radio (as part of the standard service) for those outside the Boston listening area. The entire 162-game Red Sox schedule also may be heard on an extensive radio network throughout the 6 New England states. Many of the smaller stations have always aired the Red Sox Network regardless of what Boston station originated those broadcasts.
The Boston Red Sox recently signed a 10 year radio deal with sister WRKO (also owned by Entercom) for the broadcast rights for the 2007 through 2016 seasons, worth a reportedly $13 million a season.[10] About 30 Red Sox games a season, including all games on Wednesday nights and all weekly day games were heard on WEEI as part of the deal.
As of August 26, 2009, WEEI once again became the flagship station for the Red Sox.[11] This occurred two weeks after the debut of competitor WBZ-FM "The Sports Hub" and was seen as a reaction, focusing all Red Sox games on one station, WEEI, rather than splitting them between the station and WRKO.
During a rain delay, Jon Risch hosts a show called "Sox Talk", where he takes calls and texts while the rain delay is in effect.
Sean Grande hosts the Celtics Tonight pregame show before each Celtics game on WEEI in addition to providing the play by play for the game. Cedric Maxwell provides color commentary during the broadcast. The broadcast duo calls themselves "Grande and Max." Currently, John Ryder hosts the halftime show and the Celtics Rewind show following the game.
The flash anchors provide the sports updates heard at the top of each hour during the day and at the top and bottom of each hour on nights and weekends.
Each year since 2002, New England Sports Network (NESN) and WEEI have teamed up to raise money for the Jimmy Fund by holding a Radio-Telethon. For two days every August the event is simulcast on WEEI and NESN. WEEI radio personalities conduct auctions and interviews with cancer patients and survivors, doctors, athletes and celebrities. Since 2002, this event has raised around $17 million for the Jimmy Fund and has received donations from all 50 states.
A number of other stations in the New England region carry most of WEEI's local programming. The stations are branded as "Sports Radio WEEI", and many carry call letters similar to the Boston flagship station.
WEEI's sports play-by-play broadcasts are distributed separately, though some games originated by WEEI may air on some of the other affiliated stations by way of a separate deal. Some of the stations have picked up play-by-play rights in concert with WEEI after their conversion to the simulcast. Most stations carry either ESPN Radio or Fox Sports Radio when the flagship station carries games or when WEEI is not airing local programming.
Entercom's initial plan to syndicate WEEI programming was to place it on stations owned by Nassau Broadcasting in 13 more markets, but the deal between the two companies ended up collapsing.[20] The first of WEEI's eventual affiliates began airing its programming in September 2008.[21][22] WPPI, one of the first affiliates, initially carried WEEI programming (as WGEI) from September 2008[21][22] until April 2009, when it began simulcasting talk station WLOB; it rejoined the network in August 2011. Additionally, WAEI (910 AM and 97.1 FM) in Bangor, Maine carried WEEI programming from September 2008[22] until January 2010, when Blueberry Broadcasting terminated its affiliation following a breach-of-contract dispute.[23][24]
| Preceded by 680 WNAC 1941–1946 (split with 1440 WAAB, 1942) |
Radio Home of the Boston Red Sox 1947–1975 (as WHDH) |
Succeeded by 1510 WMEX/WITS 1978–1982 |
| Preceded by 680 WRKO 1983–1994 (split with 99.1 WPLM-FM, 1983-1989) |
Radio Home of the Boston Red Sox 1995–present (split with 680 WRKO from 2007-August 25, 2009) |
Succeeded by incumbent |
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