When JACK came to Seattle, the "we play what we want" mantra was there from day one. It replaced an all-80's station that was running out of steam fast, then gave me a chance to win Stones tickets, and played some stuff that helped me forget my wife (driven off, in part, by all my radio/TV collecting).

Nickelback's How you remind me
Garbage's Special
and XTC's Peter Pumpkinhead, to name a few.

The remaining classic rock station here had adopted a "we won't play any artist without a legitimate body of recordings" policy, so we here are doomed to hear a short-list of songs once considered a treat being worn-out for good.

I always got a big kick when they named stations after a common male name. Here in Pittsburgh, we have "Bob FM" on 96.9 Kc. I think Greensburg has a "Sam FM" (SAM -Simply About Music) as well. I think somebody told me there was a "Ted-FM" in Columbus or Cleveland, Ohio.

I don't listen to much radio anymore, but happened upon WBCN this evening, and was shocked to find they're going off the air at midnight!

WBCN has been a landmark radio station for more than 40 years here in Boston, and for many years was a model for FM stations in other markets.

Ouch! The times they are a changin'..

bs

We have a SAM-FM at 94.3 here in Ark. There's also a Jack-FM on 93.9 coming from West Plains, MO. Both equally good stations, alongside 100.5 The Eagle (KEGI Jonesboro)

Nor do I (which is probably why they're all going away)...

I heard on the AM radio news (WBZ) this morning that WBCN's last broadcast song was Shine On You Crazy Diamond, which seemed pretty fitting.

I miss having a Jack station available. Outside of one or two bright spots, this area is a bit of a radio wasteland.

We had a "Jack" station; but, it left almost as fast as it came. The station went from rap, Jack, country, and now it's ESPN sports talk radio. We also had a "Sam" station that lasted about a year and then they changed the format. It seems like many stations in my area change format every time the wind changes direction. Oh, and if you really want to see radio wasteland; come to Meridian, MS. I've already mentioned what's on AM. FM consist of several country stations, a couple variety '80's-present top 40 stations, about 3 R&B/hip-hop stations, one sports talk station, one or two religious stations, and a classic rock station that mainly plays well known stuff over and over. I haven't used the tuner, for extended periods, on my stereo in years. I also really hate that real local DJ's are almost a thing of the past. We have a classic country station that receives it's programming via satellite amd it's like listening to a CD player set to shuffle play + the commercials. We used to have a typical FM "play the same top 10 songs over and over" oldies station. They pretty much dropped the oldies format and went with '70's rock songs with a few '60's songs mixed in. Then, they canned that format and went with hip-hop crap, which it's been for about 4 years now.

Talking about Jack stations, we in NYC had our oldies station WCBS-FM be jacked on a Friday afternoon several years ago. Ratings dropped, and after about 2 years of jack, they brought back the "classic hits" station (seems "oldies" is a dirty word in the broadcast industry nowadays), though they play much less pre-Beatle songs and added some 80's hits. But we were happy to have it back, as ratings went back up to place the station in the top 5 of NYC.

We have an oldies station here in 94.5 Kc, WWSW-FM, and the "oldies" they play are songs from Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Falco, and other 80's songs. Dang, I was in high school when I listened to these songs, it is funny hearing them on an oldies station.

I've been noticing over the years that Canadian AM is slowly dying. What I can't find out is precisely why the CRTC is moving AM stations to FM. I really miss hearing CBA (CBC Moncton) and CBL (CBC Toronto) at night. Yes, I can get them on the internet but it's not the same thing.

AM for me during the day is pretty useless.
1. ClearChannel Corp. all-talk
2. Mix of religious and infomercials
3. NPR(!)
4. All-sports
5,6. Spanish. If they played anything else than 24 hour a day salsa maybe I'd give 'em a listen.

Tom

Years ago I could find some Canadian AM stations rebroadcast in the 49M (6MHz) shortwave broadcast band. Probably for people widely scattered in the tundra areas.

jeeeez, i miss the am stations of the mid '60s.
WABC and cousin brucie,
WKBW in buffalo, joey reynolds (and 'chicken man'!)
WLS, Chicago
WOWO ft wayne in.
WBZ out of beantown

and more i cant remember right now.

great stations, all!

edit-i never realized halifax ns had 350,000 people. WOW!

well it's properly known as the Halifax Regional Municipality nowadays[AKA- HRM].what was really always one place anyway was until a few years ago made up of two separately incorporated cities just across the harbour from one another,as well as a town and a few other places...it was all amalgamated into one local govt a few years back...and the official population count went up accordingly..tho it pretty much always has been the largest canadian city east of Montreal

WBZ is alive and well... news/talk (mostly news); they do it much better than most AM stations with that format. I listen to 'em on the drive in to work regularly.

now that we mention it, i still tune in to 'wbz-radio 103' once in a great while. even tho i'm a hunnert miles away from their tower, i can still pick up their a.m. in the daytime.

dave maynard
don kent
forget the rest...