Fuuuuuck. Boston commercial radio, you will soon be dead to me.

[rmd]

WFNX, which has been mostly doing a good job of being independent radio in Boston[1] since 1983, is being sold to Clear Channel. I've been listening to them off and on since they started, and they've been my go-to radio station for every boston-area vehicle I've had that included a radio. Even when I was living in Seattle, when I had a way to listen to them streaming (back before radio stations were doing streaming), I was listening to them sometimes.

[1] modulo the few years they sucked when they had some program director they got from WAAF and were full of angry grungey buttrock snarly dickwaving music around 2001. I stopped listening regularly and then was happily surprised when they started not sucking again.

Comments

[foldedfish.livejournal.com]

Yeah. In every car I've driven in Boston, for 18 years, WFNX has been radio preset button #1. This saddens me immensely.

I guess I'll be moving WERS or WXRV to the #1 slot. Well, and plugging my smartphone into the aux jack a lot more often.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

heck, it ended up as several preset buttons last winter, when it seemed like half the radio stations on the dial went to ALL HOLIDAY MUSIC ALL THE TIME starting in early nov. i just swapped the offending presets to fnx.

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

WXRV is the station I have my alarm clock set to.

It's #5 on every radio I own (#1 and #2 are WBUR and WGBH).

Years ago, I listened to WCGY (it was one of the few stations I could hear at work). Then suddenly the station got to be a really cool radio station. They played more interesting music and the DJs were chattier (in a good way). Then the station suddenly changed their call letters and completely changed their format. It turns out the station had been sold, so the DJs were marking time and having fun since they no longer had worry about what the bosses would do (they had already received notice).

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Crap. Man, that's sad.

[coraline]

AH... that postcript explains it. i had been told (mistakenly) that they had been sold at that time, and then had bought themselves back. an internal management thing makes more sense for the temporariness... i'm really sad about this too :(

[rmd.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It started some time between when I stopped streaming regularly from Seattle and when I moved back east, and so I got to Boston and was all "oh, yay, time to fire up FNX." *pause* "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?"

IIRC, I actually mailed them saying "hey, guys, this sucks. here's my demographic and how long I had been listening."

But then things got better. I think that was when Julie Kramer became program director, but I'm not sure.

Um, WOW

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

That sucks a whole lot. Julie Kramer, Henry Santoro GONE! I'm sitting here shaking my head. I really didn't think Boston would EVER start to suck as badly as Denver did for radio.

I wonder who we can wrote to complain to...

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

Clear Channel = EVIL. DO NOT LIKE.