In the final minutes before the end of its Rock format, 107.3 WAAF Westborough/Boston Program Director Joe Calgaro dropped a bombshell. While Entercom was negotiating the $10.75 million sale of the station, the local management was preparing a major relaunch of the station to take place on Monday, March 2.
The station was going to fill the morning slot that was vacated when longtime WAAF morning host Greg Hill moved to Sports 93.7 WEEI-FM last July with a new show led by station vet Mike Brangiforte. Calgaro was to join Mike Hsu for a new afternoon show, while the syndicated Men’s Room was to be replaced by a new local night show hosted by weekend host Jim Ryan. Music Director Mistress Carrie would have remained in middays.
Calgaro told listeners, “We were taking the musical direction back to the days of WAAF taking more chances and risks, breaking bands like Shinedown and Godsmack and looking for the next new bands like Ice Nine Kills from right here in Boston.”
Carrie followed, “We worked so hard to build the WAAF that everyone told us they wanted us to be. The listeners we heard you. We got all your criticisms and your suggestions and trust us when we tell you we built that station for you and its in a computer right now. We were so close.”
While WAAF’s ratings were anemic over the past few months, with a 1.1 share up from 0.8 in the January Nielsen Audio ratings, it wasn’t that long ago that WAAF was putting up viable numbers for its suburban signal. In March 2019 before the move of Hill to WEEI, the station was at a fairly healthy 2.0 share 6+. That also predated Beasley Media’s flip of 92.9 WBOS from Alternative to 80s/90s based Classic Rock “Rock 92.9” in April. That station currently has a 3.6 share of the Boston market.
The revelation about the potential relaunch of WAAF brings more questions than answers. How long were EMF and Entercom negotiating a potential sale? Did that create the long delay between the move of Hill to WEEI and the planned March 2 relaunch? Was the relaunch a tactic by Entercom to force EMF to meet their asking price for the station before walking away from the deal? Most of those answers will never become public. Instead of the relaunch of the brand, the station is left as a zombie jukebox on a pair of HD subchannels and Radio.com, while the call letters are parked on what is now 910 WBZU Scranton PA joining such historic call letter pairings such as WBCN Charlotte NC, WHFS Seffner FL, and WLUP Cambridge MN.
