|
In many
ways WPOP had no right to be successful.
It was
an AM station with 5,000 watts of power in a market
dominated by 50,000 watt giant WTIC and the AM/FM
combo, WDRC.
Initially
located in New Britain and later moved to downtown
Hartford, for many years the studios were located
next to a smelly swamp in Newington.
Ownership
changes were frequent, management changes constant,
on-air changes rampant.
Yet it
was the first Hartford station to recognize the potential
in rock and roll programming.
|
 |
These pages
focus on the period during which WPOP played music,
1956-1975. No claim is offered for their absolute accuracy;
corrections and additions are welcome (e-mail
webmaster Ed Brouder).
WMFE
(1380 kc, 250 watts), licensed on March 12, 1935, made its
first broadcast from 147 Main Street in New Britain on July
15, 1935. One day later its call letters were changed to
WNBC.
 |

1937
WNBC letterhead
In June,
1936 the transmitter and antenna were moved from New
Britain to Cedar Street in Newington.
In 1937
the station's power was increased to 1,000 watts.
New studios
were pressed into service at 54 Pratt Street in Hartford
in 1940, while WNBC's main studio remained
at 147 Main Street in New Britain.
On March
29, 1941 WNBC moved to 1410 kc and the following
November power was raised to 5,000 watts.
The main
studio and city of license were switched to 54 Pratt
Street in Hartford on June 16, 1942.
WNBC's
name changed to WHTD in late October, 1944.
|
During the fall
of 1946 the calls were changed again, to WONS. In
October 1953 WONS merged with WTHT, the station founded
by The Hartford Times newspaper. The owners operated WGTH-TV
on Channel 18.
Letterhead had
to be reprinted again February 14, 1954 when the radio calls
changed to WGTH.
In July, 1956,
RKO Teleradio Pictures, Inc., the station's eighth owner,
sold WGTH to Tele-Broadcasters of Connecticut, Inc.,
which changed the calls to WPOP on August first (click
here to see owner H. Scott Kilgore's ad explaining the change
to Connecticut listeners). General Manager Philip A.
Zoppi supervised the move from Pratt Street to 600 Asylum
Street.
By 1958 WPOP
was broadcasting Top 40 contemporary music. In 1959 the
studios moved down Asylum Street from #600 to #410 over
the Connecticut Bank.
Kilgore sold
WPOP to Joseph C. Amaturo's WIRE Broadcasting Company
on August 1, 1963. On May 14, 1964 WPOP broke ground
on a Butler pre-engineered building for it studios and offices
at the Cedar Street transmitter site in Newington; they
moved in that summer.

In August 1972
it was announced that TV entertainer Merv Griffin's company,
January Enterprises Inc., was buying WPOP for $2.75
million. Griffin took over the keys the following March.
On June 30,
1975, WPOP abandoned music programming in favor of
the new NBC Radio News and Information Service. The on air
personalities featured in these pages played the tunes which
aired on WPOP between 1956-75.
CLICK
TO CONTINUE

May
5, 2009-WPOP transmitter building on Cedar Street in Newington.
Photo courtesy of Steve
DiCo Mannix.
|
|