Clifford Harvey was born in Philadelphia and graduated from MIT in 1931 with a degree in communications.  In 1932 he founded Harvey Radio Labs in Brookline, a company that made high frequency transmitters. By 1940, 85% of the company’s production was for military use, and they were awarded the US Navy “E” award for excellence.  That same year, Harvey Radio Labs was sold to Frank Lyman, Jr. and by 1944 Lyman had moved the company to Cambridge.

In 1945, Lyman obtained an experimental FM license for W1XHR (“X Harvey Radio”) in the newly allocated FM “high band” on 96.9 mHz.  A few years later the license was changed to a commercial FM license under the call sign WXHR.  

In 1953, Lyman received a license for the first UHF television station in Boston to operate on channel 56. He named it WXHR-TV (now WLVI-TV). 

Between starting the first FM and UHF TV stations, in 1947 Lyman applied to the FCC for a new AM radio station in Cambridge on 740 kiloHertz.  It went on air in 1948 as WTAO.  The call letters, if you were to draw “TAO” in a certain way, it would look like “740”.  

Lyman sold the three stations (WTAO, WXHR-FM, and WXHR-TV) in 1968 to a company owned by Kaiser Broadcasting and Boston Globe. The TV call letters changed to WKBG-TV (Kaiser-Boston Globe”). WTAO 740 retained its local format. 

But WXHR-FM was renamed WJIB-FM, and the programming changed to a new emerging “beautiful music” format emulating the new success of KFOG in San Francisco.  WJIB-FM became the first commercially successful FM station in Boston, and quickly became #1, Boston’s most-listened to radio station.  It held that position for nearly 20 years.  

By 1988 as the 25-54 age group audience of WJIB-FM sought by advertisers got older and older, advertising revenue got smaller and smaller.  WJIB-FM was sold to new owners Emmis Broadcasting, who wanted to target a younger audience. To do this, they changed the station to a new format: The WJIB call letters were abandoned, the station was renamed WCDJ, “CD96.9”, and the musical format became “Smooth Jazz.”  It flopped.  

In 1993 Emmis sold the station to new owners Greater Media, who flipped the WCDJ call letters of the failed WCDJ to WBCS, “Boston’s Country Station”.  After that failed, it became WTTK, a talk station, then a dance station, then a classic rock format (which failed. In 2012 96.9 became Urban Contemporary, the format it successfully carries on with today.

All through this turmoil, WTAO 740 carried on through several incarnations. The station was sold to a broadcast group from Maine and the idea was to super-serve the local area around Cambridge.  The call letters were changed to WCAS, that stood for Watertown, Cambridge, Arlington, Somerville, and Belmont (the “B” was silent). Several formats were tried during the WCAS years; the most famous was an eclectic folk music format during the seventies, which drew a decent-sized audience from the local Cambridge folk scene and the large number of coffee-houses in the area. Unfortunately, this could not sustain the station, and it went bankrupt in the early 80s.

During the first year of the bankruptcy there was a bidding process, and the station was awarded to one or more Black Interests, subject to the payment of their bid be made by a certain time. That “time” was postponed many times due to opposing parties vying for ownership, mostly from the Black community. The Folk format was dropped and replaced with a Gospel format, with the call letters changed to WLVG (“We Love God). By 1991, the federal court bankruptcy judge who had given the hopeful operator of the station 7 years to come up with the money had passed away.  Now a different judge had taken over the case. Meanwhile other interested parties had come on the scene in the latter part of this now eight-year case.

Bob Bittner, who at the time published a local Boston weekly singles dating magazine, was aware of the goings-on.  He attended what resulted in the final disposition of the case at federal court on July1, 1991 to make a sealed bid. Prior to the opening of the bids the judge rejected the pleas of the man who was supposed to come up with the money for seven years.  There were four bidders, one of whom didn’t like the judge’s terms and walked.  That left three bidders, one of whom was Bittner, and all bid well into six figures.  Bob Bittner was lucky; his bid was a mere $115 over the second highest bid.

ENTER BOB BITTNER

Bob was born in 1949 and grew up at Virginia Beach, Washington DC, and northern New Jersey, and then graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY) in late 1971.

His first on-air radio experience was reporting for his high school where he was heard several times on New York City’s WMCA-570. Then at college came a weekly on-air show on RIT’s college station WITR. But his first paid on-air gig started with his senior year in college at WCMF-FM in Rochester. Bob did the overnight shift, playing Black Sabbath, Blind Faith, the Mothers of Invention, Country Joe & the Fish, Led Zeppelin, none of the music one hears on today’s WJIB (excepting the Moody Blues!). Then in 1974, on to be Program Director/On-Air at WVOR-FM in Rochester, then on to WHOA-870 AM in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which at the time, was the island’s only English-language station. And it also played good music, as Bob was the Program Director there too.

Bob was feeling the desire to return to the continent in 1979 when Boston called. WBOS-FM hired him as mid-day DJ playing disco music. Later, at the same station he was playing country music. During the 80’s he played country music on WDLW-1330 (Waltham) and WCAV-FM in Brockton, as well as being Program Director and eventually playing 50’s & 60’s pop oldies on Newton’s WNTN-1550.  Next he transitioned to become Program Director and on-air DJ at adult-standards WXKS-1430 AM when he was hired by Arnie Ginsburg. This paragraph concludes answering a common question which was always posed to Bob: “You did work at the old WJIB-FM, didn’t you?” Answer: no.’

This is when he won the bankruptcy auction and purchased WLVG-740 in Cambridge (now WJIB). After getting WJIB established, Bob purchased two dead off-the-air stations in 1993 and 1994; 5,000-watt WKBR (1250 AM) in Manchester, NH and 1,000-watt WNEB (1230 AM) in Worcester, then got them up and running and then later, sold them to two separate entities. He may not have sold those two had he thought of “listener-support” at that time.

Like WJIB, Bob bought WNEB, Worcester also by being the high bidder, thinking he would keep it. But the youth of Worcester helped him change his mind…FAST! – At the tower site (in the best section of town, by the way) about 2 miles west of city center), teenagers daily (uh, no, hourly) vandalized the tower site, trying to pull the tower down, having drug-parties next to the tower, cutting through metal fencing, and eventually a break-in and stealing $10k worth of equipment; specialized equipment that even likely puzzled their ‘fence’, for which the thieves probably got $30. for. According to Bob, the Worcester police had better things to do that day than to investigate the crime, it seemed. They couldn’t have cared less. Bob finally got the station back on the air and put it up for sale. Too bad, as that was a great repeater-station for WJIB, re-broadcasting WJIB’s signal into Worcester, which was done very economically. It became quite popular in the several months it was playing the WJIB music. After selling WNEB, Bob drove east on Route 9 away from Worcester, headed home to Needham and never looked back.

Then in March 1997 Bob purchased talk station WJTO (AM-730) in Bath, Maine. Bob gradually turned to music after the talk shows’ contracts ran out and were not renewed by Bob. Bob and his architect-wife Raisa eventually moved to Maine, interconnecting WJTO and WJIB and originating all broadcasting from the WJTO studio overlooking a beautiful bay on the Atlantic ocean. 

WHY DIDN’T BOB OBTAIN ADVERTISING INSTEAD OF “LISTENER SUPPORT”?

A logical question, but in the 33 years Bob owned 740, he said that not once had a person approach him saying they would like to do sales! – DJ’s, yes; sales, no. And even if someone wanted to do sales, it would be appropriate for them to receive a salary in advance of their productivity. Most new salespeople fail at selling well, and it takes over a year to find out. Therefore, the chances of that advance salary being a good investment are slim. This is a problem that most stations face, but most of the others have long-established sales teams and can afford such experimentation. Additionally, because conglomeration is happening everywhere, standalone local businesses have almost become extinct. And in Boston, the competition is stiff and now includes digital, plus direct mail, cable and over-the-air TV, billboards, newspapers, and a dozen other radio stations. And in a market as large as Boston WJIB is in an unusual situation… it’s too big for small local businesses and too small for big chain businesses.  But with our growing, dedicated community of passionate listeners, commercial-free operation is a major drawing point responsible for a large part of our appeal.