In this letter to the editor, the author comments on the ongoing coverage of Cleveland State University’s deal with Ideastream for 89.3 WCSB(FM). Radio World welcomes letters to the editor on this or any story. Email [email protected].
Although I sympathize with the students who no longer can get their broadcast experience on WCSB at Cleveland State University, there was once another WCSB operating at a college, prior to its May 1976 sign-on in Cleveland.
I believe this station is a part of radio history.
The station was the carrier-current operation, WCSB, at Grahm Junior College in Boston’s Kenmore Square. It broadcast on 640 AM. I am very familiar with the first iteration of WCSB because I enrolled and attended the two-year school in 1969-1970. I was on WCSB’s staff during my first and second semester as a copywriter, newscaster and disc jockey.
The calls, “WCSB,” stand for Cambridge School of Broadcasting. It opened in 1951 under the name Cambridge School. Its specialty was TV and radio broadcasting.
You’ll notice that my certification cards as a newscaster and to access the control room and production studio are signed by Stanley R. Alten, who was a Graham instructor at the time.
Professor Alten went on to teach at the Newhouse School of Communication at Syracuse University for many years and authored the textbook “Audio in the Media,” which was used in radio courses throughout the U.S. for many years. It is still available on Amazon.
Many of the school’s graduates went on to have successful careers in radio, TV and beyond. The comedian Andy Kaufman was a student there when I attended and he was involved with WCSB(TV). Radio executive and station group owner Bill Figenshu also started out as a DJ at Grahm. And Gary LaPierre, the longtime broadcaster at WBZ(AM), attended Grahm.
So in a way…this is a “memorial” to the first version of WCSB. The school closed following the 1979 spring semester.
— Gary McIntyre, Pawleys Island, S.C.
[Check Out More Letters at Radio World’s Reader’s Forum Section]
