WCAP
RADIO/980AM expands to
Lawrence, Methuen & Haverhill
by
Tom Duggan
WCAP
radio (980/AM) may be located in downtown Lowell, but
Colonel Sam Poulten and Clark Smidt say they are
expanding the Lowell-based news and talk programming on
the station to include Lawrence, Methuen, Haverhill
and everywhere in between, says Smidt who
took over the station with Poulten last month as part of
Merrimack Valley Radio, LLC.
Weve opened a remote studio in Haverhill at
the Pentucket Bank building on Merrimack Street,
Poulten explained. Were planning to have a
presence with remotes in Lawrence and Methuen and a whole
host of other cities and towns in the Valley. We have
already met with Jimmy Jajuga and are joining the Chamber
of Commerce.
We plan on telling people about all the great
restaurants and shops and events in Haverhill, Lawrence
and Lowell and all the cities and towns in the
Valley, said Poulten.
This is a very significant signal, Smidt
added.
Its 5,000 watts, day and night. Most of the
other daytime AM stations have decided to broadcast
foreign languages as opposed to what we have here. I
believe we can be the little WBZ of the
Merrimack Valley in that, we will be the full-service
radio station where we talk about all the news and
restaurants and entertainment as well as the lifestyle
habits of the people in the Valley.
Lowell has had some great momentum and we want to
keep that going and talk up all the good things that
there are here. You know, most people are told [that]
something wonderful is happening in Lawrence or Haverhill
or Methuen but those things arent on
the top of peoples minds and we want to be the
catalyst to change that. We want to get people talking
about and thinking about what is going on in their
community and connecting that to other communities.
We are going to have a newscaster in Haverhill as
well as in Lowell, Lawrence and Methuen, Poulten
stated. We will have people gathering local news,
broadcasting in the different communities and covering
local sports, especially the high schools. If its
happening in the Merrimack Valley we are going to be
covering it. And we will be following up with asking
people to read the Sun or the Globe or the Valley
Patriot.
But not the Eagle Tribune, Smidt added.
Not until they make it right with Bob Ansin.
The Eagle~Tribune, which owns 49% of WCAPs former
rival station WCCM radio, recently ran a bogus story
claiming that men in tyvek suits were seen removing
asbestos from the $200 million Monarch on the Merrimack
project in Lawrence. According to Ansin, the story caused
him to lose a $40 million investment shutting down the
project until Ansin can secure more funding for the
project dubbed a city within a city located
in the Wood Mill, on Merrimack Street in Lawrence.
In its day, when Curt Gowdy owned WCCM,
Smidt continued. It was quite something when it was
on the 800 position on the dial. Everyone listened to it.
I was putting together SuperHits at WCGY (the FM station
owned by Gowdy) around 1984-85 it was certainly a great
radio station back then, he said.
Poulten said his love of WCAP and the Merrimack Valley
goes back to his youth. Having been born in Lowell
and falling in love with the most beautiful girl in
Haverhill, Gail Kritzman, I am very connected to the
Merrimack Valley. All the Lawrence and Haverhill kids,
even though they had other stations to listen to, had
WCAP as the big station [to listen to]. WCCM was a small
station and WLLH and WHAV were small stations, but WCAP
was what we all listened to.
The other part of that coin is that there are now
big statewide radio stations like WBZ. If you want to
listen to a statewide radio station, listen to WBZ,
Poulton explained. We [WCAP] want to localize radio
again. We want to super-serve the Merrimack Valley.
Its local, local, local, and we want to include the
entire Valley. I want to get back to the way it used to
be when people in Lawrence and Haverhill listened to WCAP
for their news, music and local events.
We have the signal to do that, he continued,
and we have the enthusiasm and expertise to do
that. Clark has 41 years in radio, and Ive been
doing radio since the early 70s. I know
Haverhill, I know Methuen and Lawrence and Dracut.
Im on the Nashoba Regional School Committee. There
are exciting things going on all over the Valley and we
want to be the radio station to tell people what those
things are. There are enough businesses in the Merrimack
Valley to make anybody happy. People do not have to go to
the malls. They dont. We have restaurants in the
Valley to beat the band. We have entertainment and shops,
we have the Spinners, which is the best class-A affiliate
in the country. We have LeLacheur Park, its a great
place to go out on a summer night. We have the Tsongas
arena and the Merrimack repertory theatre. We want WCAP
to promote those venues and be a cheerleader for those
venues. But we want people to know we are not just a
Lowell radio station.
We are also going to be promoting what is going on
in Haverhill and Lawrence. There are as many great venues
and restaurants and events going on in those communities
as there are here in Lowell. Haverhill has Winnekenni
Castle and all the stores on Merrimack Street, the
antique mall all these great places where people
can shop and be entertained all within 25 miles. You can
get just about anything you want, do anything you want to
do right here in the Valley. Its a phenomenal place to
be.
So, to have a radio station connected to all of
these things with a radio signal that can be heard not
only in the Lowell, Lawrence, Haverhill area but in
Manchester NH and Portsmouth NH. its a dream come
true for me, Poulten said excutedly.
Poulten and Smidt said that the station is also going to
have a close affiliation with The University of
Massachusetts at Lowell.
Were going to have UMASS Lowell students on
the air. We are going to have them interning and
were hoping [that] this will be the commercial
station where they break the alternative music and
discussions that theyre now using the FM signal to
break.
WCAP is not only changing its daily lineup and
adding new voices to its talk radio format, but the
station will be adding brand new technology and equipment
so that each show will be streaming live on the internet.
News is very important and local news is huge.
[WCAP] has not been able to afford a big local news
department in the past but we have some very interesting
partnerships we are developing with strategic and
significant news gathering organizations. We will have
connections with publications like the Sun and The Valley
Patriot .We will have coverage of local council meetings.
But we are not going to be obsessed with it. We will be
following news and covering news but we also want to make
sure all the local events are being properly covered and
people can take advantage of all the great local
businesses we have here in this area.
We are getting the station back up to speed. The
studio is fairly old and there was previously no sales
department under Mr. Cohen. He handled all the
advertising himself for years and it was great because he
could do it that way . he built the station.
But now that weve spent a couple of million
dollars buying it, we have to change all that. We are
very pleased that in week one weve already got
three wonderful sales professionals who, between them
have 90 years broadcast sales experience. We have some
really effective broadcasters here to customize the
advertising and make sure they get the most value for
their advertising dollar because we want businesses to
advertise here and be successful. The key is helping the
small businesses.
While most in the Valley may know of Clark Smidts
extensive local radio experience, Colonel Sam Poulten is
best known as a war hero. But many dont know he
also has a breadth of radio expertise.
I got hooked on radio in college at WBRS, at
Brandeis Universitys college radio station when I
was a freshman. By the time I was a sophomore I was doing
a show called Your Mother Should Know. It was
big band, dixieland, jazz and swing station and we built
a huge audience for a college show. The shows
introduction was the Beatles song called Your
Mother Should Know.
When I graduated they asked me to stay on the staff
of the radio station and I stayed on for four years, even
after I was married. It was an interesting thing because
I was doing the show on wind up Victrolas. We had two
wind up Victrolas and we would have to go back and forth,
change the needle after the song and wind up the other
player. It took a little time and that caused me to have
more [talking] on the air than other disc jockeys.
So we introduced Professor Quiz and his quizzical
quiz questions. I would ask quiz questions and take phone
calls and that gave us time to get the next record on.
Then we got a wild cast of characters, Billy Bowen and
the Orchestra, Suzie the Wonderdog and Judy the Topless
Telephone Operator.
Someone at WBOS heard the radio show in the early
1970s and thought that it would be a good Sunday
night radio show. I said sure, [and] went
over to FM 93 which had a 50,000 watt FM signal.
We did Your Mother Should Know and eventually
spun off to do Personality Parade where we
interviewed all the legends of the big band and swing
era. We actually went to BOS in 1974 and we had Benny
Goodman, Harry James, the Mills Brothers, George Burns
and Bob Hope. We had all the folks who made radio big in
the 40s and the 50s.
That was sponsored by a deli on Harvard Street in
Brookline. We started broadcasting that show from the
window of the deli. We would go in and tape a half hour
show, which we eventually expanded to an hour. Your
Mother Should Know was moved to Nicks
Restaurant on Worthington Street. We had a small staff; a
producer, engineer and myself. My wife Gail played one of
the parts on the radio and we would broadcast from the
WBOS studios. It was in the Bradford Hotel. We expanded
the Sunday night show back into Saturday night. So we
ended up with four hours on Saturday nights and four
hours on Sunday nights.
I did that until the format changed at WBOS to
disco. When the FCC made radio stations which were AM and
FM split their programming, WCRB use to be AM and FM, so
they had to create an AM signal. They decided to do big
band radio and rehired all the great radio personalit-ies
from the 40s and 50s. Again I did a weekend
show on WHET. That station was sold and became WDLW where
we did Your Mother Should Know,
We moved Personality Parade to WNTN in Newton.
Every New Years Eve we were the first radio show to do
First Night. WCRB had a studio at the Copley Plaza Hotel.
The first, First Night was broadcast from the lobby of
the tea room at the Copley it was very small but we were
first. We also launched a show that is still running
called Sheer Madness, which was a stage show. The day it
launched the characters came on the radio show. It was
participatory dinner theatre and as far as I know it is
still going today.
Eventually I came to WLLH in Lowell to do the show
in the early 90s before they were sold. I was on
WLLH Sunday nights, and I was on WLYN.
When WLLH was sold I brought Your
Mother Should Know to WCAP. Ron Morrison, my
partner in real estate and I also did a show called
Real Estate Review. I decided that if the station
ever went up for sale I wanted to buy it. I had already
talked to a number of businesses and potential investors
who were at the ready when the time came. That was eight
years ago.
So, I had heard that someone had bought the radio
station and the guys I had had on the string all that
time said hey, I thought we were ready to go
so I came up the steep flight of stairs to see Mr. Cohen
who said they were all rumors and they werent true.
After the fourth or fifth visit he said there was someone
interested in buying the station but he didnt think
it was going to happen. He gave me the other persons name
and had Clark call me. The rest, as they say, is history
and here we are.
Colonel Sam Poulten joined the army in 1969 while he was
at Brandeis University I didnt serve
overseas, he said. I was very fortunate
during the Vietnam war to be a medic reservist stationed
at Fort Devans. I trained at Fort Polk Louisianna and
Fort Sam, Huston Texas.
My reserve job was at the Bedford Veterans
hospital. Every Wednesday night I worked the wards and
they still had WWI veterans alive back then. It was very
interesting. In fact, I probably identify myself with the
US Army reserves more than anything else I do in my life.
I have been doing it for 38 years. I literally saw the
world. Ive had duty in El Salvador, Honduras
Guatemala, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, Romania,
Kuwait, Iraq ... all over.
In the first gulf war I was company commander for
309 combat support hospital. It was called up first for
stateside duty at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Then
we had a couple of weeks in England, I didnt deploy
to Saudi Arabia but others in my unit did. I was very
lucky. So in the first Gulf they didnt send me
anyplace warm.
We also worked on Indian reservations. I am in the
medical service corps. We aided victims of Hurricane
Mitch, and because of my annual trainings all over the
world, we actually did Your Mother Should Know from all
over the world including Honduras and Guatemala.
In February, 2003, the 804th medical brigade
deployed with 3 days notice. As the war began, Kuwait was
the staging area for the invasion of Iraq. Our unit
provided command and control for all the medical units in
southern Iraq and Kuwait. I got to travel into Iraq, had
duty in Baghdad, Um Kasar, visited the Spanish hospital
ship, it was quite an experience. I spent my whole
deployment at the APOD arial port of debarkation. 90% of
the troops literally came through my tent, and though I
dont remember them all, I got to see them all as
they were going in.
Because we were the major evacuation hospital, we
did a lot of work with the wounded and unfortunately blew
taps for 232 men and women.
Both Poulten and Smidt say they are deeply committed to
making WCAP the voice of the Merrimack Valley
again.
Tom Duggan is the President of
Valley Patriot, Inc., is a former member of the Lawrence
School Committee, the former political director for Mass
Citizens Alliance and the host of WCAP's Paying Attention
Radio Program which airs from noon to 2pm every Saturday
afternoon on 980AM
*Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com The December 2007
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