“WBCN AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION” DEBUTS THIS WEEK • NIELSEN RATINGS TREND LINES FOR WBUR & WGBH

Bill Lichtenstein on the air at WBCN in 1973

Bill Lichtenstein’s eagerly anticipated documentary about Boston’s WBCN and the anti Vietnam War movement is finally being released. The documentary film "WBCN and The American Revolution" has been in development and production for over a decade. 

The film is a labor of love for Lichtenstein because it combines an unforgettable time in American history with his own personal story.

  

The first public showing of "WBCN and The American Revolution" will be at the DC Independent Film Festival, Thursday, March 7^th at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Elihu Root Auditorium in Washington, DC. Check and see if tickets are still available here.

Then the film’s official premiere happens at the Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose March 9, 12 and 13. Tickets and more information are available here.

More information about the "WBCN and The American Revolution" is available at the film’s website [link] and Facebook page [link].

WBCN's staff in 1972

WBCN was an influential free-form progressive rock station in Boston that combined the hottest new music of the day with anti-war politics. 

From 1968 until 1974 WBCN joined a handful of other “underground” commercial radio stations that established album rock radio and the American counterculture. 

WBCN lived on for many years with different music formats, but, the only era that really matters was the six years that WBCN created an American phenomenon.

At the heart of "WBCN and The American Revolution" is Lichtenstein’s personal story. He started working at WBCN 1970 when he was 14.

In 2006 Lichtenstein told The Boston Herald about the extensive research that was done to create the film:

It was like archaeology. We collected archival material for a few years as that’s what we needed to drive the story. For most documentaries you tell a story and then use images to put up on the screen. This was the opposite. We had to find what material was there and then how to tell the story. 

The film presents the role that WBCN played in opposing Nixon by supporting the Moratorium on the Common and the anti FBI efforts that were going on in that period. Boston was a hot bed of opposition and WBCN was a major part of that.

In this film the 1960s began with the Summer of Love. At least the story begins then. Its manifestation in Boston was hippies on Boston Common and their clash with Boston’s aristocracy and police.

Free-form radio became unsustainable when the value to FM licenses went through the roof by the mid-1970s. Lichtenstein told The Herald about an earlier time when money didn’t matter as much:

At WBCN it was the announcers who decided what ads ran and not the advertising and sales staff. We weren’t interested in ratings we just wanted to do good radio. Turning down advertising DJ Jim Parry says in the film “Are you insane?”

Lichtenstein went on program WBRU at Brown University. Then he founded Lichtenstein Creative Media [link]. Lichtenstein was honored with a George Foster Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting for the PBS documentary "Schizophrenia: Voices of an Illness," narrated by Jason Robards. 

WBUR GAINS THE ADVANTAGE OVER WGBH IN BOSTON PPM RATINGS

There is no radio station like WBCN in Boston today. But, WERS, WBOS and WXRV do their best to keep the flame burning strong.

Today have trend lines comparing the Nielsen PPM ratings for WBUR and WGHBH for the past few months. 

As you can see in the chart on the left, WBUR has pulled away from WGBH.

WGBH came close to ‘BUR in estimated weekly listeners in October 2018. WBUR’s dominance in the Boston metro is clearly shown in their AQH share trends.

Don’t worry about WGBH, they are doing fine.  Both stations have a considerable number of listeners outside the metro. WGBH reaches an addition 70,000+ people in the Providence metro.