WBCN is Back. Kinda

So I wrote this big lament to BCN and what do they do? They bring it back. On HD radio. In Mono.

Being the radio lover that WBCN made me, Eli Polonski at WMBR mentioned that they had begun airing "Free Form 'BCN over the channel 3 of WZLX's HD radio signal. Finding a cheap Sony HD radio online (the XDR-F1HD, $80 at Amazon), I began listening. I can't really complain about what I've been hearing, though I will.

While one of 'BCN's most exalted staff members, Sam Kopper has been sculpting playlists using old 'BCN playlists, some of the newer stuff they've been playing just seems weak when compared to the older material. I'd say that this is because I'm old, but Sam is older than me, and he's very enthusiastic about the newer material. Perhaps a decade of ignoring mainstream radio has jaded me to anything past 1995.

But this really hasn't stopped me from listening. WBCN was known to play some crap in their day. They've got no commercials (so far) and the stuff they play that's good is VERY GOOD. I've been listening to it so much that I managed to win a Sangean HDT-1 tuner during their monthly giveaway. So far, the Sangean is a lot fancier than my Sony, which I plan on kicking down to another friend who's been enjoying the station on the online stream.

I even got to meet Sam Kopper himself, who answered every question I could think of on the spot. He told me that over the air, BCN Free Form is in Mono due to technical limitations. The online stream is apparently higher quality, which means that someone streaming the station is getting a better signal than someone with an HD Radio. Weird.

They plan on having more live, DJ-run programming in the future, so there's still more to come. Let's hope they can keep the commercials out for as long as possible.