Five years ago the Templeton Radio Corporation gave Boston listeners their first classical music station, WBMS. Because the music was good and the advertisements few, the new station soon gained one of the highest Hooper ratings in this area. But because WBMS has to be self-sufficient, it ran more and more advertisements, which steadily lowered its rating to the point where the station was running at a huge loss. When WBMS made the shift to disk jockey programs, the wail set up by Bostonians was enough to prove the popularity of an all-music station. Former assistant manager John R. Thornton has taken advantage of this to set up a new station, WXHR on the FM band, using the WBMS fiasco as a guide.

He has made the greatest change in advertising policy. In WXHR, there is only one and a half minutes of sales talk for every hour of music. Remembering the reaction to WBMS' ads, Thornton refuses all singing commercials and high pressure selling. He also refuses ads for cheap products and mail order deals. As Thornton puts it, "It's rather incongruous to ballyhoo pocket adding machines in a a leatherette case to an audience that has just finished listening to Brahms." Many of the commercials are written by Thornton himself, and they all stress product quality and prestige. WXHR has also changed the usual policy toward program timing. Advertising, time checks and station identification are not allowed to interrupt or break off the music and programs end only when the last selection has been completely played, no matter what the hour.

This type of station with tight screening of commercials, small advertising time and no breaks in the music was a very risky venture, but WXHR has almost become self-supporting in only three months of operations. Losses made during those three months were absorbed by the owner, the Middlesex Broadcasting Company, which also owns a successful AM station, WTAO. Evidently, this approach has had considerable success with advertisers while still holding the audience. Perhaps the reason is that the station makes it clear through occasional talks between programs that it cannot continue unless the listeners support its advertisers. The response to this plea for loyalty and to this new advertising policy has been startling. Boston stores report that WXHR listeners from as far out as Worcester come all the way into town to buy records and radio equipment that they could have bought three blocks from their homes.

This success is convincing advertisers that selling does not necessarily depend on repetition: when WXHR premiered the Pablo Casals Bach recordings, the sponsor paid for eight programs of approximately one hour with only short commercials at the beginning and end of each program.

Improved advertising technique is not the only difference between WXHR and its predecessor. Where WBMS operated on the AM band, WXHR uses Frequency Modulation, which is static free and has a greater tone range. Moreover, WXHR is on the air during the evening from five to eleven o'clock. This means that WXHR has a wider "good music" audience than WBMS which was required to signoff at sundown and therefore was limited to the housewife group. Thornton also feels that FM listeners are more progressive and intelligent, and that night time FM can become a possible competitor to television.

Thornton plans to add some interesting features to the all-music fare. Among these are a series of critical discussions on new records by music experts and engineers. Sometime in March, WXHR will premier Haydn's opera "Orfeo and Eurydice," which is now being recorded in Venice. The score for this opera, which has been missing since the composer's death, have just recently been found after a year long search. The station hopes to expand its record collection now around 400 LP recordings, to 3,000, and to offer live music as well. Although this is an ambitious program, if WXHR maintains its present success, it will undoubtedly come true.