When WMBS turned popular, pessimistic Bostonians felt that the idea of a good music station in their city was dead. They gave up too easily. Two commercial stations are shifting their emphasis to classical music and one new FM station is entirely devoted to classic. These stations have developed new approaches to the advertising problem, the challenge which defeated WBMS.

WXHR, a FM "good music station" that broadcasts during the evening, has come up with the most successful solution. Manager John Thornton refuses to "box" his programs with time breaks and holds the advertising down to ninety seconds per hour of music. Public response to this mature advertising policy has been more than satisfactory; in six months of operation the station has become self-supporting.

Because WXHR limits itself to a small staff, the atmosphere at its Mt. Zion transmitter is one of informality. Manager Thornton's announcing costume consists of a red lumberjack shirt and engraved cowboy boots. In contrast with this, there is a formidable battery of technical equipment. Last Thursday night, for instance, they used a special recorder from the MIT Accoustic Laboratories to broadcast the New England Philharmonic. Because of WXHR's technical quality and sound advertising policy it has a good chance of staying in business. If listeners fail to maintain the station by supporting its advertisers, it will go off the air rather than make direct appeals for money.

WCRB, an AM station in Waltham, plans a different procedure to support classical music broadcasts. Manager Deuel Richardson and Ted Jones thought that conventional advertising would not finance the fourteen hours a week of classical music they were planning to program. Consequently they obtained an old list of WBMS patrons and sent out appeals for $3.00 subscriptions. They felt that listeners would subscribe to a series of all music programs just as they subscribed to a magazine. By last Sunday the number of subscribers reached eight hundred and WCRB's first Concert Hour went on the air. If the subscription plan snowballs, Richardson hopes to increase the amount of time devoted to good music.

The managers of WCRB complain that they are "swamped with long hairs who want announcing jobs" and advertisers who say they can't do anything in twenty seconds. But there are more serious problems facing the station. Subscription financing may fade out after the initial enthusiasm wears off. WCRB's license allows only daylight operation which listen is to the unresponsive "housewife audience."

There are strong rumors that another commercial station, Boston's WOOP, plans to break with the ABC network and broadcast classical music in the evenings. Louis Goldberg, music manager of WCOP, explained that his station was already running three hours of concert music a week. "We do some fine things," said Mr. Goldberg, "Not only Beethoven's Ninth, but his Fifth and Fourth!" He expressed a lukewarm desire to play more, but spent most of his time relating the hardships of the radio world, "You can't push any ads on a classical show, and places like Wally's (a local jazz emporium) don't want to advertise on it. You can't run classical in the afternoon because people want disk jockeys. At seven in the evening they want adventure shows." Mr. Goldberg finally broke down and admitted that he might play good music somewhere in the 7:30 to 10:00 block. "But nothing heavy like Stravinsky, people just can't take it for a solid hour--we'd have to break in with something light like Kostalanetz." The new trend toward more classical music programs may prove him wrong.