Cybernetics

He's physically not very big. A six-footer can look him straight in the flashback reels. But his voice carries 18 rock 'n' roll records an hour to FM radios within 100 miles of Kenmore Square. The human beings at WRKO-FM (98.5) call their one-piece radio station "the shy but friendly robot," which is catchy but far from accurate as a description. He gets about so quickly that already, only five weeks after arriving in Boston, he receives several hundred calls a night. And when it comes to friendliness, he's as cold as Petula Clark. He's an automated hard rock station that foregoes disc jockeys, news, weather, and time reports and keeps ads at a minimum.

The original impetus came from a Federal Communications Commission ruling that required AM-FM stations in cities with over 100,000 population to split their programming at least 50 per cent of the time. Boston's WNAC, which had been simulcasting its all talk-information format over WNAC-AM and WRKO-FM, had to come up with something new by January 1.

A survey of the FM bands revealed nothing for the younger audience. A rock 'n' roll format would take advantage of this gap and yet not complete with WNAC's AM outlet.

Breaking in against WBZ and WMEX, Boston's rock stations, WRKO had to offer something radically different -- and that something is 18 uninterrupted songs an hour. This is where the friendly robot comes in.

The "certified top 35," 12 "extras," the ads and promotion pieces are all on separate tape cartridges in the robot, a 12-foot long product of Automatic Tape Control, Bloomington, Illinois. The five-second identification spots are on the ends of those cartridges. There are three hour-long reels, two of flashbacks, one of instrumental fillers, that proceed from number to number when called on.

The monster is fed instructions every five hours, then it's completely on its own. Mel Phillips, the program director, determines the playlist each week, largely on the phone calls taken from 4 to 10 p.m. by "Roberta, the human helper" -- who in real life is a human named Roberta.

Phillips, who was a disc jockey in Tampa, Florida, until two months ago, claims that "all music" is a more sophisticated sound than the screaming and babbling that mark other Boston stations. The extremely favorable response of Boston's large college audience seems to bear this out -- Harvard has contributed as much mail as any group to the young station. WNAC general manager Perry Ury says, "We've removed the major irritant that radio listeners object to: the jockeys.'

WRKO-FM sounds like an ideal station, but alas, its system too, has flaws. Each song's impact is weakened by its propinquity to the next. Disc jockey chatter, for all its inanity, is a background that sets up each song. A more significant quibble is WRKO's small playlist. It sticks with already established hits, devoting almost half its air time to the Top 10, which often for instance this week is a collection of the songs one least wants to hear.

If only the robot could overcome his commercial instincts and use his numerical advantage as WOR (New York's new FM rocker) does, by playing more new songs and hits in other areas.

As it acquires fore flashback reels (it now has 16), WRKO could provide special goldie segments, to satisfy the buffs who still bemoan the departure of WORL's Ken Carter. And expansion of WRKO-FM into a 24-hour rock station would be a final service (presently, the nine hours after midnight are filled with mush music and talk shows). This would enable the hub's serious devotees to escape Dick Summer, Boston's biggest "drab-gabber," who currently has a popular music monopoly in the prime listening hours after midnight.