Starfleet Blair, Inc.

Radio program syndication company specializing in live performances, formed by the acquisition of Starfleet, a live-event engineering service for radio owned by partners Sam Kopper and Jim Slattery, by Chicago media sales / radio station operator John Blair & Co. in 1980. Starfleet originally engineered live broadcasts for Massachusetts radio stations, including WBCN/Boston, but by 1976 began producing concert audio for syndication to a network of radio stations nationwide, initially by long-distance phone lines, and eventually, by satellite. They also provided recording services to record labels. In 1982 the company began a relationship to supply programming to with NBC's The Source (8) radio network. By mid-1985 the mobile recording bus had been sold to American radio network Westwood One and became one of several Westwood One Mobile Trucks, named Concertmaster III, with Kopper becoming Westwood One's East Coast Director of Special Projects.