Amazingly they're each very successful (although WINS gets better ratings, even thought it has a weaker signal). Only recently have they sought to consolidate their writing and production staffs. That will probably continue under Entercom.
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WBZ Network News Shuffle/Adjustment Has Begun?
- Thread starter Uncle Kaimbridge
- Start date
Amazingly they're each very successful (although WINS gets better ratings, even thought it has a weaker signal). Only recently have they sought to consolidate their writing and production staffs. That will probably continue under Entercom.
The only NBC NewsRadio reporter I hear on 'BZ is Mark Mayfield, and he gets to use the "WBZ NewsRadio 1030" tagline. Mark also does tax tips on 'RKO using his "NBC NewsRadio" tag line.
However, over on 'RKO or Talk 1200, I've heard Doug Cope, Ben Parker, Carl Stevens - all from 'BZ, mind you - filing reports with the "NBC NewsRadio" tagline.
Someone had mentioned early on in this (mis)adventure that the WBZ and TTWN newsrooms were likely to be merged. But I didn't think NBC NewsRadio would also be sucked into this, or vice versa.
I hope Entercom handles the rest of the CBS O&O news and news/talk stations with better care.
I don't think they will. Their content is managed by NBC News, not iHeart.
Let's not forget that WBZ radio was an NBC affiliate long before there was a WBZ-TV.
Here's the announcement:
http://www.insideradio.com/free/nbc...cle_71c37dd2-4809-11e6-85f7-2f767970a622.html
Further, let us NEVER forget that WBZ-AM, WBZ-FM, and WBZ-TV were all co-owned until things went awry in November 2017.
As you know, typically on weekends, a WBZ anchor does a full 30-minute segment, unlike the 15-minute arrangement during the weekday AM and PM commutes (drive-time shifts) when two anchors alternate within a 30-minute segment. E.g., in AM commute: Josh Binswanger and Deb Lawlor; in PM commute: Laurie Kirby and Jeff Brown.
Today (Sat. 3/31/18) WBZ was trying out several new voices in their newscasts. E.g., during what would have been Art Cohen's 30-minute segments, Art did the first 15 minutes, and a new female voice did the second half. Ditto for Garul Hagopian: he did 15 minutes, a new male voice did the second 15 minutes. I never heard either of these new voices before, and their names were only mentioned ONCE at the end of their respective 15-minute segments. (The 30-minute segments with Tina Gao and Mike Macklin ran as per usual.)
Methinks these have to be from TTWN. Read: "They are probably NOT WBZ news anchors/reporters in the traditional sense". In fact, they probably were not even at 1170 Soldiers Field Rd but at iHeart-Medford. (Pure conjecture on my part here.)
Hmmm, not sure this is a good thing for WBZ NewsRadio. Could be ere too long the only vestige of WBZ 1030 AM we may recognize could be its call sign.
Today (Sat. 3/31/18) WBZ was trying out several new voices in their newscasts. E.g., during what would have been Art Cohen's 30-minute segments, Art did the first 15 minutes, and a new female voice did the second half. Ditto for Garul Hagopian: he did 15 minutes, a new male voice did the second 15 minutes. I never heard either of these new voices before, and their names were only mentioned ONCE at the end of their respective 15-minute segments. (The 30-minute segments with Tina Gao and Mike Macklin ran as per usual.)
Methinks these have to be from TTWN. Read: "They are probably NOT WBZ news anchors/reporters in the traditional sense". In fact, they probably were not even at 1170 Soldiers Field Rd but at iHeart-Medford. (Pure conjecture on my part here.)
Hmmm, not sure this is a good thing for WBZ NewsRadio. Could be ere too long the only vestige of WBZ 1030 AM we may recognize could be its call sign.
Things change. They change every few years. That's how it goes. They would have changed if CBS retained the radio (because the division was losing money), it would have changed if Entercom kept the station (because they're making changes at a lot of the old CBS stations,) and it will probably change under iHeart. The way to keep things from changing is listen to old airchecks. These are living radio stations, not museums.
When the sale happened, they knew they were going to have to leave the CBS building. They have a year.
J
JoePyne
Guest
Yup, that's were Ole man Rea said he was going to house his future "studio audiences",....cue the crickets please
The All News Block will probably be destroyed by the monsters at Iheart.
Will Peter Casey, and all the refugees from
CBS's WBZ be part of the Phoenix rising from the ashes?
News Radio 850?
For an earlier comment - I don't think the division was losing money for CBS - it was huge cash flow positive from the sounds of it. I think a few things were happening - the radio group did have a slow decline in revenue going on which CBS didn't want to put effort into fixing or didn't know how to fix. CBS wants to reduce the dependence on advertising revenue in favor of charging fees for rebroadcast rights, selling CBS All Access subscriptions, etc. and ditching radio advances that goal. CBS may have been looking at their reliance on AM stations as a concern (even though those are probably the most consistently successful group of AMs in the industry). Of course, the wall st. types that grill them on the quarterly earnings calls love "deals" and were always asking about spinning off radio and CBS engineered this to grab cash by taking out loans which went with the radio division while the borrowed cash went to CBS corporate.
I will be curious to see if the loss of radio as a vehicle to promote CBS TV has any affect on TV ratings over the next couple of years.
As for iHeart, I remain hopeful but when I read about important, long time people in the newsroom losing their jobs, about reduced hours for reporters and fears of more reductions it doesn't sound promising. I'm sure that staff costs looks like a good place to target for a quick boost in profits, but the station is a revenue leader - it takes money to make money type of thing. Any boost to the bottom line could be short lived. Then when you see WGBH and WBUR nipping at their heels in the ratings it wouldn't take much damage to the product to deep six the whole thing. If anything, double down now to keep it strong/make it stronger. Heck, how come a blog out in Worcester has been breaking scandal after scandal at the state police. Shouldn't the all news radio station be getting at least a few scoops like that? Cutting staff will just guarantee that the blog will keep that advantage.
If Entercom wanted to take a run at all news by flipping an FM, that would be interesting especially if they could snag a number of WBZ staffers. I just wonder if they have the stomach to pump that much money in over what could be an extended period to ramp it up with no guarantees and a possibility of never doing more than splitting the audience. Possibly there is some contractual non-compete in place between Entercom and iHeart related to the station transfer.
Maybe iHeart knows something about listener behavior. Are people really listening for news or out of habit and for company? The people who flip over for a weather and traffic report and then elsewhere won't notice so long as they get the weather and traffic info. The people who have the station on for hours at a time - if an anchor is reading content mostly gathered from web sites, will they notice the newsroom has been gutted and tune out or just leave it on anyway for the background noise? Some of us will notice and bail but would the masses - maybe iHeart is gambling they won't care.
I will be curious to see if the loss of radio as a vehicle to promote CBS TV has any affect on TV ratings over the next couple of years.
As for iHeart, I remain hopeful but when I read about important, long time people in the newsroom losing their jobs, about reduced hours for reporters and fears of more reductions it doesn't sound promising. I'm sure that staff costs looks like a good place to target for a quick boost in profits, but the station is a revenue leader - it takes money to make money type of thing. Any boost to the bottom line could be short lived. Then when you see WGBH and WBUR nipping at their heels in the ratings it wouldn't take much damage to the product to deep six the whole thing. If anything, double down now to keep it strong/make it stronger. Heck, how come a blog out in Worcester has been breaking scandal after scandal at the state police. Shouldn't the all news radio station be getting at least a few scoops like that? Cutting staff will just guarantee that the blog will keep that advantage.
If Entercom wanted to take a run at all news by flipping an FM, that would be interesting especially if they could snag a number of WBZ staffers. I just wonder if they have the stomach to pump that much money in over what could be an extended period to ramp it up with no guarantees and a possibility of never doing more than splitting the audience. Possibly there is some contractual non-compete in place between Entercom and iHeart related to the station transfer.
Maybe iHeart knows something about listener behavior. Are people really listening for news or out of habit and for company? The people who flip over for a weather and traffic report and then elsewhere won't notice so long as they get the weather and traffic info. The people who have the station on for hours at a time - if an anchor is reading content mostly gathered from web sites, will they notice the newsroom has been gutted and tune out or just leave it on anyway for the background noise? Some of us will notice and bail but would the masses - maybe iHeart is gambling they won't care.
By the same token there are already two news FM stations in Boston: WBUR and WGBH. They each are among the most listened to stations in Boston. So could the city handle four all news FMs? Does Entercom have an FM that it could blow up? All-news costs a lot more to run than any genre of music.
Big A you must be living under a rock WGBH and WBUR are not news stations they are NPR talk stations with morning addition and all things considered bur has BBC News they are not news stations I am tired of people calling them news stations
Click on the link and see how they are designated:
https://ratings.****************/cgi-bin/rol.exe/arb013
And while you're at it, tell me what it says next to WBZ-AM.
I'm not living under a rock. I can quote sources. How about you?
from: http://www.wbur.org/inside/2017/10/...xpanding-reach-to-400000-additional-listeners
"The station with Boston’s largest radio newsroom.........."
The formats listed on the ratings pages mean nothing. Do you really think 1430 WKOX was a News” station too before they went to a Spanish language format, and the “News” moved to 1200 WXKS?
Wow, very nicely articulated! And the reasoning is on a very strong footing as well.
Can someone tell me why Entercom chose to not keep WBZ-AM and WRKO? They only had two AMs (WEEI and WRKO) in their stable, and by taking WBZ-AM, they could've kept just ALL the former CBS news/talk stations on the Entercom ranch.
In my world:
Entercom would've kept: WRKO, WEEI-AM; WEEI-FM, WAAF;
Entercom would've dumped: WKAF;
Entercom would've added: WBZ-AM, WZLX, WODS, WBMX.
So they'd have three AMs: WRKO, WEEI-AM, WBZ-AM;
five FMs: WEEI-FM, WZLX, WODS, WBMX, WAAF.
WBZ-FM would've still gone to Beasley, who would've dumped WBOS - on iHeart!
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