BigA,
Thank you for weighing in here.
By “venerable”, I meant that both Westinghouse and CBS have had a long history in radio broadcasting. I always felt that, whether in NYC, Chicago, Philly, Pittsburgh, or Fort Wayne, a Group W or a CBS radio station was, for the most part, pretty well run, and made money.
But - I have to admit you have put forth above what may be the most plausible and convincing argument to date re the whole situation with WBZ.
I would have preferred CBS stayed in the radio business, but they didn’t. Entercom was only too happy to bolster its position and, fortunately for them, had the resources at hand to acquire the soon-to-be-discarded CBS properties.
My impression was that Entercom didn’t invest heavily into WRKO; they were all about their WEEI brand. So, given its less-than-stellar demographic reach and revenue, WRKO was sure to go.
Now I was also under the impression that Entercom could not retain WBZ, but I don’t fully understand why. Had they done so, they would’ve had in their stable: WBZ-AM, WEEI-AM, WEEI-FM, WAAF, WKAF, WBZ-FM, WZLX, WODS, WBMX; two AMs, seven FMs. OK, so that’s two FMs over the limit, and signal-challenged WKAF was an almost sure bet to go.
WZLX was expendable since Entercom had access to profitable male demographics via WEEI-FM and WAAF.
But WBZ-FM could not stay with ‘EEI-FM retained, so this became their ace-in-hand to trade for WMJX; this would afford them a solid female demographic, with WODS, WBMX, WMJX.
WEEI-AM probably costs them little-to-nothing to operate, save for the transmitter’s electric bill, and I understand there were some sports events that the station carried.
So, even with WBZ, that would bring their total to: two AMs, five FMs. And it’s not like WBZ would’ve been a totally unfamiliar entity, since they were keeping all the other CBS news/talk stations.
But we know WBZ (along with WZLX) went to iHeart. My question to you is: What do you think it was about WBZ that Entercom-Boston might’ve found undesirable? Was it simply because divesting WBZ would bring Entercom a nice tidy sum?
