Boston protest/riot - BZ doing paid programming

[spt87]

Someone talking about seeds and farms while all the TV stations are wall to wall on the situation downtown. In the past my TV would be off and BZ would be on but I need news not whatever it is they are doing.

Thank you iHeart radio.

 

[nowradioguy]

Someone talking about seeds and farms while all the TV stations are wall to wall on the situation downtown. In the past my TV would be off and BZ would be on but I need news not whatever it is they are doing.

Thank you iHeart radio.

All I can hear right now are crickets, spt; how about you?

 

[dhoule]

I believe they failed here. When news is breaking like this, they should be there. This is one night when they should have been on air, live throughout the night. Bring in the resources. Match the reality with the "image". I'm disappointed.

 

[TheBigA]

I believe they failed here. When news is breaking like this, they should be there. This is one night when they should have been on air, live throughout the night. Bring in the resources.

I listened to WCBS, and while they were reporting the riots, it wasn't like the TV coverage. They mixed it in with all the other stories, plus traffic and weather.

Meanwhile WBUR was running their regular programming.

 

[QED]

i didn't check: obviously I had no confidence they would do special programming.on a news station. I listened a bit to NY WINS and Chi WGN.

 

[CTListener]

i didn't check: obviously I had no confidence they would do special programming.on a news station.

Especially on a Sunday night in a city that had been very quiet in the preceding days. I'd imagine that WTIC here in Connecticut would have been similarly unprepared and unable to get coverage on the air last night if Hartford had become a flashpoint for grief/outrage/hellraising/partisan skulduggery/anarchy.

 

[spt87]

I almost didn't bother cause I figured they would running on the "iheart platform" - aka the tape recorder. And they were so I went to TV.

There really is no excuse to be that unprepared. People should be available on call for emergencies. Somehow when CBS owned it they managed to be their for stories at odd hours - stories not as big as this one for sure. There had been protests going on earlier in the day and it is pretty well known that these things tend to go downhill when it gets dark. Funny thing is from Twitter it seems like they had one or two reporters on the scene but they must have been collecting audio for the next day rather than going live. The "iheart AI platform" needs some debugging I'd say.

 

[raccoonradio]

Tweet from WBZ's Jim MacKay @JimMacKayOnAir says he'll be on live starting at midnight tonight

 

[nowradioguy]

I almost didn't bother cause I figured they would running on the "iheart platform" - aka the tape recorder. And they were so I went to TV.

There really is no excuse to be that unprepared. People should be available on call for emergencies. Somehow when CBS owned it they managed to be their for stories at odd hours - stories not as big as this one for sure. There had been protests going on earlier in the day and it is pretty well known that these things tend to go downhill when it gets dark. Funny thing is from Twitter it seems like they had one or two reporters on the scene but they must have been collecting audio for the next day rather than going live. The "iheart AI platform" needs some debugging I'd say.

When there was an explosion in Danversport, MA several years ago, the coverage on 'BZ actually came from listeners who called in to the all-night show on air at that time. WBZ was under CBS ownership then.

Oh, wait - there's no OVERNIGHT live call-in show running on 'BZ anymore. Nor on Saturday/Sunday evenings, either.

"Now more than ever, it matters where you get your news!" - 'BZ liner before news at TOH

 

[TheBigA]

So WBZ is live tonight, complete with full traffic & weather on the 3s. The anchor is doing interviews with other reporters around the country.

Of course, things were relatively quiet tonight. Only two arrests in Boston.

 

[raccoonradio]

I think the Danversport explosion was Nov of 06.I was working overnights and could see a mushroom cloud and what sounded like firecrackers as I was on 128 just after 114 exit.

People shared news on WBZ's Steve Leveille Broadcast and also a Net messageboard I'm on.By 4:30 or 5 pm it started to hit tv news (explosion 2:50 am) or maybe earlier via a crawl.

 

[spt87]

So WBZ is live tonight, complete with full traffic & weather on the 3s. The anchor is doing interviews with other reporters around the country.

Of course, things were relatively quiet tonight. Only two arrests in Boston.

A day late and a dollar short. No one expects anyone to be home during those hours on 'BZ any more so no one will bother.

 

[TheBigA]

A day late and a dollar short. No one expects anyone to be home during those hours on 'BZ any more so no one will bother.

I don't think they're doing this for people at home. Otherwise why bother with live traffic reports?

People at home have choices. In the car, not so much.

 

[boombox4]

Maybe the staff had trouble getting to work? And then, by the way -- there still is a pandemic on.

 

[spt87]

More excuses. There was a time when they got things done over there. Now they don’t.

When I said no one is home I meant at WBZ. Their automation just kept the boring programming rolling.

Maybe more people at home would listen if there was something to listen to. Supposedly smart speakers reviving at home use of radio but it won’t work if there isn’t any content worth listening to.

 

[TheBigA]

Maybe more people at home would listen if there was something to listen to.

Maybe more people would listen at home if they didn't have computers, TVs, message boards, and video games. There was a time when that was the case, and that was when radio stations had the budget to staff for the handful listeners who stay awake overnight.