Who is this clown? Man WABC and AM radio has sunk to a new low...sad If I was the network I'd pay the owner for a call letter change!
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WABC Midnight Saturday
- Thread starter Mike Sheridan
- Start date
Since tuning in at around 12:45 I heard him take a caller who seemed "special" and then he spent at least 5 straight minutes bitching about the station, how poorly he's treated by management, cutting down his program director and threatening to take his show elsewhere, complaining that they weren't even giving him call screeners at one point, etc. Way to win points with your employer! Otherwise, he spent a bunch of time chatting up Mike Lindell and pushing pillow sales.
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Always sad when you switch on a station with a storied set of call letters and hear some amateurish goofball on the air. That said, as others have stated in other discussion threads, it seems all one needs to do is walk into WABC's owners' office, make a pitch for a show and boom, they get an airshift.
This is his second thread in six months:
The other week I listened to the replay of his show and he said about the vaccination task force whose goal in reality is to inform people about the vaccine, Mr Russo said if you choose to not get the vaccine the quote "Biden task force" will come to your door ask you if you got the vaccine and if you say no they'll stick it in you. Isn't there a policy from the fcc that can get people taken off the air or fined for broadcasting false information like this?
LMAO! I've heard 40 years of all the terrible things Republican presidents were supposedly going to do, including throwing old people out on the street, and starting a nuclear war just because. Yet I never heard a peep about "false information" and the FCC from the "oh so concerned" crowd.
Here's what the rule says:
That's a pretty steep hill to climb. This host makes no claim of credibility. He's stating his opinion. My take is he believes what he's saying, and thinks it's true. His listeners agree. None of them will win awards for anything. At one time, he'd be viewed as a nut case and wouldn't be given any airtime. Not today.
You have got to be kidding! The fact is you put this on a 50,000 watt clear channel station in the middle of New York City? It seems downright irresponsible to me. If that's what they've got play the sign off and save on the electric bill.
Aren’t they making money off overnight ads on the weekends or no?
Not likely. Most later night and overnight ads are either bonus spots or network spots the station has to carry for things like syndicated shows or news services.
Russo to my understanding is still brokered time. As long as the check clears…
That's what I understood from hearing him talk and rant a few weeks ago as well. That was the night after the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and he seemed to be most angry because he went out and got sponsorships and sold time and got pizza shops and similar to pay to call in and plug their businesses on the air with him, then when the timeslot he was supposedly brokered came up on 9/11, station management told him not to go on air that night and instead aired other programming they deemed more appropriate. He was also railing against the station and PD and saying some nights they weren't even providing him with call screeners, so he and the board op were having to screen their own callers - indicating call screeners must've been included in the barter agreement and that WABC, at least according to him, didn't follow through. That's when he began "threatening" to take his show elsewhere, before tossing out a series of plugs for Mike Lindell and My Pillow.
I highly doubt if WABC cares if he takes his show elsewhere.
Do major stations like WABC expect the talent to line up sponsors ad hoc for their air shifts? Do the stations allow the talent to line up sponsors?
When WABC took away Russo's shift what would happen to the pizza shops, etc. who bought time? Doesn't this make for bad relations with businesses in the community wanting to advertise?
When WABC took away Russo's shift what would happen to the pizza shops, etc. who bought time? Doesn't this make for bad relations with businesses in the community wanting to advertise?
That's what "brokered time" means. He buys the time from the station, and he sells it himself.
It's not "ad hoc." That's the deal he made. It's in his contract.
And mind you, the station offered to sell him that airtime because they couldn’t and can’t make money otherwise in that time period.
It’s why a large amount of talk stations around the country broker out the weekends, some entirely like WOR or WNYM. Otherwise they’d be deeply in the red.
It's not always because you can't make money in other ways but the easiest way to monetize the hours. For example, if you had a store and had 50 used laptops for sale in a small part of the store. If someone offered to buy all 50, would you sell them or choose to sell one here and there? After all you are to move inventory and meet the goal of monetizing each square foot of floor space at a certain level. Brokering time lets you concentrate on other areas and clears that time frame from your full plate of things to do.
I doubt talk stations would be in the red without the weekend brokered time and infomercials. Why? Infomercials especially are results oriented. Sure they'll try you once but if you don't trigger enough in results they never buy again. Time brokered programs always go for the stations with a good audience if possible. If you can sell out your weekends, you have a decent audience that responds to advertisers on weekdays. That is very saleable. Who cares the format or political slant, you advertise to get customers and make the cash register sing. I suspect they are just 'getting while the 'getting is good'.
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