All-News and Boston

[dhoule]

I only 9 stations running all-news blocks in Boston. Can anyone recall any others?

WATD--morning drive and maybe afternoon drive
WBUR--News blocks in morning and afternoon drive
WBZ--running about 15 hours a day
WEEI--24 hours or less
WHDH--I think they did a morning news block after Whitley moved over to RKO. Eileen Prose was one of the people.
WHUE--the 1150 one; I think they tried 24/7 news in the 70s with the NBC News and Information Service
WKOX--morning drive
WRKO--I think they did an early morning news block (5-6 am) before Clapprood and Whitley at one point.
WVBF--running a news block 4:00 to 5:30, I believe, with Tom Kennedy in the 90s.

 

[WNTIRadio]

Yet there is no 24 hour all news station in Boston.

 

[DougBroda]

Yet there is no 24 hour all news station in Boston.

Yes -- but there are two larger markets that don't have any 24 hour all-news radio either: #5 Dallas and #9 Atlanta. (I exclude #6 Houston as one is planned to start soon.) Further, WBZ does all-news from morning drive through early evening on weekdays and large parts of the day on weekends. (KRLD Dallas does the same re all-news, at least on weekdays.) I don't think #10 Boston is all that badly served in this area at all. Atlanta is clearly the Top 10 market with the least all-news radio. (WSB in morning drive only, and I think that's about it.)

 

[WNTIRadio]

I'd still like traffic and weather on the 3's, especially in the summer. I don't know why they can't at least do that on WBZ even during the night time chat.

 

[DavidZ]

I only 9 stations running all-news blocks in Boston. Can anyone recall any others?

WATD--morning drive and maybe afternoon drive
WBUR--News blocks in morning and afternoon drive
WBZ--running about 15 hours a day
WEEI--24 hours or less
WHDH--I think they did a morning news block after Whitley moved over to RKO. Eileen Prose was one of the people.
WHUE--the 1150 one; I think they tried 24/7 news in the 70s with the NBC News and Information Service
WKOX--morning drive
WRKO--I think they did an early morning news block (5-6 am) before Clapprood and Whitley at one point.
WVBF--running a news block 4:00 to 5:30, I believe, with Tom Kennedy in the 90s.

I know that your list is Boston centric but how about WNCR-AM 1440 in Worcester (Worcester's News Center) back in the late 70s. They had morning and afternoon drive news blocks, a mid-day report and a final 1/2 hour of news either at 10 or 11 p.m. I can't recall exactly the time of the late newscast. They also had a full time Sports director and hourly news from I believe CBS and local news on the 1/2 hour throughout the rest of the day. They won almost all of the local news accolades in Central New England in their brief existance.

They eventually changed their call letters to WFTQ 14Q with a hyper local music intensive full service format and immediately challenged long standing #1 WTAG-AM in the ratings.

 

[carmen]

you can get 770 WABC 880 WCBS and 1010WINS all day in boston - guess the Holland Tunnel wait time interruptions arent terribly relevant though

 

[DanStrassberg]

Early in 1060's rather sad history as a full-timer (probably mid-late 1981) while the station still had the WGTR calls and John Garabedian still owned it and before he started the string of generally disastrous LMAs, he was running the station as a 24/7 all-newser: The News G-1060. He also owned Channel 66, which was licensed to Marlborough but not yet on the air. I think that, before he hit on the V66 all-music-videos idea, his plan was to make Channel 66 an all-news TV station to complement the all-news AM. IIRC, the TV idea never saw the light of day.

The radio news product, up against the old CBS-owned WEEI 590, had to be good to succeed--and it wasn't very. I don't recall how the format wheel was set up, but I do remember segments running over and over and over.

To add insult to injury, the night directional array never worked properly and did not get licensed until well into the 21st century (long after Garabedian had sold the station). So the station ran at night at a tiny fraction of its 2500W CP power and daytime mostly ran at about half of the CP 25000W. There were also problems with the transmitter, which consisted of two 15-kW units operating in tandem. The two supposedly identical transmitters were not sufficiently well matched, causing the tandem operation to fail and forcing cutbacks in the day power. Garabedian sued the manufacturer.

The station that had started off with such promise as a 1 kW daytimer licensed to the prosperous MetroWest area with a 100% local voice-tracked format that I guess, in today's world, would be called progressive rock, didn't take long to go completely into the dumper, at which point Garabedian started a long string of LMAs.

I think the first LMA was to a rich woman from Texas who installed what was ABC's then-brand-new satellite-delivered Stardust adult-standards format. It was my first experience listening to a 100% satellite-delivered music format--and was most likely the Boston market's first such format. It was very dull and, unlike later satellite-delivered AS formats, there was no attempt to make it sound local. Oh, and even the call letters produced some smiles of amazement: WSTD(!) Law of unintended consequences, I guess.

 

[raccoonradio]

>>you can get 770 WABC 880 WCBS and 1010WINS all day in boston

Though the other day I noticed 880 was a tough get (day) due to the 890 splashover, and I'm
not even really near Ashland. 1010? WBZ also splashover (day)

I suppose were it not for the success of Dan Rea's show, etc., WBZ could have offered us a simulcast
of their 11 pm news. (Some news is getting simulcast, right? I know WWZN was doing Ch 5, maybe still is, and WCAP was as well, and 96.9 simulcasts with NECN in the wee hours. Of course we are
seeing TV-radio simulcasts go the opp. way too: NECN with WEEI's Dennis and Callahan and now
ComcastSportsNet with 98.5's Felgie and Mazz.

Of course one drawback to simulcasts of TV news: "This green section over here, if it's heading toward you, expect rain; light blue is a mix, and the white section, that's snow..." Though you'd think they'd at least augment it by saying "snow outside of 495, mix between 495 and 128,
rain inside 128...."

 

[carmen]

Some news is getting simulcast, right?

theres a nightly news on 455.5125. i imagine like the WGBH simulcast on 947.9, listenercount is quite small

 

[WLYNWAZNgm]

Interesting. Are those STL frequencies for WGBH-FM?

 

[johnster]

Some news is getting simulcast, right?

theres a nightly news on 455.5125. i imagine like the WGBH simulcast on 947.9, listenercount is quite small

That is channel 5's WCVB's IFB ENG channel. It is used as one of the methods to get predealy audio with cues back to the trucks in the field.

 

[WLYNWAZNgm]

OK. That was my NEXT guess!

 

[FPB]

I'd love to see 'BZ do all news at least until 10PM, if not midnight.

 

[raccoonradio]

They must feel people are mostly watching TV (and can get their news there--various local/cable stations and
all-news networks) at 8 pm or so and this is their chance to do talk. Rea and Leveille/Rich must have a half decent
following

 

[aaronread]

Yet there is no 24 hour all news station in Boston.

With a handful of exceptions I believe WBUR does have a top-of-the-hour newscast for every hour, 24 hrs/day, during weekdays. Not always a local newscast, I'll admit, but a newscast nonetheless.

Weekends, there are a few shows...Car Talk, This American Life, Con Salsa...that don't have any newscast at all. Although given that there is a live operator on the board 24/7/365 at WBUR, they can (and have) broken into regular programming with live coverage (either local or national feed) when needed.

Come to think of it, I don't think there's too many stations in town that commit to a live operator-on-duty 24/7/365 besides WBUR and WBZ. I suspect there are some, but I don't know for sure. WGBH? WUMB? WATD? Greater Media? Entercom?

 

[reelyreal]

Yet there is no 24 hour all news station in Boston.

With a handful of exceptions I believe WBUR does have a top-of-the-hour newscast for every hour, 24 hrs/day, during weekdays. Not always a local newscast, I'll admit, but a newscast nonetheless.

Weekends, there are a few shows...Car Talk, This American Life, Con Salsa...that don't have any newscast at all. Although given that there is a live operator on the board 24/7/365 at WBUR, they can (and have) broken into regular programming with live coverage (either local or national feed) when needed.

Come to think of it, I don't think there's too many stations in town that commit to a live operator-on-duty 24/7/365 besides WBUR and WBZ. I suspect there are some, but I don't know for sure. WGBH? WUMB? WATD? Greater Media? Entercom?

Actually, WBMX is one of those stations that has a body in the studio 24/7/365

 

[aaronread]

I knew CBS had someone b/c of WBZ but I didn't know WBMX was still running live 24/7. Kudos to them!

 

[whdh1920]

wtkk is running a liner that says news onthe the hour and when it breaks!! i can't see this to be true!!

 

[KarsonWithaK]

Yet there is no 24 hour all news station in Boston.

With a handful of exceptions I believe WBUR does have a top-of-the-hour newscast for every hour, 24 hrs/day, during weekdays. Not always a local newscast, I'll admit, but a newscast nonetheless.

Weekends, there are a few shows...Car Talk, This American Life, Con Salsa...that don't have any newscast at all. Although given that there is a live operator on the board 24/7/365 at WBUR, they can (and have) broken into regular programming with live coverage (either local or national feed) when needed.

Come to think of it, I don't think there's too many stations in town that commit to a live operator-on-duty 24/7/365 besides WBUR and WBZ. I suspect there are some, but I don't know for sure. WGBH? WUMB? WATD? Greater Media? Entercom?

Actually, WBMX is one of those stations that has a body in the studio 24/7/365

It's true, we don't have automation. I'm sure the system we use has the ability to run on auto pilot but it's not set up to work in our studio.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Come to think of it, I don't think there's too many stations in town that commit to a live operator-on-duty 24/7/365 besides WBUR and WBZ. I suspect there are some, but I don't know for sure. WGBH? WUMB? WATD? Greater Media? Entercom?

I'm not sure, but I don't think WGBH-FM has anyone on duty overnights when the syndicated Bob Parlocha jazz show is on. Perhaps there's someone on the TV side that can handle a radio tech. emergency if necessary, but I really don't know.

I don't believe there's anyone overnight at WUMB. The overnight programming, and often the evening programming, is pre-recorded, and they usually just close and lock up when the computer takes it away. That's how it was when I was there, I doubt that's changed.

WATD always has a live operator 24/7/365, with volunteer hosts/DJ's overnights doing mainly oldies shows, and a jazz/standards show Saturday overnights that I think is brokered/sponsored.