Ooops. sorry...let try that again
Jessica talking about radio is like Dan Shaughnessy of the Globe talking about the Red Sox; major conflicts of interest.
Well, that's always been so. The major critics of radio and television have always been their major competitors, the newspapers. It still hasn't stopped the papers from giving good reviews, along with bad ones, to television and radio. Haslem's singular problem is that she's been so compromised by a history of carrying water for folks like Carr that her commentary and analysis is essentially meaningless.
It is amazing to see the stations scrambling because of the inferior talent they force on the city
It's impossible to force an elective choice upon anyone, and listening to the radio is a voluntary action. Talk hosts go away when they've outlived their ability to draw listeners. As for complaining about successful hosts and programs, this becomes a little like Yogi's supposed observation about a restaurant where 'nobody goes because it's too crowded."
and the terrible neo-conservative slant. Talk to the people - give them what they want - and watch the ratings rise.
Not giving people what they want would appear to be a recipe for certain failure. Talk stations are programmed the same way music stations are, with consistancy. WMJX doesn't switch musical genres every four hours. Due to the way radio advertising is sold, much emphasis has to be given to AQH and TSL. Switching from far right to far left, or even right to left, thoughout the day is, historically, a programming loser, since you'd have to rebulld your audience every shift. Of course, a lot of folks talk about how they'd love to see a variety of political slants on stations, but that doesn't seem to be the way it works where the rubber meets the road. Since their jobs depend on it, it's pretty tough to blame programmers for doing what works. The only stations which break from this model are usually those in extremis or on life support and have nothing to lose. It never works, but that could be a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the stations were going down the tubes anyway. But, for folks who have come to depend on their paychecks, they stick with what is known to work.
The two freebie dailies do not hurt the Herald and Globe as much as the internet. The Globe i think owns Metro now.
Yes, it does. Recently, the owner of the both the Globe and the NY Times mentioned in a speech that he thought that the prospects for the dead-tree editions of either paper being around in 5 years were, at best, problematic.
The Herald will survive, Pat Purcell knows how to maneuver and make it profitable, despite the lack of depth to the paper. Outside of sports and some decent music coverage, the Herald has little to offer.
Maybe, maybe not. I subscribe to the Herald, and I may be imagining it, but the paper seems to have actually gotten worse over the last few years, if such a thing is possible, and that decline in quality seems to coincide with Purcell's financial woes. There was a time when advertisers used to support the Herald (and before that, the Herald-Traveler, Record, Record American, and the Herald American) as a tactical move because they wanted Boston to stay a two-newspaper market, believing that if the Globe ever became the only game in town their ad rates would skyrocket. With the declining importance of newspaper advertising, I'm not sure that rationale is as persuasive as it once was, and probably isn't.
And quality does matter. There is a famous story in the publishing biz, supposedly true, that when Rupert Murdock bought the New York Post, he cornered Alfred Bloomingdale at a cocktail party and pitched him for some of his advertising business. Bloomingdale told Rupe to "come and see me when your circulation reaches X million."
Later, Murdock approached Bloomingdale and told him the NY Post circ had hit the X million number. "Mr. Murdock, Blomingdale responded. "your readers are my shoplifters."
Regards,
TSB
