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Boston Herald Profiles WBZ's Dan Rea

As much of conservative talk becomes discredited http://www.milwaukeemagazine.com/CurrentIssue/full_feature_story.asp?NewMessageID=24046 it will be interesting to see if there are more shows which evolve into programs like Rea's.
Not likely, talk's still about theater, not information exchange.
To succeed, a talk show host must perpetuate the notion that his or her listeners are victims, and the host is the vehicle by which they can become empowered. The host frames virtually every issue in us-versus-them terms. There has to be a bad guy against whom the host will emphatically defend those loyal listeners.
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I'm getting a little tired about the use of the phrase "WBZ, heard in 38 states". There are many stations around the country operating on 1030, and it can no more be heard very far way from Boston than St. Louis's KMOX or Minn/St. Paul's WCCO.
 
Laurence Glavin said:
I'm getting a little tired about the use of the phrase "WBZ, heard in 38 states". There are many stations around the country operating on 1030, and it can no more be heard very far way from Boston than St. Louis's KMOX or Minn/St. Paul's WCCO.
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WBZ was not the only Class IA clear channel AM that claimed to be heard in 38 states but it was the most easterly of the ones that did. Actually, it was the most easterly Class IA in the US and maybe Canada too--because CBA was almost certainly a IB. (Not only was it co-channel with KNX but there are a bunch of what were Class IIs on 1070 in the midwest and even one in Canada.) Almost certainly, WCAU (now WPHT) made a similar claim. Others that probably made such claims included WEAF (now WFAN), WABC, WCBS, WHAM, KDKA, WJR, WTAM, WLW, WHAS, WMAQ (now WSCR), WGN, WBBM, WLS, WSM, and KMOX. The trick was being located close enough to the northeast, where all of the states with small geographic areas are located. The station that claimed to serve the greatest population at night was WOR, which was a IB but had a directional pattern that concentrated its coverage along the eastern seaboard, still the county's most densely populated area. WOR claimed to reach 36 million people in 18 states at a time when the total US population was only about 130 million.

If you go by the FCC's current formulas for calculating nighttime skywave coverage, no US station could now claim to cover 38 states at night because no 50 kW ND Class A AM's 0.5 mV/m 50% skywave contour extends more than about 500 miles from its transmitter. The new formulas, which dramatically reduced the skywave coverage areas, went into effect in the early 80s, I believe. The new formulas were just as much responsible for reducing the claimed coverage areas as were all of the new full-time Class Bs AMs that were added on the former clear channels starting in the '80s. WBZ and WWL are directional, so their coverage extends a bit further than that of the ND Class As--but not 40% further, which is what you might predict based on field intensity at their pattern maxima.

But claiming to be HEARD IN 38 states is different from claiming to COVER (or even to SERVE) 38 states. If any AM stations still keep reception reports from DXers, there are probably hundreds of AMs, many not especially powerful, in the US and Canada that could claim to have been heard in 38 or more states.
 
Dale Jackson said:
Do tell how it's been discredited, Crock...
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If you had read the rather long article that Blackrock linked to in his original posting in this thread and are even just moderately objective, I don't understand how you could possibly ask the question you asked. That article, which was written by the former news director of WTMJ--he was there for ten years, should be must reading for everyone who posts about talk radio on this Web site (not just on this Boston board, but on all of R-I.com). The article is a great analysis of the tricks of the trade that are employed by all right-wing talk hosts today. The author of the article has absolutely nailed how right-wing talk hosts practice their craft.

Unfortunately, righties, and I assume that you must be one, are unable to look at talk radio with any degree of objectivity. Without a sea-change in this situation, commercial talk radio, which for all practical purposes is an entirely right-wing entity, will be dead before the idea that it needs to change ever sinks in with the people who might be able to change it (that is, with GMs, PDs, and the personalities themselves). If the idea that change is essential ever did sink in, the article could become an excellent guide to what needs to change and how it should change.
 
The article in it self is a bitter piece... he waited till he left and then penned the screed from New York and had it published in a local magazine. Let's not be silly and claim there was no ax to grind here.

It is one station... one situation.

I am sure if my News Director wrote an article about how reasoned and rational I am (which I am not) and how all the hosts he worked with across the board were you would post it everywhere and say wow I got these talk show hosts all wrong. But that piece would never get written.

It explains one place, one situation.

It is hardly the REAL story of talk radio.

These "talking points" come from all sides... and are mostly links to favorable news stories.

Unfortunately, righties,
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C'mon you can do should be able to do better than that. Address the issue, not me.

I asked for an explanation...
Do tell how it's been discredited, Crock...
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one I did not get by the way.
 
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