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Boston's WRKO-AM 680 to Debut The Grace Curley Show

I wonder how VB feels about being replaced by an air head.
 
According to the last paragraph, she’ll continue to be the executive producer of the Howie Carr show as well.
 
She will occasionally appear on the HC show in her previous on air roles as well. Part of Howie's own network, airing on WRKO and offered to other markets too.Some of Howie's affiliates don't air Rush (Manch NH, Worcester etc) and might consider running Grace also if there's room.
In 2016 he tried to syndicate a Sat morning Curt Schilling show but couldn't get anyone to
run it. (Was said to be coming on WFEA Manchester but never did) It aired online
and didn't last long.
 
""The Grace Curley Show" is a conservative caller driven Talk show where Curley will discuss the latest pop culture and political headlines, lending her millennial perspective to each topic."

Is there market research data to suggest listeners to radio stations (which, AFAIK, tend to be > 55) that air Howie's show are interested in a millenial's perspective on political headlines, or pop culture in general?
 
Probably not. But the thinking is millennial will be more interested in people closer to their own age than septuagenarians like Michael Savage or Rush Limbaugh.
 
Is there market research data to suggest listeners to radio stations (which, AFAIK, tend to be > 55) that air Howie's show are interested in a millenial's perspective on political headlines, or pop culture in general?

This is the core problem with news talk as it exists now. The only thing that works is old white guys yelling about the Democrats. The research says that approach attracts a solid group of white men over 55. The problem with that there are a limited group of advertisers interested in that audience. You already know who they are if you listen to talk radio: Insurance, drugs, medical, and lawyers. There is no growth in this audience, and there's no future. So radio stations are trying to find the future of talk radio.

One such experiment is Ben Shapiro. He's a 30-something lawyer from Los Angeles. He's sort of Levin's son on steroids. All the old guys who hear him say he talks too fast. Tucker Carlson might be another, although he's on TV, not radio. Fox also tried "The Five" to appeal to younger viewers, but it became more of the same. So Grace is another attempt at trying to find something that doesn't get the standard old guy audience. It probably won't work for the same reason all the other attempts don't work, and for the same reason the talk audience didn't care for VB. It doesn't give them more of what they want, which is guys like them complaining about things they don't like.
 
I think Grace's rise has been pretty remarkable, starting as a out-of-college assistant, then getting occasional on air segments, then becoming a producer, then executive producer, then guest host, then co-host, then columnist. I think she purposefully plays up some of the balloon-head bits for entertainment value; she's actually fair well-versed in modern politics. She's one of the few guest hosts who I will actually listen to (I remember the RKO days in which just about every guest host was an instant channel-change). I don't think she'll ever be the cut-throat investigative journalist that Howie/Steve were, but I think she may be able to put together a good show. I think it will need to differ from Howie's show, as I suspect 7 straight hours of the same format/tone/topics/guests would play well.
 
Most conservative radio's attempts at reaching younger listeners is about as effective as those "Socialism Sucks" memes from Charlie Kirk's social media/campus group.

It isn't the messengers, it's the message. Trying to sell something to a group who doesn't care to buy, and usually not even sample.
 
One such experiment is Ben Shapiro. He's a 30-something lawyer from Los Angeles. He's sort of Levin's son on steroids. All the old guys who hear him say he talks too fast.

I like Shapiro.

The problem with people who talk too fast is us old folks who are hard of hearing have to take a minute to post-process what we just heard into an actual sentence we can grok, and by then the speaker is already 3 sentences ahead of where we were.

Time to go listen to some viagra commercials.
 
I like Shapiro.

The problem with people who talk too fast is us old folks who are hard of hearing have to take a minute to post-process what we just heard into an actual sentence we can grok, and by then the speaker is already 3 sentences ahead of where we were.

Time to go listen to some viagra commercials.
I really don't think the state of one's hearing is the big factor in trying to listen to radio people who simply talk too damn fast!

I think it's much more a generational thing. I suspect you belong to the same age group as I (55+)...and I find myself having the same issue.

I pretty much have my dial crazy-glued to 98.5 WBZ-FM, and I have to tell you...To me, it seems the lion's share of the air talent there have a speed of delivery I find most tiring...with the BIGGEST offender being Adam Jones. If I listen for any length of time, I actually find myself feeling fatigued!

I think I'll join you with those Viagra commericals!:D
 
I really don't think the state of one's hearing is the big factor in trying to listen to radio people who simply talk too damn fast!

I think it's much more a generational thing. I suspect you belong to the same age group as I (55+)...and I find myself having the same issue.

I pretty much have my dial crazy-glued to 98.5 WBZ-FM, and I have to tell you...To me, it seems the lion's share of the air talent there have a speed of delivery I find most tiring...with the BIGGEST offender being Adam Jones. If I listen for any length of time, I actually find myself feeling fatigued!

I think I'll join you with those Viagra commericals!:D

56 next month.

The only person my wife complains about talking fast is Joe Pags. Fortunately I always listen to him on a podcast so I can go back and re-listen to what I miss :D
 
A couple times I heard Michael Graham fill in
for Howie and I thought to myself, hey, slow down, be easy on us.

I miss Graham and his antics from his days at 96.9 WTKK, although I didn't like the fact that he's not animal-friendly. He and his then-producer Tom Shattuck played well off each other. I thought his move to Atlanta was a dumb move, and he made that prediction come true when the-then 106.7 NewsTalk WYAY showed him the door.

Heh, probably no chance that should Grace's show bomb, he'd get that noon-3 'RKO slot.
 
I miss Graham and his antics from his days at 96.9 WTKK, although I didn't like the fact that he's not animal-friendly. He and his then-producer Tom Shattuck played well off each other. I thought his move to Atlanta was a dumb move, and he made that prediction come true when the-then 106.7 NewsTalk WYAY showed him the door.

I miss the free breakfasts he used to spring for at Firefly's, those were always a fun time. I think I still have a "The Natural Truth" t-shirt laying around somewhere, although I doubt I could squeeze into it like the old days :D

I seem to recall MG was from down south originally so perhaps there was more to the back-story about him moving down south (e.g. a family situation). It has been a long time and I forget the sequence of events, but I seem to recall for a while before his departure he was trying to get some sort of self-syndication going and it just never took off.

Other than his weekly gig at the Herald these days I can't say I've heard much about him these days.
 
I miss the free breakfasts he used to spring for at Firefly's, those were always a fun time. I think I still have a "The Natural Truth" t-shirt laying around somewhere, although I doubt I could squeeze into it like the old days :D

I seem to recall MG was from down south originally so perhaps there was more to the back-story about him moving down south (e.g. a family situation). It has been a long time and I forget the sequence of events, but I seem to recall for a while before his departure he was trying to get some sort of self-syndication going and it just never took off.

Other than his weekly gig at the Herald these days I can't say I've heard much about him these days.
From what I recall: Graham's contract with 96.9 WTKK did not get renewed at the end of 2012 because the station decided it was going to blow itself up and morph into whatever it is these days. In mid-2013, Graham formed "The New England Talk Network" based at Barry Armstrong's Needham facilities; his flagship station was the 50,000-watter in Worcester at 830 KHz whose call letters escape me at the moment. I believe he was on a couple of other stations as well, one of which was 1110 in Salem, NH, the station I could best receive. In mid-2014, he announced he was moving on to Newsradio 106.7 WYAY-FM, Atlanta, since the self-syndication of his New England Talk Network was a bigger task than he could manage. He had guests like VB, Kevin Barbary (sp?), Tom Shattuck (his 'TKK producer), and a few local politicians from both sides of the aisle. But he was still funny and i enjoyed his noon-to-3 program.

In Atlanta, the story goes, he bashed (humorously, he said) another talker at WYAY, who was their "star" talent, and he got bounced. Then i hear he's back up here, doing a Herald column and appearing on some conservative TV news networks.

He and Howie were buddies. Recall Howie was supposed to take over mornings at 'TKK, but Entercom held him to his iron-clad contract, an ordeal which moved Howie to self-syndicate. Don't know the status of Michael/Howie these days, since I stopped listening to Howie and all his "insider" political references.

But, yeah, I'd like for Graham to be back on talk radio again. The one major thing I disagreed strongly on was his blatant lack of concern about pets and their owners.
 
The AM 830 in Worcester is WCRN which runs Howie. It was a good way for Howie to be heard west of Boston as he said "you can't pick up WRKO west of Kenmore Sq. after sunset." WCRN also came in
handy when the last hour of Howie's show was pre empted by Red Sox pregame. WRKO became Red Sox flagship in 2007 though some games aired on WEEI.
98.5 the Sports Hub debuted on Aug 12, 2009.
A couple weeks later Entercom switched all Red Sox games to WEEI 850 to help cement them as a sports powerhouse (putting Sox on RKO was to help "the Talk station").Both signals suffered to
the west after sunset. Two years later Entercom
finally moved WEEI to FM 93.7.

Carr's show was to debut Oct 1 2007 on 96.9 but a legal battle ensued and Howie was off air for weeks with Todd Feinburg filling in. By Sept of 2007 Ch 4 did a feature on Howie in anticipation
of the switch to WTKK which never happened.
 
Just announced that the show has been picked up by Binnie Media and will be syndicated on three New Hampshire stations, including WTPL.
 
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