BRW: WTKK turns 10 as talker

[raccoonradio]

http://www.bostonradiowatch.com

WTKK celebrates its 10th anniversary as a talk station. In started in Sept. of 1999, and had been WSJZ smooth jazz.
The WSJZ calls still existed for a short time after the format shift
I think for a time they shifted to Imus in the morning followed by smooth jazz the rest of the day but finally the day came when their local talk began at 10 am, I believe, with Stacy Taylor. Somewhere I have the first couple minutes of Taylor's first show, where he tells listeners he knows some of them will be disappointed with the format switch and he suggests they come down to the station and hold protest signs "and make sure you have the call letters or
frequency, that's very important" (to get them publicity on TV and in papers, I guess.) He also mentions that
"Jay" (Severin) would be on later. (Jay used to do 10 pm-mid on WRKO a while before, then left.)

It was Imus, then Stacy Taylor till 2, and Severin 2-6.

Ratings-wise they haven't been all that hot lately. In the past Severin had won his time slot. They did try to land Howie Carr and I wonder how that would have gone.

Fybush mentions the flip http://www.bostonradio.org/nerw/nerw-990910.html
(Stacy Taylor was indeed a temp, and Mike Barnicle came in...) The following week, acc. to Fybush, Barnicle was on for one two hour shift on Thursdays; someone named Margery Eagan came in to do the post-Imus slot,
and after the Herald's Track gals at 6 pm for an hour it was back to smooth jazz(!)
I do remember Severin in those early days asking his listeners to become regular ones, "or else we may wind up going back to Kenny G"

 

[raccoonradio]

http://raccoonradio.freehostia.com/Air/WTKKDebut.mp3

Two minutes of the debut, with Stacy Taylor. "Do we have a way for people to e-mail?...We don't even know.
We're clueless...."

 

[raccoonradio]

I usually listen to Howie, myself, rather than Jay (who did beat Howie in some ratings periods).

Also am not crazy about McPhee's voice though she does cover local politics, crime, etc. Her occasional fill in Dan
Flynn has a very hard edge to his voice. Sounds like the Boston accent is drowning her presentation (or as you note the nasal quality of it...) And that exasperated sigh of hers...
For me WRKO isn't bad because I work a couple towns away from their sticks (and as I've noted where our post office used to be, you could see the towers from the parking lot). Not so bad up here.

The Entercom/WEEI/WRKO contract with the Sox started a couple yrs back and was supposed to run for 10 years but who knows, it could be broken and if the Sox could get a good offer from CBS, and the fact they'd be on an FM
signal that's clear in many areas (areas not reached would have various affiliates)...who knows. Imagine if CBS
had 3 of the 4 major teams in town. (Conflicts? put one team on WBZ or WODS. I would think in B's-Sox conflicts,
the B's would move to the other station while in Pats-Sox conflicts the Sox would be bumped to the other signal)

>>>and that will spell the doom for WRKO.

Actually--well, you wouldn't know it from the promos, but the Red Sox are no longer on WRKO. Yup, in a mid-season decision (prompted no doubt by WBZ-FM's arrival, and the desire to consolidate on WEEI), all
games shifted to 850. Except that when you do tune in to WRKO you will hear:

--"home to great talk radio, and the best baseball team in America--the Boston Red Sox are on WRKO!"
--"Every pitch, every hit, and every out of the Boston Red Sox is right here on WRKO!"

Entercom is still doing its promotion of having Howie broadcast from the Eastern Standard in Kenmore Sq.
on Tuesdays when the Sox are in town, and Howie appears for an inning. But the Sox, despite what the
now outdated promos will tell you, are not on WRKO anymore.

Supposedly the split decision on Sox flagship hurt WEEI more than it helped WRKO. WRKO can run
Michael Savage (who supposedly gets good ratings) and WEEI can put on the Sox instead of Planet Mikey.

btw WRKO site still has Sox logo on it and one of the links at top says Red Sox. When you click there you can get some Red Sox news items, and a link to an affiliate list which says that _WEEI_ is the flagship and WRKO is no longer listed as an affiliate.

 

[raccoonradio]

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/article/102531

The Red Sox signed the deal in May of 2006. If we assume that the old deal expired at the end of the 06
season, a ten yr extension would expire at the end of the 2016 season--unless the Sox and/or Entercom wiggled out
somehow. (Articles in the Globe from that time mentioned that WRKO would do most games though some would
air on WEEI, and it was expected to pick up WRKO's sagging ratings...while listeners presumably would have the option of sports talk airing on WEEI opp. the Sox, exc. on Wed. nights...plus it was said that maybe having the games on 680, mostly, would get them away from the "acerbic" Sox talk on EEI.)

(The deal was rumored to be along the lines of $20M/yr but was maybe more like $14M per year and the article above said Greater had offered about $14-15M/yr for them to be on WBOS but dropped out--it also says Greater
would have given them a signing bonus and an minority ownership stake in WBOS, while the Entercom deal does offer
the Sox an optional minority ownership stake in...WRKO...)

 

[Don Juan]

I read this week that Jay Severin's ratings are falling like a rock.
Even his format has changed and he now has guests to support him.

Jay Severin's suspension for his bigotted remarks last Spring seem to have taken the winds out of his sails.

However, it sounds like Michael Graham has reverted to his redneck ways which makes his program a caricature of bad talk radio.

Egan and Braude can be very superficial and most days come off like a modern day version of the old radio show with Don Ameche and Frances Langford - The Bickersons. It can be funny but it is hard to take them seriously.

Michelle McPhee is such a whiner. Her nasal flat Boston accent is overpowering and kills anything she has to say. Seen her on Emily Rooney's Greater Boston several times and she has a face for televsion which softens her verbal presentation which is of course all one hears on radio.

All and all as bad as WTKK can be it is far better than WRKO which now has such a poor daytime signal - even on the longest summer days of the year that I have taken it off my car radio button.

Would think that WBZ-FM 98.5 will be going after the Red Sox and that will spell the doom for WRKO.

I thought you weren't listening to terrestrial radio anymore....seems like you still are.