George Knight To Join WERS For 6-10am

[4CX1000A]

WXRV has problems in Boston proper due to intermodulation interference from the Pru, and it's hard to get to the south on such radios.

The real problem with WXRV is terrain shadowing. There are hills north of town that effectively shadow the signal in much of the basin in which Boston sits. If WXRV could move to the tower in Andover that WCRB uses, it would reach parts of Boston much more effectively through a gap in the hills. But that can't happen due to short-spacing problems.

 

[maradiogeek]

I really don't know how I feel about this turn of events... the station should be first and foremost for training students to get jobs in the industry. There are enough professional staffers present to do that without adding a morning guy to the mix.

I disagree about the "enough professional staffers" thinking. If those staff aren't on air, then the students really don't have a role model to see how much really goes into being a jock, and how a real quality DJ spends his time instead of just chatting with friends on the phone or on line.

This sounds like it could be a great situation for the students, especially with such an affable guy like George Knight. The few times I've met George, he seems to have the perfect personality to work with students. And, he sounds great on air.

Besides, if WERS is anything like my college station was then no one wants to get up to do the early shifts. So, putting a paid person on air then solves that problem also.

 

[vmorrison]

A student can get exposure to professional radio by doing an internship or working part time in a smaller market like New Hampshire or Rhode as many of my fellow students did back in the 80's. A Emerson student that was hired at my last station worked weekend overnights at WPLM while in his Senior year.
I don't have a big problem with adding one paid professional in the morning. My fear is that if it improves contributions then Emerson will add more professionals and eventually the station will be no different from BUR or UMB.

 

[WNTIRadio]

Students can also get airchecked and mentored by professional staffers without them being on the air.

That's how I did it at WPSC, back when William Paterson (then College) ran a tight Top 40 format. We all learned how to be on the air, keep things moving, be concise etc. A lot of my group is working in NYC radio on the air, including afternoons at WLTW, sports at WCBS-AM, Metro traffic and other places. Same as how the Emerson grads get real jobs in radio.

There were plenty of kids that wanted to get up and do AM drive too.

 

[Vinnie914]

So happy WERS hired a pro to do exactly the same thing on morning drive that the student DJs were doing. In fact, the students were much more entertaining than George Knight. And, where are the "co-hosts" that were promised by the management of the station? I know for a fact that all of the morning DJs have been told "good bye" and will have the chance to get other shifts. On the first day there was a news person with him, but I have not heard her since. This is the beginning of the end for WERS as a true college radio station. It is a shame too, given that it is voted on of the best in the country every year.

 

[WNTIRadio]

The shame is that WERS was doing just fine in its core mission... to train students to get real jobs in the industry. There are a lot of WERS alum in the business, who all learned how to do radio there. My fiancee is one of them, and so are a lot of her friends and those that graduated either before or after her.

I also learned at a student run (except for a professional GM with lots of radio experience) station at WPSC and our group has done quite well for themselves too. It was a tight Hot AC format that taught us all how to keep things moving, talk up a record, use elements such as jingles etc. and be able to say it while getting in and getting out. Now it's just a mish-mash typical college crap run by a PhD. He was the guy who was on the Howard Stern show to present him with an award. He should be more focused on keeping the station ON the air at all. A lot of the time, I'm driving through and it's off the air, especially in the summer. We kept it going from 6a-2a every day, holidays and summers. A ragtag bunch of people who wanted to do this for a living... it's a shame.

WERS is going in the other direction now and starting to edge the students out of a prime training ground and notch on their belt-AM drive. The thing gets almost 200k listeners with students on the air. That's pretty respectable and impressive.

It is summer right now, so the staff is thin. News is at :15/:45 there, at least as of last year, so there should be a student news anchor on.

What I heard through the grapevine was that the college is going to cut a lot of the funding for WERS in the near future. Right now they get a TON of money from the college. I'm thinking this is to increase donations during membership drives.

 

[DavidZ]

It is summer right now, so the staff is thin. News is at :15/:45 there, at least as of last year, so there should be a student news anchor on.

I listened for awhile this morning. They still have news at :15 & :45. I believe it was a student but I didn't catch her name so I can't be certain.

 

[Vinnie914]

Okay. So they still have the student doing the news -- I believe she is one of the paid students on staff and is news director Tory Bedford. I am still trying to figure out how "stealing" from students 20 hours a week of prime broadcast time is going to help them improve their skills, style, etc. And why the lie from station management that Knight is going to be co-hosting? So they take three students who in my opinion have been doing as well if not better than George Knight in morning drive, and they offer them other slots -- either midday or evening drive. That then bumps other students off the air. This whole thing is a sham. I strongly believe that the station will continue to move away from student DJs and will be professional within 18 months.

FYI, my wife and I both wrote to the station to complain and we got the same form letter response. And this is a college that is training our future communicators? You have to be kidding me. I hope they teach their students better than this. As parents paying a hefty tuition to Emerson, we are NOT happy.

I just do not get it. They are paying a guy to play music and chat occasionally, and he is no better than any of the students that were doing morning drive. Extremely discouraging.

 

[thirdendorsed]

. I am still trying to figure out how "stealing" from students 20 hours a week of prime broadcast time is going to help them improve their skills, style, etc ... This whole thing is a sham.

Bingo. But it's Emerson, the place where they decided to abandon Boston so that that people could be trained for mass media out in Lawrence. Fortunately that scheme died a horrible death.

The problem is colleges are now money hungry institutions designed to self-perpetuate generations of over paid administrators.

Here is what is obvious: The idea came from the development people. And intensive, pervasive beg-a-thons are coming. The did it to monetize WERS. Period.

Fact is, college radio, with an actual audience that sometimes responds, is a lot more important to developing talent than hiring some out-of-work Assistant PD who teaches a court in cart-winding, to "advise" students with 'critiques" of internet shows, all the while babbling about his long-ago and far away days in the business

Every try to do a demo in a studio? It's not the same, you really can't capture the energy or passion of a show unless you know real people are listening to real radios on the other end.

 

[thirdendorsed]

. I am still trying to figure out how "stealing" from students 20 hours a week of prime broadcast time is going to help them improve their skills, style, etc ... This whole thing is a sham.

Bingo. But it's Emerson, the place where they decided to abandon Boston so that that people could be trained for mass media out in Lawrence. Fortunately that scheme to actually move the school from a media hotbed to decaying mill town died a horrible death, but the stupidity of the people who run the place continues.

The problem is colleges are now money hungry institutions designed to self-perpetuate generations of over paid administrators.

Here is what is obvious: The idea came from the development people. And intensive, pervasive beg-a-thons are coming. The did it to monetize WERS. Period.

Fact is, college radio, with an actual audience that sometimes responds, is a lot more important to developing talent than hiring some out-of-work Assistant PD who teaches a court in cart-winding, to "advise" students with 'critiques" of internet shows, all the while babbling about his long-ago and far away days in the business

Every try to do a demo in a studio? It's not the same, you really can't capture the energy or passion of a show unless you know real people are listening to real radios on the other end.

 

[LA_Guy]

Mark my words: Within a year, WERS-88.9 will have an all-professional airstaff and be a full-fledged "Triple-A" (Adult Album Alternative) formatted public radio station.

And there will be no Emerson students on-air anymore.

Mark my words: you couldn't be more wrong. They might not care at some campus stations, but in this case the student body and their exorbitant-tuition-paying parents will scream bloody murder. If anything, Ol' George will be lucky to last a year with his hide and sanity intact.

I dunno. Here in Philly 88.5 WXPN (University of Pennsylvania) has been a professional AAA station for a long time and does quite well.

 

[frnkp2000]

Too many of us alumni who actually earmark donations for WERS would be showing up with torches and pitchforks in the Theatre District! ;D

 

[WNTIRadio]

I dunno. Here in Philly 88.5 WXPN (University of Pennsylvania) has been a professional AAA station for a long time and does quite well.

Right, it does do well. But Emerson is one of the few colleges that (supposedly) takes pride in training the next generation of people in the media.

What we're saying is, what good does it do the students to have yet another XPN clone on the air? XPN pays for itself through listener donations, underwriting etc. WERS still, for now, gets a good size chunk of change from the college. We're talking around $1 million from the college per year.

I used to be the PD of a AAA station with professionals on during the day and volunteers at night/weekends. Different story, the station received $14k per year from the school and the space to broadcast in. To survive, it needed pros on the air during the hours that counted to raise the money.

WERS is in a different boat. Unless the plan at the college is to eventually cut the station loose and purchase yet another theater.