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I thought 98.5 was supposed to be different

A

ArtSpooner

Guest
This morning I flipped over to the Sports Hub to hear about the Bruins. I don't like hockey talk at all. I admit that this was pure schadenfreude. The first voice I hear is Joey from the North End blathering about the Yankees. I thought that the Sports Hub didn't take so-called celebrity callers. I very rarely ever listen to 98.5; do they take these calls all the time or just on the weekend wasteland?

Who else calls? Steve from Fall River, Angelo from Everett, the Screecher from Quincy, Frank from Gloucester, the Mustard and Johnson menagerie??? Letting these creatures on the air is like feeding stray cats, they'll never go away.
 
I'll always feed a stray cat if I can. Since I own a cat, there's usually some cat food around. By this I mean the dry variety...it's difficult to feet a stray cat moist cat food. I once fed a stray cat and then ten minutes later, I saw him get hit by a car while trying to cross the street, so I had the satisfaction of knowing an animal had a few minutes of pleasure before leaving this Earth.
 
i dont know how long you listened but they ended his call very abruptly i would saw after 1 min and that was it they talk bruins straight on after that!!!
 
I heard his voice and pushed the button. It's almost a reflex. I tuned in a little later and it wasn't a bad show. One of the hosts has a really whiney, smarmy, somewhat effiminate voice. I think its Casper or whatever his name is. I could probably get used to it, once they stop talking about hockey. I'll listen again to see if they know anything about baseball or basketball.

I bet that I'm not the only one who pushes the button as soon as I hear the voices of these horrible callers. I sometimes wonder why they allow them on the air. As far as I know it's not a constitutional right to be heard on a privately owned radio station.
 
Here's how 98.5 is different.

Listening to Red Sox game on 850 at work. Take one radio and put it near edge of building and use mini FM transmitter to beam signal to my work area. Trying like heck to pick up the fuzzy signal, lose it after awhile.

Listening to Bruins game on 98.5 at work. It comes in clear as a bell.

See, there is a difference. As for content, yeah maybe they're going after the whole WEEI feel but EEI,
despite its signal problems, does bring in listeners, callers, ad dollars. It's a bit of a blow to CBS to have
the Bruins big choke...well we still have the Pats in a few months on 98.5 and don't forget the Revs.
Goooooooooooal! Goooooooooooooooal!

They did talk a little hockey on EEI after the Sox game, but how could they not.

EEI does have the whole funny callers/whiner line bit and Big Show does do good in ratings. They don't
change what ain't broke. Interestingly while WBZ-FM has done fairly well in the ratings, WEEI hasn't
really lost too many listeners. Are the BZ-FM listeners coming from those who formerly liked FM music signals?
 
I've pretty much made the switch to 98.5. I understand about the weekend caller situation. The screeners try to weed out the "celebrities" as much as they can, but I'm sure it's tough when you have a much smaller pool to pull from on a nice weekend day.

The Sports Hub is very different from WEEI in a variety of ways.

The morning show. Very different. Toucher and Rich are pulling in younger males and converting them to sports listeners. And this group will be loyal to 98.5 in the long run. That's why CBS re-signed them to a multi-year deal. This will pay dividends down the road. Instead on relying on right wing ignorance and hate the way D&C do, they actually make you laugh out loud on the way into work. Plus, when they do talk sports, there are no celebrity callers. Their screeners to a great job in that regard. A bunch of the Sports Hub's early numbers are probably coming out of this daypart.

Number two, there are no towns mentioned when a caller is put on the air. It's Rick in the car, or Bob at work, or Joe listening on 985thesportshub.com or whatever. It helps to keep the celebrity callers down like "Danny from Quincy" or "Frank from Gloucester." They will mention phone exchanges when reading texts but that's about it.

Younger callers. Most of the time the oldest caller you'll hear may be a fifty something. Maybe. Most of the time, they're in the 25-44 demo. There's no "old time sports talk" on 98.5. Unless you're talking about the last time the Bruins hoisted the Cup...:)

Afternoons. A much different experience. There's more back and forth with Mike and Tony instead of four people screaming over the top of eachother like on WEEI. There's a reason Pete Sheppard was pinkslipped besides a convenient budget cut. Entercom is hoping to make the Big Show more conversational, if that's possible. Big Show still leads, but as more Boomers age out of 25-54, the numbers will begin to favor 98.5.

Nights. D.A. is young and intelligent. Mike Adams mutters to himself and comes off like a dirty old curmudgeon. Again, a long term win for the Sports Hub.

Middays are a mess right now, easily the weakest daypart on 98.5, but eventually it will come around once they find the right talent for it. I still think Sheppard will be involved eventually one way or another.

Production values. Far and away better than WEEI. The Pete Gustin stuff on 850 is so played out. 98.5 is in your face and punches through. They freshen it up frequently. Something WEEI avoids at all costs. Maybe that's why 850 sounds so stale.

And oh yeah, they're on FM and you can hear them beyond Natick at night.

Right now there's still a lot of sharing between the two stations, and the drivetime shows have their own distinct audiences. Maybe that's why WEEI hasn't been hurt to this point. Also, the 45-54 cell is fairly large these days and that group will be loyal to WEEI, so it will take awhile for their listenership to erode. But it will eventually, as most of this group age out into 55+ land. This battle is just getting started.
 
it definitely comes in a lot better than WEEI. The midday show IS a mess but the drive shows are so much more enjoyable than WEEI's. DA, too. Coherent talk vs. Mikey calling a Yankees player "scrotum face"? It's a no-brainer. I admit I probably would have changed the station for a few minutes if I heard Frank but there seem to be a much lower percentage of annoyance callers on the Hub. As for the Bruins talk, not being a hockey fan means I've had to tune out at times in recent weeks although of course they're going to do the post-mortems after the Bruins choked the way they did.
 
Younger callers. Most of the time the oldest caller you'll hear may be a fifty something. Maybe. Most of the time, they're in the 25-44 demo. There's no "old time sports talk" on 98.5. Unless you're talking about the last time the Bruins hoisted the Cup
Click to expand...

Just wondering how you come by this information about caller age. Is this a guess? Are you an insider? Do call screeners actually ask the caller's age? Just wondering.....
 
With an exception to the mid-day show 98.5 is superior by a mile. As mentioned I'd much rather laugh in the morning (T&R) than have politics screamed at me.
Dale and (in particular) Holley is still great sports talk, but that's it.
And the production that 98.5 puts out is genius, you don't get even a whiff of that quality on 850.
New Jack Edwards
Drunken Red Sox Recaps
Ask a Pink Hat
It's Tukka Time
Wing Bowl highlights
All stuff of legend.
 
EnterCommunicator said:
With an exception to the mid-day show 98.5 is superior by a mile. As mentioned I'd much rather laugh in the morning (T&R) than have politics screamed at me.
Dale and (in particular) Holley is still great sports talk, but that's it.
And the production that 98.5 puts out is genius, you don't get even a whiff of that quality on 850.
New Jack Edwards
Drunken Red Sox Recaps
Ask a Pink Hat
It's Tukka Time
Wing Bowl highlights
All stuff of legend.
Click to expand...

you forgot Geddy Bruschi...
 
So basically, baby boomers aren't welcome on 98.5. T&R, at least the couple of times I've listened, doesn't sound like a sports show to me. They sound more like the zany morning zoo guys who are concentrating on comedy more than sports........which is fine if that's what you like. D&C, despite the politics(and some of us don't consider it right wing hate) still are based in sports with two guys with extensive sports backgrounds. T&R have no sports background.

I will never listen to D.B. Felger. I can't stand him. I was happy when he left WEEI.
 
I concur that T&R might not be the most sports-based guys in the market. But hell, they try and pull it off well. I want to say that alot of the listeners probably don't know their backgrounds. Your average 25-44 on the way into work in the morning isn't thinking credentials-- he's thinking of listenability.

I agree middays is the least solid part of the day right now.

The biggest difference I see is the sound of the station. You can tell 98.5 is fresh and crisp (FM) and 850 sounds worn and static-y at times (AM).

If EEI gets itself on a Boston FM, I think they can and will knock out the SportsHub though.
 
i think they would be room for 2 sports stations onthe fm dial if that indeed happens i enjoy it down here in se mass when one goes to commercial i switch to the other one, does work like that work though being inside 103.7 has a hard time getting in, am 850 forget it!!! i like t&r from the wbcn days it was hard to make the switch at first but as of late they have found a niche and got me laughing all day at work!!! middays i did like taungay but gresh has grown on me and zolak is just a big goof and its funny the things he comes up with. afternoons i like the big show but only for the whiner line thats it other then that i flip back and forth, but nights i like da much better he actually works unlike Adams, does anyone know the numbers at night, i bet its not a fair fight since mikey is barely there because of redsox, Celtics. but at least da stays till 1am sometimes after bruins games!! thats it i guess
 
I've heard the New Jack Edwards stuff. Awesome stuff! Funny as hell, too! :)

I almost forgot that they're WBZ-FM. I tuned to WBZ-FM HD3 and heard the simulcast of 1030 AM, which sounded like it was a minute behind or so. (I had my little Insgnia $50 FM "Walkman" with me for the trip.)

Lastly, this Yankees fan was on the grounds of Fenway on Monday. Has that WEEI-AM 850 studio been a part of the stadium long? I have a picture of it here:

http://www.snapgalaxy.com/3738/6da84f1b75ef1f720ab8c1947648ccea_m.jpg
 
"What's Tappen-ing" this morning was pretty funny. The way my radio dial is, WEEI and the Hub are in the same spot and I tune to WEEI then flip it to FM. I heard about 5 seconds of Callahan prattling about some political issue before changing to the much more enjoyable T&R. SO grateful for the alternative.
 
fmradio1 said:
Number two, there are no towns mentioned when a caller is put on the air. It's Rick in the car, or Bob at work, or Joe listening on 985thesportshub.com or whatever. It helps to keep the celebrity callers down like "Danny from Quincy" or "Frank from Gloucester." They will mention phone exchanges when reading texts but that's about it.
Click to expand...

That's a bunch of crap. The location is always mentioned, be it the car or name of the town, before the caller gets on.
 
DJbobo said:
fmradio1 said:
Number two, there are no towns mentioned when a caller is put on the air. It's Rick in the car, or Bob at work, or Joe listening on 985thesportshub.com or whatever. It helps to keep the celebrity callers down like "Danny from Quincy" or "Frank from Gloucester." They will mention phone exchanges when reading texts but that's about it.
Click to expand...

That's a bunch of crap. The location is always mentioned, be it the car or name of the town, before the caller gets on.
Click to expand...
I didn't really buy that one either. I don't see how leaving the name of the town out, even if they did it, would deter these callers. It seems to be an obsession with these people. One noteworhty caller, Steve from Fall River, gets crapped on every time he calls. I assume that people he knows know it's him, but he keeps making a fool out of himself. THe same can be said for Danny from Quincy, Angelo from Everett, and all the rest. These are not normal people.
 
These are not normal people.

This morning just before 7 on the D&C show some guy calls in about--building-- a Bill Russell statue. When Dennis asked the producer why, he said the guy --don't remember the name-- was a station regular and had yet to appear in morning drive. Like he was some kind of must-get. Who says EEI doesn't play to these guys?

I haven't heard John from Medford all spring. Maybe I'm not listening enough or the rumors of him getting into cable access TV are correct. For all the rest of the crew esp. FFG I hit the preset button fast.
 
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