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iHeart Boston Layoff?

1200, WBZ, Kiss, ZLX, KAF?Hmm.
Mentions of Marita McKinnon on WRKO site.
That's Lightning from the VB show, a WMLN alum who's said to also produce for Dan Rea (or is that still Sandy...)
"It was during those bumpy rides all around the Greater Boston area that she was forced to listen to the radio, as her CD player was broken... Nonetheless, it grew on her so she went on to Curry College..."--WRKO bio
 
DavidEduardo said:
This is really not a "today" issue. A superior network show can win over a mediocre local one. Few markets can afford to do live local talk in all dayparts, even in some of the top 10 to 20 markets. The daypart has been vulnerable for local staffing since Limbaugh took the air nationally just over 30 years ago.
Click to expand...

As I recall, when Limbaugh first came along a lot of AM stations were still doing full service with an A/C, classic hits, oldies or some similar adult oriented music format. A few songs an hour with a heavy load of news/weather/traffic/sports updates and network features like Paul Harvey and the Osgood file mixed in. Many had started running talk/were looking to run talk in mid days - Dr. Dean Edell, etc. and were open to options in that slot. Stations generally had well established AM and PM drive legacy type shows/personalities still doing ok so no need to fool with that. For evenings and overnights, many had established sports talk, live sports schedules or local talk shows already. Some were running Talknet (Bruce Williams and Sally Jessie Raphael and her successor).

Made a lot of sense for Limbaugh to target that mid day time slot since it was the most up for grabs. You may have also had at the time people who listened to their morning show habit on the AM station then switched to an FM station for music so this gave the AM stations something a bit different as a draw during mid days.
 
raccoonradio said:
1200, WBZ, Kiss, ZLX, KAF?Hmm.
Mentions of Marita McKinnon on WRKO site.
That's Lightning from the VB show, a WMLN alum who's said to also produce for Dan Rea (or is that still Sandy...)
"It was during those bumpy rides all around the Greater Boston area that she was forced to listen to the radio, as her CD player was broken... Nonetheless, it grew on her so she went on to Curry College..."--WRKO bio
Click to expand...

Would be at an AM station not called WRKO. Again, that's what I am hearing.
 
Ah ok..someone said on MA board of Free Republic that a certain iHR station was running "two guys talking about TV on Sun mornings"..brokered we'd think.
 
spt87 said:
Made a lot of sense for Limbaugh to target that mid day time slot since it was the most up for grabs. You may have also had at the time people who listened to their morning show habit on the AM station then switched to an FM station for music so this gave the AM stations something a bit different as a draw during mid days.
Click to expand...

Remember also that many (a majority, I believe) of the stations that took Rush early on also added Dr Laura immediately after, completing the mid-day daypart.

In today's politicized environment, putting what was seen as "The radio version of Dear Abby" seems incompatible. But your assessment of the status of AM full service stations is correct. The larger market ones, along with quite a few medium and smaller market stations, had some form of full service morning show, and many had similar content in afternoon drive. Mid-days had been, typically, some form of personality music show and in the smallest markets, after 10 AM they used an SMN or syndicated format as they watched the final step of the transition of music from AM to FM with no solution.

Rush and Lura were a way of converting a sieve into a bowl that could retain and even attract listeners as old-leaning AM band AC and MOR stations saw their audiences age out of the sales demos or just disappear.
 
Running O'Reilly's 15 minute show at the TOH, how do they do O'Reilly and cut off the first segment of Limbaugh?

I guess I'll find out in a few minutes assuming the iHrt app is the same as the broadcast programming
 
DavidEduardo said:
Remember also that many (a majority, I believe) of the stations that took Rush early on also added Dr Laura immediately after, completing the mid-day daypart.
Click to expand...

I thought they added Dr. Dean Edell.

Limbaugh's syndicator offered them as a midday package.

Dr. Edell at 9AM...Rush at Noon. West Coast would flip their positions, Limbaugh first and Dr. Dean afterwards.
 
One must remember Ed McLaughlin grabbed the Owen Spann slot (then 12-2 eastern) to launch Limbaugh. ABC was trying to close it's Talkraduo network which mostly syndicated KABC talent. I don't remember hearing Dr. Laura until the mid 90s. After 9/11, talk stations wanted more of a current events show and plugged Glenn Beck into the 9-12noon slot, replacing Dr. Laura. Beck had an "out" at 11:45 for Paul Harvey stations. That 15 minutes was tough for other talk stations to schedule around.



DavidEduardo said:
Remember also that many (a majority, I believe) of the stations that took Rush early on also added Dr Laura immediately after, completing the mid-day daypart.

In today's politicized environment, putting what was seen as "The radio version of Dear Abby" seems incompatible. But your assessment of the status of AM full service stations is correct. The larger market ones, along with quite a few medium and smaller market stations, had some form of full service morning show, and many had similar content in afternoon drive. Mid-days had been, typically, some form of personality music show and in the smallest markets, after 10 AM they used an SMN or syndicated format as they watched the final step of the transition of music from AM to FM with no solution.

Rush and Lura were a way of converting a sieve into a bowl that could retain and even attract listeners as old-leaning AM band AC and MOR stations saw their audiences age out of the sales demos or just disappear.
Click to expand...
 
Dr. Dean Edell was McLaughlin's EFM's first acquisition and was fed 3-4pm Monday through Friday (some banked the episodes and ran them on the weekends.)




Wimmmex said:
I thought they added Dr. Dean Edell.

Limbaugh's syndicator offered them as a midday package.

Dr. Edell at 9AM...Rush at Noon. West Coast would flip their positions, Limbaugh first and Dr. Dean afterwards.
Click to expand...
 
Dr. Laura came later - Dean Edell started fading away and eventually I remember some stations had put his show on weekends.

Also Larry King had his overnight show that ran 11pm-2am I think then repeated 3am-5am. When Rush became a craze he tried doing a daytime show that flopped on radio and ended up over at CNN which worked out pretty well for him. I used to like his late night radio show.
 
spt87 said:
When Rush became a craze he tried doing a daytime show that flopped on radio and ended up over at CNN which worked out pretty well for him. I used to like his late night radio show.
Click to expand...

Larry King started his CNN show in 1985. He did both CNN and the overnight radio show concurrently for about ten years. As you say, he moved to afternoons for about a year, then gave up doing the live radio show and concentrated on TV.
 
TheBigA said:
Larry King started his CNN show in 1985. He did both CNN and the overnight radio show concurrently for about ten years. As you say, he moved to afternoons for about a year, then gave up doing the live radio show and concentrated on TV.
Click to expand...

Ah, ok. Didn't realize he started on CNN that early. I was listening to him on radio in the late 1980's/early 1990's.
 
MRBIboredop said:
and a cold cut in to Limbaugh in progress.... what a bunch of hacks
Click to expand...

Here's $0.02 for ya: what if Rush's current program, which still airs on Talk 1200, BTW, is just a placeholder on 'RKO until something is worked out whereby Nancy Shack gets the noon-3pm slot?

But wait - there's more: what if VB is being groomed to sub now, and eventually take over, for Dan Rea once the latter retires?

Disclaimer: I do NOT, nor have I ever, worked in professional broadcasting; these are just personal speculations.
 
nowradioguy said:
Here's $0.02 for ya: what if Rush's current program, which still airs on Talk 1200, BTW, is just a placeholder on 'RKO until something is worked out whereby Nancy Shack gets the noon-3pm slot?

But wait - there's more: what if VB is being groomed to sub now, and eventually take over, for Dan Rea once the latter retires?

Disclaimer: I do NOT, nor have I ever, worked in professional broadcasting; these are just personal speculations.
Click to expand...

I like Nancy, I listened to her on WMEX under the previous ownership.

She did a great show, but it does not fit on the male dominated P1 of WRKO, she is too polite, too prepared, and frankly too smart to be on WRKO as a host.

If WBZ was going to non renew Dan Rea, or he was going to retire, you would have to think they saw it in the cards 6 months ago and they would have kept Bradley J and slid him into that slot as he is a known commodity on 1030.

I don't know what iHrt has in their syndication deck of cards, but when Dan Rea hangs it up, you can bet the bank to save payroll they are going syndicated, not local.

Listening to VB was like like listening to WEEI FM, half the time I caught his show it was sports talk.

I don't see a path for VB to get back on TV or radio in this market.

As for WRKO and iHrt post Rush, which is probably only months away, your guess is as good as mine.
 
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