Looking back to WTKK....

[wcozBoston]

Greater Media did talk radio at WTKK for over a decade and probably spent significantly on it. In the end though, it did not perform in the ratings to management's satisfaction leading to a format change earlier this year. What was wrong with WTKK and why did it not perform in the ratings especially during an election year? Was it not controversial enough or was it too controversial? Was it too liberal leaning or too conservative leaning? Did they hire the wrong personalities or were the personalities that were on air in the wrong time slots? Who should have been brought in to fill key time slots if they had the wrong personalities? Would Howie Carr, had he been successful in moving there a few years ago, produced the required ratings that management was looking for? Is there too much competition for the talk radio format in the Boston market, not only from WRKO but more especially from NPR stations WBUR and WGBH? What else should have been done differently?

 

[cs1366]

Who uses a WCOZ Handle? Ever work there?

Moving right along....I respectfully suggest TK didn't connect strongly enough with Boston. We're a RF tough crowd; you snooze, you lose. Hitting the local hot buttons is essential....news, talk, sports, music. If you're from Philly, it can sound silly.

TK was very hot with their elections season guests. I thought the added News push wouldda moved it. The Late 68 by default?

 

[Smoke]

Cutting Jay Severn was a huge mistake, even if his act was worn thin at times. He was the right-wing flamethrower that was in stark contrast to tired old Imus or E+B in the morning. The rest of the day was unmemorable anyway.

 

[raccoonradio]

PPM introduced; aging audience and maybe a
reaction to the toxic talk perception even if many
hosts seemed mild. Some compeition from other stations....
Some listeners preferred sports talk. May have been
too conservative for some listeners, too moderate
for others. Howie may have helped a bit if they'd had him.

Younger listeners may have not been into poli. talk
or may have preferred public radio. Older listeners may
like it and they don't mind AM...BZ and RKO

 

[Cap-n Spackle]

Have you noticed that now that there's no talk radio competition, Howie's program clock has him ending the hour at 51 minutes, giving us 9 solid minutes of Ad Council crap, interrupted only by Howie dropping in to say his name and the phone number?

 

[raccoonradio]

Brokered biz from Armstrong at end of 4pm hour...

 

[berlin201]

And now, guess who snatched up the WTKK calls? You guessed it... Clear Channel. They picked up the calls and shipped them to Raleigh, NC and rebranded "Rush Radio 106.1" into "106.1 FM WTKK." Rush Limbaugh is still on the station; the only change was in the calls and in taking Rush's name out of the branding. The station's former calls, WRDU, moved to sister station 100.7, on which they resurrected the legendary classic rock format that they killed on 106.1 in Oct. 2006. Not sure how CC has done in Boston, but both in Raleigh and in the neighboring Greensboro market, they have made numerous boneheaded moves over the years and killed some great stations in the process.

 

[tvradiogeek]

they do the same stuff here matty comedy anyone?

 

[frnkp2000]

Have you noticed that now that there's no talk radio competition, Howie's program clock has him ending the hour at 51 minutes, giving us 9 solid minutes of Ad Council crap, interrupted only by Howie dropping in to say his name and the phone number?

What IS the possible logic for ending the hour at :51? Nine minutes of spots/PSA's in a cluster like that completely kills that quarter-hour! It makes no sense from a programming standpoint. Hey, let's just send everybody to WBZ for 10 minutes or more and hope they come back! Spread 7 of those nine minutes out through the other local avails. (ARE there in fact local avails in the "clock"? I only can hear the show on WRKO, so I can't be certain.)

Or...am I missing something here? Is it just a case of "Entercom Happens" ?

 

[Cap-n Spackle]

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that my annoyance that he goes off the air 5 minutes early was replaced by my annoyance that he goes off the air 9 minutes early. Today he slipped in a bonus caller who managed to get in one sentence at about 6:57, after the ads where your tax dollars are used to play a spot where a woman talking baby talk tells her precious snowflake not to eat the sand, and one where they equate "ownage" at video games with being able to get into college. Also, the snake oil that Sandy claims to use in her hair.

I remember when Dennis & Callahan would regularly take an ad break from about 8:58 to at least 9:13, save for a brief flash boy update. They must have taken a lot of flak, because they just take normal breaks these days.

 

[radiorama1]

I remember when Dennis & Callahan would regularly take an ad break from about 8:58 to at least 9:13, save for a brief flash boy update. They must have taken a lot of flak, because they just take normal breaks these days.

It's called 985 The Sports Hub ;D

 

[magpie]

I miss WTKK, flaws and all. At least it was something between public radio and AM.

 

[thirdendorsed]

They decided that talk radio meant trying to sound like Limbaugh. Angry right wing nuts was trend, but clearly its day has come and gone. Spittle was valued more than talent, it continues with the group of loons currently flopping on WRKO, -- I don't include Carr in that since he realizes that knee jerk politics will only take him so far.

 

[Retro]

The problem with WTKK was that it was only was it not local enough, but outside of Eagan and Braude. It was a mismatch of second rate programming at best.

 

[raccoonradio]

Eagan and Braude, Doug Meehan, and (years ago) Barnicle were angry white wing nuts? Smerconish?

WRKO can now claim to be the most popular all talk station in Boston (of course, since it's now the only all talk station...) And the day they don't find it of at least some value is the day you'll tune to 680 and hear True Oldies Channel or dollar-a-holler or foreign language or angry left wing nuts...

 

[WNTIRadio]

They decided that talk radio meant trying to sound like Limbaugh. Angry right wing nuts was trend, but clearly its day has come and gone. Spittle was valued more than talent, it continues with the group of loons currently flopping on WRKO, -- I don't include Carr in that since he realizes that knee jerk politics will only take him so far.

Let's strip the politics out of this for a moment. Limbaugh obviously has some talent beyond "spittle" if he's been doing it on this level for 25 years. Same thing with everyone "knee jerking" to Howard Stern saying he's only "tits and ass" all the time. In both cases, there has to be more to it than that, otherwise they would be off the air. The downside is they DID spawn a lot of bad imitators, who thought that, like you, it was just spit and venom or boobs and fart jokes.

I don't know why left leaning people can't see the talent in those they can't agree with. It's always "knee jerk, spittle, venom" etc. I don't agree with James Carville 80% of the time, but I think he's brilliant, funny and very entertaining. He would make a great talk host for the left.

The left did the same thing, it was called Air America. Spittle, venom and the like.

Whether you agree with him or not, you have to concede that Limbaugh is a talented broadcaster who can keep an audience tuning in day after day for 25 years, nationwide.

WRKO is pretty weak at the moment. Mr. Weird Accent in the morning is one of the stranger choices I've heard for AM drive talent. 10-noon is brokered, for all intents and purposes. Howie is treading water now that he got his contract renewed and the competition vanished.

 

[Retro]

Whether you agree with him or not, you have to concede that Limbaugh is a talented broadcaster who can keep an audience tuning in day after day for 25 years, nationwide.

Yes I agree.

 

[raccoonradio]

Popular, money-making formats and shows will always spawn imitators who may or may not be worth it. Flavor of the month: talk radio, sports, or going after the top 40 hit crowd. When stations found out talk can make money (Rush makes only about $59 M a yr), stations and syndicators all leaped
to get a piece of the pie. Those on the left said 'me too' and tried their own efforts as well, even
though conservative talk radio was a response to most media going left or center-left (Fox also
found success with this) so the left-leaning views were already out there, just not on AM radio... Suddenly Fox News talk shows at night started to beat the competition
but that's because they pretty much had right or center-right to itself while 3 or 4 other networks
catered to the other side. Cons. talk radio went for an audience that was out there but ignored.

It has to do with what will make money at the cheapest cost and these days sports fills the ticket
especially for the passionate audience and good demos. Sports Hub did help to kill off WTKK.

 

[scranton]

They used to have hannity, ingraham severin, insana, crowley,
replaced it withgraham, huggy, meehan/ its the chops and talent not the point of view

 

[TSBench]

Let's strip the politics out of this for a moment. Limbaugh obviously has some talent.....Same thing with Howard Stern......

There is no question that Limbaugh and Stern are the two most influencial and important radio broadcasters of the last 50 years.

Regards,
TSB