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Moe Lauzier Swan Song

J

jayradio

Guest
I just caught the end of Moe's show this morning. Sounds like 'RKO is not done cutting payroll. It certainly sounded as if Moe has done his last show. Say what you will, but 25 years in talk radio (part-time or not) is quite a run.
 
That's sad; Moe has taken some grief on places on this board but I think he's an interesting host. A few
years ago when we had a blizzard, they put him on during the 7-10 pm weeknight slot to talk about how
people were doing and it was pretty good. I bought his book (download) from his site and enjoyed it.
I'm sure 'RKO is replacing him with something really important, like informercials talking about how we have
25-30 pounds of gunk stuck to the colon walls like spackle or paste.
 
Thanks to a radio infomercial, did you know when John Wayne died he had 12 pounds of undigested beef in his colon? I DIDN'T NEED TO KNOW THAT!!!!

Best of wishes to Mo now and the future. You will be missed.
 
I missed it, and I was out plowing and could have had it on while I was pushing snow, but I was in my saturday morning Beatles mode instead.

Moe has a parting statement on his website, explaining how he came to be at WRKO, and wondering why the WRKO management didn't have the courtesy of telling him face to face. If I am reading his blog correctly they must have dropped the bomb on him today, over the phone.

Moe has done a great deal for WRKO, love him r hate him, whenever a shift had to be filled, up until a couple of years ago, Moe would be there. Wasn't it post 9/11 he was brought in to do nights live, IIRC they were putting him up at a hotel, probably the one next to the studios at 116 huntington, so he could do not only the weeknights, but his 2 weekend shifts too.

Sadly this is probably the end of his radio career.

Thanks Moe for many weekend mornings of having a live person on the other end of the radio
 
Wow. He was a fun and familiar part of Saturday mornings, and it's not going to be the same without him. No one could have told him face-to-face? ???
 
raccoonradio said:
That's sad; Moe has taken some grief on places on this board but I think he's an interesting host. A few
years ago when we had a blizzard, they put him on during the 7-10 pm weeknight slot to talk about how
people were doing and it was pretty good. I bought his book (download) from his site and enjoyed it.
I'm sure 'RKO is replacing him with something really important, like informercials talking about how we have
25-30 pounds of gunk stuck to the colon walls like spackle or paste.
Click to expand...

not a moe fan, but it's pretty skanky of management to dismiss him without an obligatory sitdown. the guy put in 24 years over there. wrko is a sinking ship. howie's stock options will be worth 3 cents on the dollar if the company keeps going the way it's going.

sounds like the sox contract is stangling the whole company. celtics did that to wwzn. now, the sox are doing it to wrko. they probably sold moe's timeslot to the highest bidder. some shady diet or helth product. probably helps wtkk on the weekends.
 
This is a sad statement about the industry, no question about it. Presuming that the show is replaced by infomercials it continues the same pattern we see on TV where the resources are more tightly focused on the key revenue generating areas and the others are strip mined for dollars and cost is minimized with little concern for content.

In response to someone else's comment though, this has nothing to do with the Sox deal. Despite the high rights fee, I'm told it was a moneymaker last year as Red Sox Baseball earned more revenue (in market 10!) than any other radio rights deal in MLB. I think this speaks to the bigger problems in the industry, i.e. slow or no revenue growth and creeping expenses.
 
Moe had a daily gig in Providence in the late 1980s/early 1990s . . . mid-days on 'HJJ. I think he did the weekends on 'RKO during the same time.

He was very effective dealing with local politics and kept things moving along at a nice clip. I also remember him as a rabid Pawtucket Red Sox fan; he would attend games regularly, chat with his regular radio listeners, etc. A really personable guy who could talk about controversial issues without foaming at the mouth.

Sorry to see him go from the Boston scene . . . maybe he'll land somewhere in Southern New England.
 
Dark Knight said:
This is a sad statement about the industry, no question about it. Presuming that the show is replaced by infomercials it continues the same pattern we see on TV where the resources are more tightly focused on the key revenue generating areas and the others are strip mined for dollars and cost is minimized with little concern for content.
Click to expand...

At least there are still advertisers around who are willing to pay for chunks of airtime on radio and TV. Newspaper advertisers are simply disappearing. I'm even seeing more and more billboards -- especially along I-91 here in Connecticut -- carrying "Your message would look good here! Call (xxx) xxx-xxxx!" instead of advertising. Why does corporate America stop advertising when times get tough? You'd think a bigger effort to get consumers back into the stores/dealerships would be in order, wouldn't you?
 
How sad. I've listened to Moe for most of the 25 years that he's been with the station. He's a class act and one of the unsung heros of Boston talk radio.

What the hell is wrong with the people running WRKO? Are they just stupid or are they intentionally trying to destroy what was once a great station?

I refuse to listen to RKO anymore. The only person they still employee that is even close to worth listening to doesn't even want to work there.

Just get on with it. You might as well just become a religous or Spanish station because when Jason and Julie get done with things, that will be the only way left for the station to get any listeners.

- Al
 
On Moe's blog he said they didn't even fire him personally. They told a producer to do it

"Some say first impressions are often the last. Not in this case, the only foul taste was the lack of consideration in having a producer carry the message. Jason Wolf (sic), are you listening?"
http://moeissuesoftheday.blogspot.com

WRKO: COLON CLEANSER RADIO.
 
All informercials on Sat.? Sooner or later... The Herald, on Moe's dismissal

http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1075557&srvc=home&position=6

Hokey Wolfe: "“There is unprecedented and incredible interest in WRKO right now from companies that would like to gain maximum exposure for their products. We will work with each and every one of them to exhaust every opportunity that is available, in order to make the best business decision for the radio station.”
 
Does this mean Jason will sell airtime to the foreign language evangelicals too?

I'd love to know what WRKO is getting for an hour on Saturday mornings.. If a bunch of us get together and pool some pocket change we can go do an hour on how far the radio business has gone down the crapper.

Anyone want in on this? A bunch of us toss in a weeks worth of coffee and cigarette money and we ship them a CD with an hours worth of our opinions on the current state of the business. I'll toss in the first hundred bucks.
 
Weekend ratings aren't reliable. I guess you can say that no ratings are reliable. But does anyone know what Moe's 25-54 numbers were like?

Based on what they seem to be doing at WTKK, I don't think they would take a guy his age unless he's got listeners "in the demo" as they say.

And does anyone know what other stations are selling time on the weekend? Does everyone do it? If weekend ratings don't matter, why not take all the dollars you can get?
 
bjohns said:
But does anyone know what Moe's 25-54 numbers were like?
Click to expand...

Without revealing exact shares: Way out of the top ten.

They sent a producer to fire him? Wow...pretty low in my book. Further, by giving him the news before the show was over, they should have realized that he would have had an opportunity to slam them, on their air. I understand he didn't take that opportunity...pro that he is...but he gave them what they deserved on his blog. After 24 years, he deserved better.
 
I don't know about you, but having a snake oil salesman on for an informercial makes me REALLY
want to tune in! :) Those ratings should soar now! (Wolfie is basically saying, we'll take you as
long as your money's green...Revenue over entertainment and LOCAL talk)
 
Years or even decades ago, moves like this would have happened in a vacuum. A radio station could dispatch a host to Siberia and there would be few repercussions. It would be the proverbial tree falling in a forest.

Today, we have message boards, industry-focussed blogs and the Boston Herald's Inside Track. Together, they air Entercom's dirty laundry...and there's a LOT of Entercom dirty laundry these days. For those of us who know that Entercom (at least the Boston incarnation of same) is run by skanks, this 'public flogging' serves a dual purpose: One, to inform the listening audience of what's going on so that we can make informed decisions about continuing to patronize their stations. And two, to effectively bring down the morale within the employee ranks at Entercom. Those people read the newspaper and go on the Internet. They read the comments in the Herald and here on this message board. You think the worker bees at Entercom come into work with smiles on their face? Or do you think they relish the prospect of answering the question, "So!!! Where do you work?" when they meet someone at a gathering? Do you think these people are PROUD to say they work at Entercom? Like that stupid furniture salesman said on those lame TV commercials: I DOUBT it!!!

The public flogging that Entercom has been receiving is very, very good to be a part of.
 
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