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Nine Hours Of Jeff Santos

  • Thread starter Laurence Glavin
  • Start date

L

Laurence Glavin

Guest
The Boston Marathon is five months away, but another marathon in Boston is going on right now. As mentioned earlier, Jeff Santos has scheduled six hours a day of himself on WWZN-AM 1510 in Boston; but today (Wednesday, 12/07..."a date which will live in infamy") Jeff Santos is filling in for Ed Schultz. The "um's" and the "ah's" will be too numerous to count!
 
Well, I guess if he's buying the time, he gets to do the show. But what can he say in the afternoon that he hasn't said that morning?

So does this mean Thom Hartmann is off the air in Boston if Santos has replaced him in the afternoon? You'd think Boston could support a real, 24/7 Progressive Talk station. But then, it barely supports the station running Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. In fact, all three Conservative Boston Talk stations are doing poorly, even the one on FM. In the rest of the country, the station that has Rush, Hannity and Beck is usually the top AM station.

I suppose Boston listeners would rather tune in NPR or All-News on WBZ than listen to Conservative Talk on commercial outlets.

Gregg
[email protected]
 
Gregg said:
So does this mean Thom Hartmann is off the air in Boston if Santos has replaced him in the afternoon?
Click to expand...

Santos also hosts a show from the 3 to 6 pm time period. He moved Hartmann to overnight starting at 10 pm. Hartmann's show follows the replay of Santos' morning show but precedes the replay of Santos' afternoon show. This takes us up to 7 am so you can hear Santos' morning show. Ah...the diversity of Boston progressive talk radio.
 
>>The "um's" and the "ah's" will be too numerous to count!

I'm reminded of how Howie used to do The Wizard of Uhs; the disappearance (for now) of the Kennedy
family from public office meant the end of "if you hear uh-uh-uh, that's three uhs. If you hear uhhhhhh
that's one uh. Don't be misled by "the-the-the-the or I-I-I-I-I. All decisions are based on the decision of the judge. I am the judge. You can win a crappy CD." Guess he wouldn't be doing it for Jeff... Now count the number of times Howie says "clapsed" (collapsed), "Serra-cyoose" (Syracuse), and "Ellen-oy" (Illinois)...
 
BosRad said:
Santos also hosts a show from the 3 to 6 pm time period. He moved Hartmann to overnight starting at 10 pm. Hartmann's show follows the replay of Santos' morning show but precedes the replay of Santos' afternoon show. This takes us up to 7 am so you can hear Santos' morning show. Ah...the diversity of Boston progressive talk radio.
Click to expand...

If I'm not mistaken--and I may be--the 1:00AM to 4:00AM slot is a replay of Norman Goldman's program. I believe that the Goldman feed is live from 6:00PM to 9:00PM but, when not preempted by sports, is carried on WWZN from 7:00PM to 10:00PM. I don't know whether Goldman is live on WWZN from 7:00PM to 9:00PM and followed from 9:00PM to 10:00PM by a replay of his real first hour (the one that feeds live from 6:00PM to 7:00PM), or whether WWZN delays Goldman's entire show by an hour. Delaying the first two hours instead of running them live is exactly the kind of dumb move I'd expect of Santos. My understanding also does not cover what runs in the 6:00PM to 7:00PM hour when it is not preempted by sports.

Also, if you count the repeats, I believe that Santos is on more than nine hours a day when he fills in for Ed Schultz. Santos is on live with his own shows from 7:00AM to 10:00AM and 3:00PM to 6:00PM. He fills in for Schultz from noon to 3:00PM. One of Santos's shows is rebroadcast from 4:00AM to 7:00AM. By my reckoning, that totals 12 hours, but I could have missed at least one hour. I'm not clear on when Santos's PM show is rebroadcast. Is there a schedule posted at the revolution.com Web site? If so, is it anything like correct?
 
DanStrassberg said:
BosRad said:
Santos also hosts a show from the 3 to 6 pm time period. He moved Hartmann to overnight starting at 10 pm. Hartmann's show follows the replay of Santos' morning show but precedes the replay of Santos' afternoon show. This takes us up to 7 am so you can hear Santos' morning show. Ah...the diversity of Boston progressive talk radio.
Click to expand...

If I'm not mistaken--and I may be--the 1:00AM to 4:00AM slot is a replay of Norman Goldman's program. I believe that the Goldman feed is live from 6:00PM to 9:00PM but, when not preempted by sports, is carried on WWZN from 7:00PM to 10:00PM. I don't know whether Goldman is live on WWZN from 7:00PM to 9:00PM and followed from 9:00PM to 10:00PM by a replay of his real first hour (the one that feeds live from 6:00PM to 7:00PM), or whether WWZN delays Goldman's entire show by an hour. Delaying the first two hours instead of running them live is exactly the kind of dumb move I'd expect of Santos. My understanding also does not cover what runs in the 6:00PM to 7:00PM hour when it is not preempted by sports.

Also, if you count the repeats, I believe that Santos is on more than nine hours a day when he fills in for Ed Schultz. Santos is on live with his own shows from 7:00AM to 10:00AM and 3:00PM to 6:00PM. He fills in for Schultz from noon to 3:00PM. One of Santos's shows is rebroadcast from 4:00AM to 7:00AM. By my reckoning, that totals 12 hours, but I could have missed at least one hour. I'm not clear on when Santos's PM show is rebroadcast. Is there a schedule posted at the revolution.com Web site? If so, is it anything like correct?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if this is normal for the schedule, but I've heard a Santos replay from 6 to 7 pm and then, if there is a college sports game, I think Norman Goldman is streamed online since the game can't be streamed over the internet. What's interesting is, I went to revolutionboston.com and looked at the on air tab. Goldman's show wasn't even listed. Not sure why this is. Do they not list shows that are streamed? Are there plans to drop Goldman? or is it just an oversight by the webmaster?
 
No need; let him and the other prog talkers have their voice that doesn't show up in the ratings. Howie, Jay, Graham etc. may not be getting stellar ratings comp. to the big music stations etc but at least they show up in the ratings.
 
raccoonradio said:
No need; let him and the other prog talkers have their voice that doesn't show up in the ratings. Howie, Jay, Graham etc. may not be getting stellar ratings comp. to the big music stations etc but at least they show up in the ratings.
Click to expand...


As someone who has successfully sold airtime at two stations that had very low numbers, it is not always the quantity of the audience but the quality. Santos never expects to achieve a significant share of the market. But he must be doing something right because he continues to air his programming on several stations and just added a new station in Washington DC.

Racoon, is it safe to assume then that the talk programming on WBUR and WGBH that achieve ratings success is not "progressive" leaning"?
 
vmorrison said:
But he must be doing something right because he continues to air his programming on several stations and just added a new station in Washington DC.
Click to expand...

Now, there's an example of wishful thinkibng! Little 500W WCTN located, where? 25 miles from Capit5ol Hill? (I need to check the field-strength numbers in that Zip code) delivers a competitive signal to any part of DC? You've gotta be kidding! The station is licensed to Potomac-Cabin John MD. Cabin John--interesting name for a community, doncha think? Must get pretty good laughs any time somebody mentions it.
 
DanStrassberg said:
vmorrison said:
But he must be doing something right because he continues to air his programming on several stations and just added a new station in Washington DC.
Click to expand...

Now, there's an example of wishful thinkibng! Little 500W WCTN located, where? 25 miles from Capit5ol Hill? (I need to check the field-strength numbers in that Zip code) delivers a competitive signal to any part of DC? You've gotta be kidding! The station is licensed to Potomac-Cabin John MD. Cabin John--interesting name for a community, doncha think? Must get pretty good laughs any time somebody mentions it.
Click to expand...

I did that and V-soft reports that the daytime signal reaching 20001 is fairly good, 1.82...better than WBAL up in Baltimore. BTW, WCTN's authorized power is 2,500 watts, and the pattern shows a slight bulge in its backwash toward DC along the 110-degree azimuth. One of these days, it might be fun to examine AMs that direct their strongest signal AWAY from the City of License or nearest large city. E.g. WGIR-AM 610 in Manchester, NH; WNNZ-AM 640 near Springfield, MA.
 
Laurence Glavin said:
I did that and V-soft reports that the daytime signal reaching 20001 is fairly good, 1.82...better than WBAL up in Baltimore. BTW, WCTN's authorized power is 2,500 watts, and the pattern shows a slight bulge in its backwash toward DC along the 110-degree azimuth. One of these days, it might be fun to examine AMs that direct their strongest signal AWAY from the City of License or nearest large city. E.g. WGIR-AM 610 in Manchester, NH; WNNZ-AM 640 near Springfield, MA.
Click to expand...

I erred regarding WCTN's distance from DC and its daytime power. WCTN is 12 miles from WYCB, an AM whose transmitter site is inside the District of Columbia. Also, as you pointed out, WCTN's daytime power is 2500W, but its signal in the direction of WYCB is the equivalent of only ~1 kW by day. At night, however, WCTN runs only 350W and its signal toward WYCB is equivalent to only about 150W ND. I suspect that the 1.82 mV/m field strength that you got from V-Soft is the daytime figure. The night figure is probably only 0.25 mV/m. Even 1.82 mV/m would be well outside of WCTN's NIF contour. At 0.25 mV/m, WCTN is probably unlistenable at night in the City of Washington.

As for WGIR. its 5-kW daytime signal from its transmitter site to the northwest of Manchester is directionalized mainly to the northwest--away from Manchester. Nevertheless, WGIR sends the equivalent of 1 kW ND to the southeast--toward Manchester. Before WGIR was granted 5 kW-D, it ran 1 kW-U. I believe that WGIR operated DA-N in those days, so especially if WGIR ran 1 kW DA-N from its current site, the increase to 5 kW-D did not reduce the daytime signal over Manchester and allowed the station to cover a large area of NH and VT that, at the time the daytime increase was granted, was not well served by AM signals. And as for WNNZ, it runs 50 kW-D, so even though its daytime signal is directionalized to the northwest, it delivers a decent daytime signal to the Springfield area and is even listenable, though not strong, in a lot of Hartford. If WNNZ has signal problems, they occur at night, when the power is only 1 kw. Even in New England, with its poor soil conductivity, low-on-the-dial stations such as WGIR and WNNZ that operate at relatively high power during the daytime have good daytime signals notwithstanding what appear to be odd directional patterns.

I think that the most interesting case of an AM in this area that is directionalized away from its home market during daylight hours is WAZN. During the daytime, WAZN not only directionalizes away from Boston, it also reduces its power by ~60%. Notwithstanding WSAR's CP to increase to 25 kW during the day, I believe that WAZN could significantly upgrade its day facilities if it were to change to dual-site operation using the WEZE site during the daytime. This upgrade would be quite expensive because three additional towers would have to be added at the WEZE site and WAZN GM Jeff Kline has written that the idea is ridiculous because the economics make no sense. I'm not so sure that Jeff is correct, though. The real answer lies in how the stick value of the upgraded WAZN would compare with those of the two stations (WRCA and WUNR) with which WAZN would become more nearly comparable if it upgraded. The increase in WAZN's stick value would probably exceed the cost of the upgrade, which I estimate at a little north of $1 million.
 
WAZN will not be making any antenna/transmitter changes.
The return on investment would not be worth the considerable added expenses.
WAZN is, basically, directional due east daytime, due southeast nighttime. The
fact that it runs more power at night is very unusual for an AM station.

As far as Santos, and "Progressive Talk" in general - once again, this appears to
be a format which some of the usual suspects advocated that Boston "needs".
It has never really made much of a dent in the market. Bring on that
Lithuanian Marching Music station! ;D ;D ;D
 
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