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Salk & Holley.......First Impressions

A

ArtSpooner

Guest
My first thoughts were, this guy reminds me of Minihane. Why him and not Minihane? There was a lot of Hockey talk, which doesn't interest me, but that's got nothing to do with the hosts. That's just my personal preference. Despite all of the snow on the ground, baseball starts pretty soon. I would like to have heard more Red Sox talk. I suspect that this guy has been told that WEEI ignored hockey for 15 years and he had to make it clear that he wouldn't.

The new segment , "just answer the question" or whatever it was called, seemed kind of forced. Maybe now that the listeners know it's coming it will be better, but I just didn't get the point.

I guess the question now is, if their ratings don't go up, who gets blamed and how long do they have to show an improve? The new guy, Holley, Jason Wolfe, or someone else? Ordway, Dale Arnold, Sheppard, Meter, and Kevin Winter all lost their gigs. To get rid of someone of Ordway's ilk tells me they were near the end of their rope. If this doesn't work, I'm expecting them to do something, based on their track record lately. I assume that after what happened to Kevin Winter, the new guy must have some assurances in place to protect himself.
 
Jury is still out for me. After two days of listening, Salk appears to be getting top billing, at least that is my impression. He definitely leads/directs the show more than Holley. That's neither good nor bad, just stood out in my mind. Curious to see what others have to say, too.
 
Is Salk going to send WEEI-FM listeners to WEEI-AM? Just answer the question... :D
 
DToTheJ said:
Is Salk going to send WEEI-FM listeners to WEEI-AM? Just answer the question... :D
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The "just answer the question" segment must be beyond my level of sophistication. If it's supposed to be funny or entertaining, it's going right over my head. What do they say if someone asks them what the meaning of life is? It's almost like they've ended the show at 5:30. They did a big block of ads, an abbreviated whiner line, another big block of ads and the new bit.

I must say the I've liked the way Salk has dealt with the so-called celebrity callers. I hope he sticks with it. I truly believe that patronizing them had a significant role in their demise. There are certain voices that cause me to change channels as if it were a reflex.
 
So far today, it seems like they are trying to "out cute" each other. I doubt if Felger's too nervous about this. After three iterations of "just answer etc." not only do I not get it, I don't even get what they are trying to do. Maybe I'll catch on today.
 
Another terrible move by 'EEI and Jason Wolf. Sure Salk is a native but he sounds like he doesn't "get" Boston sports radio. Seems like he was told to bring his Seattle show with him and they'd "throw in" Holley. He seems more relaxed with the ESPN format of "talk into a microphone by yourself for four hours" then engaging a co-host and callers in dialog of various intelligence levels. Three better options:

1) Resurrect the Dale & Holley Show. Best show in town, IMO. But maybe Dale is slated for John Dennis' chair. Plus his obligations for NESN may have made an afternoon drive show impossible.

2) Holley and Minihane. People (myself being one of them) love Felger in terms of being a ******bag know-it-all, but Minihane seems to pull it off a little better. Why not pit DB vs DB?

3) Pete the Meat w/ Holley. Shep has a fierce and loyal following. Has the best weekend show in town. Helped build the Big Show in recent years. Has a good chemistry with Michael.

ANY of these would be better then what they went with. Maybe it needs more time to gel but so far....it's just bleh. Really bleh.
 
StoJa said:
Another terrible move by 'EEI and Jason Wolf. Sure Salk is a native but he sounds like he doesn't "get" Boston sports radio. Seems like he was told to bring his Seattle show with him and they'd "throw in" Holley. He seems more relaxed with the ESPN format of "talk into a microphone by yourself for four hours" then engaging a co-host and callers in dialog of various intelligence levels. Three better options:

1) Resurrect the Dale & Holley Show. Best show in town, IMO. But maybe Dale is slated for John Dennis' chair. Plus his obligations for NESN may have made an afternoon drive show impossible.

2) Holley and Minihane. People (myself being one of them) love Felger in terms of being a ******bag know-it-all, but Minihane seems to pull it off a little better. Why not pit DB vs DB?

3) Pete the Meat w/ Holley. Shep has a fierce and loyal following. Has the best weekend show in town. Helped build the Big Show in recent years. Has a good chemistry with Michael.

ANY of these would be better then what they went with. Maybe it needs more time to gel but so far....it's just bleh. Really bleh.
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Any one of those scenarios would be better. Dale and Holley always was a favorite of the sports purists. Minihane seems to be the closest thing they have to a rising star. Felger has shown that being a DB works to some extent. Minihane is a knowledgeable DB and at least he's not rooting against the Boston teams. When you think about it, Felger is not much different than Steve from Fall River or Joey the phony gangster.

The most obvious move would be to put Pete on with Merloni at mid-day. I think Pete has more of a loyal following than Gresh. I don't know if lead-ins are as important in radio as they are on TV, but many times I don't turn WEEI on until well after 2.

I still don't get the "just answer" bit. At least the "lightning round" had a point. This is just inane.
 
As bad as Pete can sound at times, he's still better than Gresh and certainly better than Muttnansky.

Once again, and probably for the last time, I listened to that "just answer the question" bit. The whole segment was less than 10 minutes and they just had a few inane questions. It's kind of boiled down to "Ginger or Mary Ann?" " Beatles vs. XYZ group", "sushi vs. burgers", completely vapid crap like that. And this is only less than a week into it. I have to believe that 5:45 to 6:00 is "prime time" for advertisers. Did the focus group come up with this? Does Felger do any sort of bit at the end of his show? Did the same people who canned Dale, Ordway, Pete, Meter, and Winter decide that this was a good idea?

I don't always understand entertainment decisions, but I know a fair amount about business decisions. What they've done for the past couple of years has not been good for business.
 
Felger & Mazz do a "show recap" at the end but it's usually making fun of themselves with Beetle screwing with the audio to create "Angry Mike" and "Squeaky Mazz" for when they go off on rants. Or they highlight interesting comments made by callers or guests. It was their answer to The Whiner Line and is INFINITELY better then this question shit.

'EEI went from arguably the most powerful brand name in sports radio in the entire country....to a complete mess and a punchline now. Amazing.
 
I guess I'm an Ordway fan... yet to hear S&H.

Does Felger do any sort of bit at the end of his show?
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They started a Vanity Fair Proust Questionnaire .
I forget when they intend to do it or who else they can enlist into taking it. Every show has to have a few gimmicks.
 
btw tweet from Chris Curtis:
@_ChrisCurtis
>>After almost 4 great years at the Hub I am thrilled to announce I have accepted the producer position on @DandCShow cant wait to get started
 
From Bruce Allen's column on Boston Sports Media Watch:

At least one staffer at the station isn’t impressed with Salk, saying that he’s come in with a huge sense of entitlement and is causing waves behind the scenes, but then again, the entire atmosphere around WEEI remains toxic. It’s a mess back there.
Click to expand...
 
StoJa said:
3) Pete the Meat w/ Holley. Shep has a fierce and loyal following. Has the best weekend show in town. Helped build the Big Show in recent years. Has a good chemistry with Michael.
Click to expand...

maybe but I listened to Pete filling in a few weeks ago--he still sputters when he talks and it gets grating in short order. I remember on the old Big Show, they had one of the voiceover guys Jim Britt?) do an imitation of him that wasn't far off the mark.
 
StoJa said:
From Bruce Allen's column on Boston Sports Media Watch:

At least one staffer at the station isn’t impressed with Salk, saying that he’s come in with a huge sense of entitlement and is causing waves behind the scenes, but then again, the entire atmosphere around WEEI remains toxic. It’s a mess back there.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
The guy certainly acts like he's in charge. Holley really appears to have taken a back seat. He definitely comes across as "the sidekick", rather than the leader. One thing I do like about the new guy is that he doesn't pay homage to the celebrity callers but oddly enough, Holley tries to stick up for them. I thought that the focus group had a big objection to the celebrity callers. They(the celeb callers) are one of the main reasons that weekends are so bad. The screwballs come out in droves and they don't seem to care if they call more than once a day.
 
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