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Should WBZ Go 24/7 All-News?

G

Gregg

In another thread about WBZ's overnight show, someone was complaining about all the infomercials on weekends. I replied that if WBZ had gone All-News around the clock, they wouldn't have any infomercials. All the full-time CBS All-News stations are infomercial-free.

Which got me wondering why WBZ has never gone 24/7 with All-News. CBS owns 10 All-News stations around the country. Only two are not full-time news operations. In Dallas, it rolled back the All-News format on 1080 KRLD to 5am-7pm weekdays. And in Boston, Group W never went All-News on WBZ, even though executives put the format on their AM stations in NYC, LA, Chicago and Philadephia. WBZ only went All-News, part-time, after CBS had merged with Westinghouse. CBS had a full-time Boston All-News operation years earlier on 590 but if I remember correctly, sold the station to Salem, which flipped it to Religion.

Should WBZ join the other CBS All-News stations (except Dallas) and go 24/7 with news?
 
YES.

It's absurd that market #10 doesn't have a full time all news station.
 
Dallas is market #5 and they only run news during the day. They don't even do news on weekends. I'm surprised CBS doesn't run 24/7 on KRLD. WBZ should go all news. Detroit and Seattle,ranked below Boston have full time news stations and WWJ is usually #1 12 plus.
 
WBZ apparently does well with their talk shows of Rea, Rich, and Brien etc. The idea is that by day people listen to news but at night they may turn to TV/entertainment itself (PLUS newscasts on various stations, want your news, go to 4 at 11...) and perhaps it's now time to talk about the issues of the day, or light discussion. At 1 am, do I want the endless repetition of news stories from 8 hours ago, or Jordan Rich talking to the author of a book on Bob and Ray?

"NY has all news"--yes and they're a much bigger city than us. Perhaps BZ (AM) could indeed go all news but we do need SOME talk shows, especially with the demises of 1200 and 96.9. RKO is the only all talk station. There are some shows like Eagan and Braude on GBH, and somewhere out there
Jeff Santos is trying to find a station to put a couple hrs of progressive talk on (and I think 4 stations do run an hour of him now). BZ provides talk 8 pm to 5 am, and it has listeners and makes money.

All news would cost money, and would the listeners be there? Who knows. Maybe they could try it,
but listeners to the likes of Rea would be disappointed...

You want news?
--Websites. (Globe, Herald, etc.)
--NECN, except when they're doing shows on dining, sports, or real estate
--WBZ top and sometimes bottom of hour newscasts
--GBH, BUR have some news (and some talk) at night
--Want financial news, 1200.

--
You want news at night? 89.7 schedule, has some.
7pm News Hour with Jim Lehrer
8pm The World
9pm Boston Public Radio (talk)
11pm The Story (interview program)
Later PRX Remix and news from the BBC.
 
I'd like to see a WBZ on AM as a news/talk operation and WBZ on FM as all-news (whatever frequency isn't doing that well in the ratings). Then, flip the Sports Hub calls to WTSH or even WSBK. BTW, WEEI was only all-news for a short period of time in the late 70s or early 80s. Over the years, they had other programming on at night like Bruce Lee, Mark Holmes, Sports By-Line USA, the CBS Radio Mystery Theatre, and a Kenny Mayer show that dealt with radio classics.
 
WNTIRadio said:
YES.

It's absurd that market #10 doesn't have a full time all news station.
Click to expand...

I love how some people throw around market rank as if it makes a difference as to whether or not a format will succeed.

All-news is extremely manpower-intensive, and therefore one of the most expensive radio formats out there...far more expensive than what WBZ is running now, and there's no guarantee that it will get enough extra listeners to make it profitable.
 
All news, while expensive, bills extremely well due to the fact that spots can be shoehorned in just about anywhere. Listen to 880 or 1010 and the amount of units per hour they carry.

If they stay news & talk as they are now, they should drop "New England's News Watch Never Stops" from the TOH.

Market rank does count here, Boston is 4+ million people. We're not talking about Bozeman, Montana.

Meanwhile there's WBUR and WGBH with their overlapping NPR programs. That's way more stupid than WBZ going yak yak yak at night.
 
CBS dropped all news on KFWB, Los Angeles and WMAQ, Chicago. Both were Group W stations and CBS no longer owns either one.

Evenings, overnights and weekends are low cume time periods. Talk has longer TSLs than all news. On paper, it makes sense.
 
How about adding a music show on Saturday nights from 7:05 p.m. to 12 Midnight with news updates every half hour? Expand Bradley Jay's program on Sunday nights from 8:05 p.m. to 12 Midnight as well. And get rid of infomercials on the radio! They suck!
 
FredLeonard said:
CBS dropped all news on KFWB, Los Angeles and WMAQ, Chicago. Both were Group W stations and CBS no longer owns either one.

Evenings, overnights and weekends are low cume time periods. Talk has longer TSLs than all news. On paper, it makes sense.
Click to expand...

CBS dumped all-news on KFWB just before they put it in trust, in order to buy Ch. 9. They already had all-news KNX, and KFWB has a weaker signal and didn't have the ratings to justify the format.

CBS still owns the old WMAQ, which is now sports WSCR. They also own an all-newser, WBBM. And I believe the last format aired on WMAQ was either general talk or country, though they did simulcast with WXRT for a week or so prior to becoming the new location of The Score.
 
>It's absurd that market #10 doesn't have a full time all news station.<

>I love how some people throw around market rank as if it makes a difference as to whether or not a format will succeed.<

I agree with the response. Otherwise, it would be almost the same as saying that since Country Music is one of the most popular formats across the USA, it's absurd to believe that neither market #1 (New York), nor market #2 (Los Angles) have at least one country music station appear in their Top 15 Arbitron rankings.
 
Black Gold said:
How about adding a music show on Saturday nights from 7:05 p.m. to 12 Midnight with news updates every half hour? Expand Bradley Jay's program on Sunday nights from 8:05 p.m. to 12 Midnight as well.
Click to expand...

I agree on expanding Bradley Jay to four hours.

As for Saturday nights, how about an oldies show (which I suggested earlier in another post) titled "Retro 'BZ" (with music from the mid 1950's until circa 1970, roughly paralleling WBZ-1030's years as a Top-40 station and including some vintage jingles/sweepers tossed in) with J.J. Wright (whose voice does much of the imaging at 'BZ) to host??

And if a live news anchor is there for hourly headlines during the show, perhaps WBZ can even go as far as using their 1960's news opening sounder (a combination of a fanfare followed by a teletype sound effect with an announcer saying "Stand Bay For News! First, fact and Factual From The WBZ Radio News Center!").

If 'BZ can find a "clean" recording (no added sound effects or announcers) of the 1960's (up until 1968 or so) news open, they could get Gary LaPierre to record the newscast slogan outlined above. It would sound better than any vintage recording of that sounder that either 'BZ or any collector might have.
 
I'd settle for them going all-news during the day. More like WCBS, or KNX or WINS or KYW or WBBM or WTOP.

WBZ is the worst alleged all news station in any major market. It is a plodding series of half-hour "shows" with absolutely moronic features. Maybe they can use a take on the WINS slogan and say "you give us 42 minutes, we'll give you a small piece of the world, plus a report on children and diapers. "
 
FightingIrish said:
FredLeonard said:
CBS dropped all news on KFWB, Los Angeles and WMAQ, Chicago. Both were Group W stations and CBS no longer owns either one.

Evenings, overnights and weekends are low cume time periods. Talk has longer TSLs than all news. On paper, it makes sense.
Click to expand...

CBS dumped all-news on KFWB just before they put it in trust, in order to buy Ch. 9. They already had all-news KNX, and KFWB has a weaker signal and didn't have the ratings to justify the format.

CBS still owns the old WMAQ, which is now sports WSCR. They also own an all-newser, WBBM. And I believe the last format aired on WMAQ was either general talk or country, though they did simulcast with WXRT for a week or so prior to becoming the new location of The Score.
Click to expand...

They also own BOTH all-news stations, WCBS (except for Yankee games) and WINS in New York.
 
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