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Should WBZ Go 24/7 All-News?

the old WEEI 590 was awesome. They even had the fake teletype background noise like WINS still has. Of course I was only a child when it was still on the air. I really have only been able to appreciate it in retrospect as an adult.

And yes I would love to have an all news outlet in Boston in 2013.

I also think the overlapping BUR/GBH NPR situation is stupid and redundent regardless of what original programming they each may produce.
 
It'd be nice, but I don't believe there's a financial motivation to do so. Even if the increased expense was offset by increased revenue, would revenue be increased enough to increase net profit over what it is now?

Would your average listener make a distinction between the current WBZ and an all-news WBZ? After all, don't listeners currently consider WBZ a news station?

You're talking about increasing expenses in lower-valued dayparts that bring in less revenue on an AM facility in 2013. It's a nice idea, but it's far from realistic.
 
robotique said:
I also think the overlapping BUR/GBH NPR situation is stupid and redundent regardless of what original programming they each may produce.
Click to expand...

On one hand, you have KCPW dropping NPR affiliation in Salt Lake City over failure to come up with a payment arrangement and putting together an alternate schedule. On the other hand, you have KCRW in LA, despite KPCC trouncing them in the ratings, hanging on to the NPR news shows because they bring in the money that the AAA music shows don't. In another instance, on one hand WBGO in NY (where Steve Inskeep got his start) drops the NPR news shows after saying that if a pledge drive made its goals in drive times they would do it (knowing that WNYC carries those shows), but on the other hand KPLU in Seattle keeps running the shows instead of jazz, despite them being on higher-rated KUOW, because most of the pledge money comes from the NPR news shows. So in some cases the duplication is what keeps the stations going.
 
Mark Jeffries said:
In another instance, on one hand WBGO in NY (where Steve Inskeep got his start) drops the NPR news shows after saying that if a pledge drive made its goals in drive times they would do it (knowing that WNYC carries those shows)
Click to expand...

Huh? WBGO is in Newark, NJ and is a (long-time) jazz station. They carry NPR newscasts during their morning show; that's it. No duplication with WNYC. NJ Public Radio (now owned by WNYC) does continue to simulcast WBGO's overnight jazz show but I don't think that's what you are referring to.
 
FredLeonard said:
Mark Jeffries said:
In another instance, on one hand WBGO in NY (where Steve Inskeep got his start) drops the NPR news shows after saying that if a pledge drive made its goals in drive times they would do it (knowing that WNYC carries those shows)
Click to expand...

Huh? WBGO is in Newark, NJ and is a (long-time) jazz station. They carry NPR newscasts during their morning show; that's it. No duplication with WNYC. NJ Public Radio (now owned by WNYC) does continue to simulcast WBGO's overnight jazz show but I don't think that's what you are referring to.
Click to expand...

At one time 15-to-20 years ago, when Steve Inskeep was regularly filing stories to NPR as a WBGO employee, they did carry the NPR news shows in morning and afternoon drive. Around that time, probably when a national survey was done showing that jazz listeners don't listen to news-talk at all, I seem to remember they had a pledge drive where they said that if they met a certain goal from their music listeners, they would take "ME" and "ATC" off and replace them with jazz. The goal was met and they did. This 1993 study of non-NPR non-com stations' schedules seems to support that WBGO dropped the NPR shows back then (along with WRTI in Philly at the same time, which at that time was mostly jazz before WFLN gave up classical music):

http://www.aranet.com/library/pdf/doc-0092.pdf
 
robotique said:
the old WEEI 590 was awesome. They even had the fake teletype background noise like WINS still has. Of course I was only a child when it was still on the air. I really have only been able to appreciate it in retrospect as an adult.
Click to expand...

I remember listening to the great Jim Westover doing the overnight on "Newsradio 59." Aside from the fake teletype, they sounded more like WCBS than WINS. Great station. Tough to get beyond Framingham om the car radio.
 
Mark Jeffries said:
FredLeonard said:
Mark Jeffries said:
In another instance, on one hand WBGO in NY (where Steve Inskeep got his start) drops the NPR news shows after saying that if a pledge drive made its goals in drive times they would do it (knowing that WNYC carries those shows)
Click to expand...

Huh? WBGO is in Newark, NJ and is a (long-time) jazz station. They carry NPR newscasts during their morning show; that's it. No duplication with WNYC. NJ Public Radio (now owned by WNYC) does continue to simulcast WBGO's overnight jazz show but I don't think that's what you are referring to.
Click to expand...

At one time 15-to-20 years ago, when Steve Inskeep was regularly filing stories to NPR as a WBGO employee, they did carry the NPR news shows in morning and afternoon drive. Around that time, probably when a national survey was done showing that jazz listeners don't listen to news-talk at all, I seem to remember they had a pledge drive where they said that if they met a certain goal from their music listeners, they would take "ME" and "ATC" off and replace them with jazz. The goal was met and they did. This 1993 study of non-NPR non-com stations' schedules seems to support that WBGO dropped the NPR shows back then (along with WRTI in Philly at the same time, which at that time was mostly jazz before WFLN gave up classical music):

http://www.aranet.com/library/pdf/doc-0092.pdf
Click to expand...

Sorry, Mark. I am familiar with both stations and was in their areas 15-20 years. I don't remember either WBGO or WRTI carrying either Morning Edition or All Things Considered (just top of the hour newscasts). Since memory is not perfect, I checked the Wayback machine and found no mention of either on their websites from back then. It was in this period that WHYY-FM dropped classical music programming and went all news and information programming. Shortly after this, commercial WFLN dropped it's classical format and WRTI went from all-jazz to a split schedule of 12-hours classical and 12 hours jazz, as well as inheriting the WFLN music library.

WHYY-FM was not alone. Back then, more than now, many public radio stations did use the so-called NPR "tent pole" format with Morning Edition and ATC as the tent poles and fine arts or music the rest of the time. The study to which you provided a link makes clear the problems with this and outside of smaller markets, tent pole stations are much less common today. However, WBGO and WRTI were never tent pole stations.

In recent weeks, I have heard reports on the two NPR news magazines from people at WBGO, WXPN and other music stations which do not carry either news magazine show.
 
For the record, I think every All-News stations in the 70s and maybe 80s used the teletype machine sound effects. That included CBS stations such as 590 WEEI Boston and 880 WCBS New York, plus the three All-News stations owned by Westinghouse, 980 KFWB Los Angeles, 1010 WINS New York and 1060 KYW Philadelphia. WINS and KYW continue to use the teletype machine sound effect today, although the other All-News stations have dropped it.

I've heard it said that due to WEEI's limited 5000 watt signal (plus the proximity to 580 in Worcester that also limits its coverage) CBS decided to sell the station in the 80s. All the other CBS All-News stations at the time were 50,000 watts except 950 WWJ Detroit, which later upgraded to 50,000 watts. CBS later merged with Westinghouse, bringing its four All-News stations (including 670 WMAQ Chicago) under the CBS banner. So that left 980 KFWB Los Angeles as the only CBS All-News station not running 50,000 watts. And in the last decade, All-News was phased out at KFWB, except for morning drive, as CBS plans to sell it off.

As said above, All-News stations in markets smaller than Boston including Detroit, Seattle, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton, go 24/7 with the News format. It's only a quirk how WBZ developed into an All-News station from a Full-Service AC station that had nighttime Talk shows. I suppose David Brudnoy's evening Talk show was so popular, and news-oriented, that CBS kept WBZ doing Talk shows at night, even after the switch to All-News in the daytime. Brudnoy used to say his show was #1 in the evening, so he never got replaced by News. And that kept the overnight Talk show in place as well.
 
robotique said:
...And yes I would love to have an all news outlet in Boston in 2013.

I also think the overlapping BUR/GBH NPR situation is stupid and redundent regardless of what original programming they each may produce.
Click to expand...

Agree on both counts.
 
WNTIRadio said:
YES.

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

Agree. Even though the old WEEI at 590 had a poor signal to the west of Boston, where I lived, it was good knowing that I could (more or less) hear CBS network news at the top of every hour and professional-grade news coverage 24/7. Back in the '70's and early '80's the AM band had yet to be severely compromised with RF interference, and where I lived I could hear WCBS 880, some 180 air miles away, as well or better than WEEI, about 30 miles away.
 
SixtiesGuy said:
Back in the '70's and early '80's the AM band had yet to be severely compromised with RF interference, and where I lived I could hear WCBS 880, some 180 air miles away, as well or better than WEEI, about 30 miles away.
Click to expand...

I used to get WBZ (and WBZA) in the 60s consistently near North Anson, ME - 190 miles away. Good, clear, listenable daytime signal, better than all but one of the local stations (not that there many local stations).
 
I don't know if it's true, but I did hear in the mid-1990's that when 590 (then running a business format) was being sold (and prior to Salem Communications buying it to move WEZE from 1260) that supposedly, CBS/Westinghouse was interested in buying 590, and had they bought the station, WBZ-1030's talk hosts would have been moved to 590, with 590 being all-talk weekdays during the day, all-sports nights and weekends, and WBZ becoming all-news 24/7.

It would have been interesting had this happened.
 
This is not complicated. All-news is expensive to run, and requires a larger staff. Talk is cheap, and requires only a producer (who generally books guests during the day and screens the calls during the show) and a host.

Add to that the fact that all news performs best in AMD and PMD, next best in midday, and worst at night (when people have access to TV news and computers). And then finally factor in that all-news produces very short listening spans (on average) so you need tremendous cumes to get ratings, while talk produces long listening spans allowing you to get higher ratings with fewer listeners, and you begin to understand why "news" is a popular format during the day and not so much at night.

Historically many, maybe most news stations have done other things at night while protecting the core franchise during the daylight hours. The Yankees were on WINS for some years, the Phillies on KYW, WCBS carried sports and other interruptions, WBBM had old time radio and talk shows, and so on.

You can support all news at night only in the largest metropolitan areas, where there is significant nighttime audience available (and activity) to support the need. Otherwise programmers and owners look for less expensive options. (Yes, we ran all news even at 2AM at WMAQ, but it wasn't really viable, it was just a guy reading the same 30 minute script over and over with different time checks and perhaps an updated weather forecast here and there.)

And one last thing: the commercial load for news and talk are virtually identical. News does produce a more desirable income and education profile listener, however (on average. Some talk shows do a bit better, some worse.)
 
You know who should flip to Talk? 97.7
Call it "WRKO FM"
Make this radio station for all Talk Listeners no matter what they are (Democrats, or Republicans so on and so on. Make this station for everyone.
but have mostly LIVE Radio Shows, if not 24/7, almost 24/7.
This is my idea of this
-Weekdays-
Midnight-4a "America Tonight" Genesis Communications (Everything from now until Midnight is on LIVE)
4am-10am "Good Day" Genesis Communications
10am-1pm "Trending Today" Superadio.com
1pm-4pm "Clark Howard" Dial-Global
4pm-7pm "Redding News Review" Genesis Communications
7pm-10pm "Leslie Marshall" Wynmedia
10pm-Midnight "Jim Bohannon" Dial-Global
-Saturday-
Midnight-1am "Jim Bohannon"
1am-5am "Coast To Coast"
5am-7am PSA Programs
7am-9am "Cafe Mocha" Cumulus Media Network
9am-3pm "America Weekend" Envision Radio Network (Everything from 9am-7pm is on LIVE)
3pm-5pm "Angelique Allen" Genesis Communications
5pm-7pm "Truth Frequency Radio" Genesis Communications
7pm-9pm "Ron Seggi" IRN USA Radio Network
9pm-11pm "Baldwin McCullough Show" Genesis Communications (Everything from 9pm until 1am is on LIVE)
11pm-Midnight "Amerika Now" Genesis Communications
-Sunday-
Midnight-1am "Amerika Now" (From now until 5am everything is on LIVE)
1am-5am "Coast to Coast"
5am-7am PSA Programs
7am-9am "Sol Kafe" Radioexpress.com
9am-3pm "America Weekend" Envision Radio Network (From now, everything is on LIVE)
3pm-5pm "Flow of Wisdom" Genesis Communications
5pm-7pm "Truth Frequency Radio"
7pm-10pm "Redding News Review" Genesis Communications
10pm-Midnight "Alison Slade Show" Genesis Communications

There you go, this will be the BEST TALK RADIO STATION IN THE WHOLE WORLD!!!!!
TRUST ME 100%
 
Dude, a good bunch of that is 3rd and 4th tier bird droppings. No one in their right mind would run that crap in a Top 10 market. This is even more outlandish than your Urban AC "suggestions".
If you ever end up programming a radio station get a bankruptcy lawyer on retainer.


LAUROJRM said:
You know who should flip to Talk? 97.7
Call it "WRKO FM"
Make this radio station for all Talk Listeners no matter what they are (Democrats, or Republicans so on and so on. Make this station for everyone.
but have mostly LIVE Radio Shows, if not 24/7, almost 24/7.
This is my idea of this
-Weekdays-
Midnight-4a "America Tonight" Genesis Communications (Everything from now until Midnight is on LIVE)
4am-10am "Good Day" Genesis Communications
10am-1pm "Trending Today" Superadio.com
1pm-4pm "Clark Howard" Dial-Global
4pm-7pm "Redding News Review" Genesis Communications
7pm-10pm "Leslie Marshall" Wynmedia
10pm-Midnight "Jim Bohannon" Dial-Global
-Saturday-
Midnight-1am "Jim Bohannon"
1am-5am "Coast To Coast"
5am-7am PSA Programs
7am-9am "Cafe Mocha" Cumulus Media Network
9am-3pm "America Weekend" Envision Radio Network (Everything from 9am-7pm is on LIVE)
3pm-5pm "Angelique Allen" Genesis Communications
5pm-7pm "Truth Frequency Radio" Genesis Communications
7pm-9pm "Ron Seggi" IRN USA Radio Network
9pm-11pm "Baldwin McCullough Show" Genesis Communications (Everything from 9pm until 1am is on LIVE)
11pm-Midnight "Amerika Now" Genesis Communications
-Sunday-
Midnight-1am "Amerika Now" (From now until 5am everything is on LIVE)
1am-5am "Coast to Coast"
5am-7am PSA Programs
7am-9am "Sol Kafe" Radioexpress.com
9am-3pm "America Weekend" Envision Radio Network (From now, everything is on LIVE)
3pm-5pm "Flow of Wisdom" Genesis Communications
5pm-7pm "Truth Frequency Radio"
7pm-10pm "Redding News Review" Genesis Communications
10pm-Midnight "Alison Slade Show" Genesis Communications

There you go, this will be the BEST TALK RADIO STATION IN THE WHOLE WORLD!!!!!
TRUST ME 100%
Click to expand...
 
radio stations are programmed in a way to make maximized profit upon return of investment.
They won't play programs to appeal to one person, even if that person thinks, hey, maybe it will catch on and other people will like it. It may be playing it safe and perhaps boring but Entercom, CBS, etc. will put on what'll make money, or they'll soon go bankrupt and there will b lost jobs as a result.

Yes sometimes people can take chances and it pays off. Geez Brandon, this "Cheers" show you put on is tanking in the ratings--maybe we should cancel it (but NBC took a chance and it paid off). But not everyone is willing to take chances when big money (or any money) is involved.
 
WRKO did just recently run "Good Day" on Sunday mornings

Ok,
Because I had other (Good ideas)
-Week-
Midnight-4am "America Tonight" Genesis Communications (Everything from now until Midnight is on LIVE)
4am-9am "Good Day" Genesis Communications
9am-10am "Andrea Tantaros" Talk Radio Network
10am-Noon "Trending Today" Superadio.com
Noon-3pm "America's Radio News Network"
3pm-6pm "Rusty Humphries" Talk Radio Network
6pm-9pm "Jerry Doyle" Talk Radio Network
9pm-Midnight "John Batchelor Show" Cumulus Media Network (I know this is on 1120am, but that station signal is so bad in Boston and around this area (also:Note:When 98.5 first started "Sports Hub" they also, besides 1510am, back then, they also had "Sporting News Radio" on overnights)
-Saturday-
Midnight-1am "John Batchelor Show"
1am-5am "Coast To Coast" Premrad.com
5am-7am PSA Programs
7am-9am "Good Day" Genesis Communications
9am-3pm "America Weekend" Envision radio Network
3pm-5pm "Angelique Allen" Genesis Communications
5pm-7pm "Truth Frequency Radio" Genesis Communications
7pm-9pm "Ron Seggi" IRN USA Radio Network
9pm-Midnight "Hollywood 360" Syndication.net
-Sunday-
Midnight-1am "Hollywood 360" Syndication.net
1am-5am "Coast To Coast"
5am-6am PSA Programs
6am-8am "Garden Sense"
8am-9am "Unconventional Wisdom"
9am-3pm "America Weekend" Envision Radio Network
3pm-5pm "Flow of Wisdom" Genesis Communications
5pm-7pm "Truth Frequency Radio" Genesis Communications
7pm-10pm "Redding News Review" Genesis Communications
10pm-Midnight "Alison Slade Show" Genesis Communications

There you go, good ideas, and the best radio station in the world!!
 
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