The Real Howie Carr Show (prelude to departing RKO?)

[raccoonradio]

Howie continues to talk up his desire to leave RKO (again, who knows if it will happen). "I want to get off AM radio to keep my career alive," he said tonight; "I want to go to FM." His last attempt, in '07,
would have had him doing morning drive for WTKK. A Howie regular listener e-mailed or texted him
saying they wished he wouldn't jump to mornings. Howie said he could do either am or pm drive,
but he definitely wants to jump to FM (and its younger audiences, etc.)

Howie, for the record, turned a spritely 60 years old yesterday.

My guess is it's highly unlikely that RKO would placate him by simulcasting WRKO on either 97.7 or
107.3. "See Howie?," Jason Wolfe would say to him. "You're on FM (in Boston)!"
Yeah, I don't think it would happen. (For the record he IS on FM in Bangor ME and Cape Cod)

If he did move on up to WTKK, would his studios have a nice view of the Boston Globe building down the street?

 

[DToTheJ]

If Howie wants to be on FM that bad, he should start auditioning for WEEI!

 

[DavidZ]

I was listening to the opening of Howie's show yesterday and he was saying how VB "outed" him. When Sandy pressed him, Howie mentioned that VB let it slip on the Fox morning show that it was Howie's birthday. Sandy replied something to the effect, so that is why you're dressed up more than usual.

Howie responded that he was dressed up because he had attended a meeting about his plans for later this year. I got the impression that it had to do with a possible new station in his future witout Howie saying as much.

 

[raccoonradio]

Yes that sure sounded like a meeting with new employers..."later this year" (btw Howie also has gone to NYC to meet with folks who are considering making his book "Hitman" into a TV series).
As for WEEI--whose "seagulls" regularly stop by to pick up some Kowloon's food on Tuesdays--yes
you could say that could be an FM home for him, but what would he do--UNC talk etc.?
Believe it or not if it weren't for Dennis and Callahan you could picture WEEI doing Howie in am
drive (mostly politics), then sports the rest of the day (though they still would want a lot of sports content too); I get the feeling his wishes to move to
FM may also have something to do with whom he works with.

And again, I would highly doubt that Ent. would, say, switch 107.3 or 97.7 to a simulcast of WRKO
(stranger things have happened but they must make good money with AAF). If Entercom had another
FM property maybe it would have happened by now, a simulcast of RKO (the latest market where
this has happened is WFLA/Tampa). If, for example, Ent. were to own a 101.7 or 95.9 or some such
station...that could be "the new FM home of WRKO". But as it is by day at least WRKO has a solid
signal all around. After dark, they move to north & south...but they have WCRN to help them out
with Howie (and 95.1 on the Cape etc) and after that it's Savage, Doyle, and Red Eye, all of whom
are also on other stations if one desires to hear them more clearly...and what matters most
is am and pm drive, etc. But had Ent. an FM freq to simulcast WRKO on, it might have happened
already.

 

[Laurence Glavin]

In his column printed in the mostly Boston/sometimes Chicopee Herald today (Wednesday, 1/18), Howie claimed that Whitey Bulger, now an inmate at Plymouth House of Correction (why don't they just call it a prison?) occasionally listens to his radio show via WRKO-AM. Then he gives Whitey this advice: if you lose the signal at sunset, switch to WXTK-FM on the Cape. He doesn't realize that if Whitey, or anyone else in Plymouth gets WRKO-AM during the day, the chances are that said persons will experience very little change at night because AM 680's directional pattern favors the southeast 24 hours a day (145 degrees seems to be the maximum). When I was a yute living in South Lawrence near the Andover line, AM 1260 (then under different call letters, maybe WVDA, came in equally well before the pattern switch and after, although then I didn't know what was happening).

 

[raccoonradio]

Yes and I commented RKO is pretty much north-south after dark (on column's message board) though maybe AM recep is bad within the prison. I joked Howie is stuck for now at "MCI Entercom" (he jokes about it being like stuck in jail). I didn't know about the SE being favored.

 

[DanStrassberg]

When I was a yute living in South Lawrence near the Andover line, AM 1260 (then under different call letters, maybe WVDA, came in equally well before the pattern switch and after, although then I didn't know what was happening).

1260 is ND days and directional, mostly to the north, at night. This has been the case for probably close to 70 years (maybe even a little longer). In Lawrence, I would expect the night signal to be noticeably stronger than the day signal--the equivalent night power to the north is close to 20 kW ND. Nothing can be done to increase 1260's day signal in practically any direction. To the north along the coast, the station that 1260 must not interfere with (any more than it already does) is 1270 in (IIRC) Dover NH, which was added many years after 1260 built its present facilities. Since it has been there, 1270 has had to be a thorn in 1260's side, though it seems unlikely that anyone at Radio Disney knows or cares.

 

[thirdendorsed]

If he did move on up to WTKK, would his studios have a nice view of the Boston Globe building down the street?

Now that would be lovely. Howie could look out the window and watch all the trucks lining up to pick-up the city edition of the Herald, which the Globe starts printing and delivering on Monday, Jan 23. I'm not sure if Wilson-Tisdale trucks will roll for the Herald as it junks its trucks or if we'll continue to live in mortal fear over the braking capability of the yellow Herald monstrosities.

It's all so Purcell can turn Wingo Square into a development; most intelligent people have realized that his acquisition of the Herald was a real estate deal at its core.

Bottom line: Howie needs a radio job. The Herald is so desperately in need of life-support, it has to write checks to the Globe to stay alive.

 

[chrish]

The Herald is doing just fine, they made and continue smart business practices and will likely end up with the Globe and merging the papers as Pinch Sulzburger
continues to bleed $$$$

 

[raccoonradio]

At the very least the Herald will stay alive and the Globe will make money by using its printing presses to
publish (certain editions of) the Herald, as it has done for some other papers. The Herald's print edition is thinner than the Globe, of course; the price is also lower and one doesn't need (yet) to be a subscriber
to read more than the very bare bones of the paper online (as is case with the Globe). Eventually they may have to charge too but who knows, they could keep the online edition going on just advertising. Would they swallow up the
Globe, though? Who knows...