The Station Operation at 1510 just doesn't get it

[listenerX]

I've been hearing things from people on the left talking about this show that represents them now and I admit I perked up a bit, I was interested in listening. I asked some questions, found out when it was on and tuned in this past Monday. Now to me a listener and potential advertiser, Monday morning is one of your bigger days, everyones back to work, news from the weekend and what have you.

Then I hear what his show had to offer and for no reason its a recorded show of what someone "considered" a "Best Of". Calling it difficult to listen to is an under statement! Just your random, non-holiday Monday and you do a recorded show? Who's calling the shots there? Very bad PR move in my eyes. I will certainly no longer consider this show as a potential one I would advertise on! If you want to take the day off thats fine, but atleast have a fill in host. After hearing not even 10 minutes I turned the station and never turned back that day.

On top of this, the station is false advertising a live show in the afternoons supposedly hosted by the same guy Santos. Its recorded, because I tried calling and the phone rang about 20 times before I rang it again and someone answered saying it was a recording.

Even after that discovery, I gave this morning show another chance and listened later in the week and realized when they are live for some reason they take longer commercial breaks than WEEI does, honestly I didn't think that was possible! Worst thing is they were all terrible commercials. More importantly the local shows content wasn't even local other than the news read at the top of the hour. No talk about the mayor race, no talk about the senate race, nothing from the globe or herald, no relevant local stories, it was like their in their own little bubble there at 1510 talking about whatever they feel like with little preparation or planning. Honestly it came off very fake.

Its obvious the executives in charge don't know what their doing and I'm not going to advertize with an unorganized company.

I'm venting this because I expressed my concerns to a friend of mine who works in radio in NY and he directed me to this site.

 

[raccoonradio]

They're buying time on a station they don't own

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Save_progressive_radio_boston/
is a yahoo group for fans of prog talk in Boston and they aren't shy about airing their opinions about 1510.
Recent posts were disgust with Jeff Santos talking about sports, or talk about (the band) Green Day. Some
are not happy that the first hour of Stephanie Miller isn't being run and others bemoan the loss of one hour
of Thom Hartmann in favor of the Ch 5 news.

One post:
>>The 6-7P hour is no longer rebroadcasts if (sic) Santos and Miller. It is a non-news "News" hour with more of Santo's endlessly rambling questions.

 

[Deleted User]

As long as Santos is paying Blackstrap, nobody cares what he is doing.

If he wants to send a test tone to the transmitter site, hey it's his business.

The only thing he has to do is run the properly formatted legal ID's at the prescribed times and events, and run EAS tests when he is supposed to.

If anyone doesn't like it, they can come up with their own business plan and buy time on a station.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

The only thing he has to do is run the properly formatted legal ID's at the prescribed times and events, and run EAS tests when he is supposed to.

Are EAS tests Santos responsibility? I thought it would be the responsibility of the board-op on duty (Santos would just have to make sure there were programming breaks available, EAS tests could run during unsold spot breaks, etc...), and is the board-op hired by Santos or by the station (Blackstrap)?

 

[Deleted User]

Now you have got me wondering how they are doing that arrangement.

Is Santos running it on a LMA? Or is it typical leased time with Blackstrap running the show behind the scenes with their own staff?

I know some stations in the market sell huge blocks of time to a client, say M-F 6A to 6P, but the client has no operational input and the licensee handles everything from top of the hour ID's , EAS tests, and all regulatory issues, the client just supplies a check and programming, your basic leased time agreement.

As for the EAS chances are 1510 is just resending what WBZ-FM sends out in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

 

[WLYNWAZNgm]

EAS tests

EAS weekly and monthly tests, or activation of an actual EAS alert, are
the responsibility of the station - the legal, licensed station.
You will not hear any of these tests or alerts on a pirate station. They
do not properly serve the public as they are, in fact, self-serving criminals.

Stations can set up EAS several different ways. They have some
leeway with tests. They can receive them and rebroadcast them
later, (with a board op) within a certain amount of time, when it is more convenient
for inclusion in their program schedule. If they are running unattended, and
automation is involved, they can have the test sent out immediately
after it is received. (what we do here...) At that point it is downstreamed
- it will just blow right over whatever otherprogram content that is on the air.
An actual alert is downstreamed. Period. Immediate information sent to the
entire coverage area, in real time.

As far as the "Save Progressive Radio" group -- they are a non-issue. A handful
of the regular participants have any clue at all about the radio business and
how it works. The remainder (most) just want a place to whine, bitch and moan,
and advance their own political agendas. It is fun to read, only as nonsensical comedy...

 

[listenerX]

I have since discovered more since the last posting. I was not aware the morning host was the owner of the station format. That seems fishy and somewhat arrogant. Certainly hope he has people around him familiar with the business, because right now his work is not cutting it as far as interesting radio goes. I'll get more info about local and the left from listening to right wingers like Carr and Graham than its seems out of that morning mess.

 

[Deleted User]

I have since discovered more since the last posting. I was not aware the morning host was the owner of the station format. That seems fishy and somewhat arrogant. Certainly hope he has people around him familiar with the business, because right now his work is not cutting it as far as interesting radio goes. I'll get more info about local and the left from listening to right wingers like Carr and Graham than its seems out of that morning mess.

Welcome to the current state of radio. Do you think all those financial help/restaurant review/ snake oil shows you listen to are on the air because the station pays them? Many hosts you listen to are buying blocks of time from the stations licensee and either promoting their own product, or selling advertising spots to pay for the time in return for promotional consideration.

1510 has a huge overhead, and they have failed at everything they have tried in the last 15 years. If the current ownership has someone who is willing to write them a check every week, or month, that they can pay off the debt and expenses with, they are not going to care what goes out over the air as long as they are getting paid.

If you think you can do better, and you have the drive, and the cash to put up, I have a nice little station I can sell you air time on, 30 grand a month , one year contract, personally guaranteed by you, put up 60 grand security deposit and I can have you on the air next week.

 

[raccoonradio]

1510 does have a TV ad now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNqVvDmfyyo

 

[Don Juan]

1510 has a huge overhead, and they have failed at everything they have tried in the last 15 years.

Maybe even longer! I was just trying to think of the last time 1510AM had any kind of success as a radio station.

Seems to me the last time they had any success (lasting more than 12 months) was when they were a talk station (WITS: W-eather, I-nformation, T-alk, S-ports).

What year did Pat Whitley leave and try his hand at WTTP 1060AM?

 

[DanStrassberg]

What year did Pat Whitley leave and try his hand at WTTP 1060AM?

I know it was after 1981 because that's the year that 1060 first went full-time. There was a period when Garabedian continued to program the station. He switched it from Top 40 to all news as The News... G-1060. Yes, the news was produced locally by long-time news director Jim MacAlister, who had been with the station from the time it signed on in November 1972 and Malcolm Alter, whose next gig was Metro, where he continues to work to this day. Two guys doing the news 24/7? I believe so; they would record the news wheel for an hour and run it over and over and over and over. Great radio... NOT! That was followed by satellite-delivered adult standards using ABC's Stardust service. At that point it was WSTD. (I still can't believe those calls!) I think Whitley's WTTP (Touch... Talk... People) came after that. WTTP probably began in 1983 and continued into 1984. I can't remember what came after WTTP; I just remember that the night signal kept getting worse and worse by the month. At one point, the station had studios in Brighton--on Commonwealth Ave, maybe. I don't know what the calls or format were at that time (WBIV?), but I'm quite sure that by then, the night signal had become totally unlistenable in Brighton.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

I know it was after 1981 because that's the year that 1060 first went full-time...

I just remember that the night signal kept getting worse and worse by the month. At one point, the station had studios in Brighton--on Commonwealth Ave, maybe. I don't know what the calls or format were at that time (WBIV?), but I'm quite sure that by then, the night signal had become totally unlistenable in Brighton.

I worked at 1060 during that incarnation as a part-time on-call/fill-in board-op. It was WBIV ("Boston's Inspirational Voice") from 1987 through 1994. I occasionally worked there from 1992 through 1994. The studios were on Comm. Ave in Allston, near Brighton Ave. The programming was mostly brokered Spanish religion, sometimes defaulting to national Christian programming from owners Satellite Radio Network during unsold periods. The night signal was barely audible at the studios, just enough to tell whether it was on the air, but the reception was too painful to monitor. We monitored program from the board, occasionally flipping to air briefly just to make sure it was still on the air and modulating.

WBIV 1060 left the air and went dark fifteen years ago today, as SRN had recently built 890 in Dedham (as then WBMA, the future WAMG, which is also now dark at the moment) and transferred their ownership and programming to it. Alex Langer returned 1060 to the air from Framingham in early 1997 as WJLT ("Jesus the Light"), a 1 kW daytimer running satellite Christian programming (in AM stereo!!).

In 2000, Langer brought 1060 up to 40 kW days, dropped AM stereo, and switched the calls to Boston's third incarnation of WMEX with an ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful talk format featuring locally well-known hosts (including the late Jerry Williams). Business news programming began the following year as WBIX. I won't get into the well-publicized soap opera surrounding the stations circumstances in the early 2000's, but as a technical note, 1060 resumed night broadcasting a few years later from the Ashland site with 2.5 kW, making full use of that nighttime allowance this time.

 

[mxpw]

You guys are on point on the 1510 operation. Heres some facts from someone who does business with them.
#1 Jeff Santos buys 6am to 6pm.
#2 They air sports at night, harvard, and others, from what the gm has told me they will be moving in more left wing talk in the overnights and possibly flip the entire format for the right price.
#3 Thursday night they have a local block of programming called the fight block featuring 4 hours of mma wrestling and boxing talk.
#4 The rest of time is sold on a time buy ranging from 500-800 per hour, some shows actually barter product for time.
#5 They air a show called best of Jeff and Steph, which is utterly awful.
#6 They now air the channel 5 news
#7 Even on the time buy programming they ask the people to play ads, which 95 percent of them are public service announcements, they do have a local strip club that sponsors the fight block
#8 If you buy an hour you only get 48 minutes of the hour, but you can decide where the ads play as long as they play, alot of the shows will do a 25-30 minute segment then do 4-6 minutes of ads.
#9 Blackstrap is owned by Davidson which sells almost all the time they own on there various stations.

They only have 3 people on staff and no sales department. Our show has been looking for a new station for awhile but everyone else charges double.

Have a good one

 

[raccoonradio]

Supposedly the 6 pm hour is Santos (either new material or re-broadcast from the morning) but no longer
S. Miller, acc. to posts either here or on the yahoo group...on that group it was said they would run Malloy
10-mid., Leslie Marshall at Midnight, and Norman Goldman 3-5 am, though Malloy's debut was supposedly
pre-empted by having Santos talking to candidates for local election. They will do some election coverage tonight. (The yahoo group says there were satellite issues w/ Malloy's and Goldman's shows, hence
perhaps the re-airing of some Santos bits.) Marshall btw is on WWKB 1520 Buffalo earlier in the evening.
The signal does very well into New England.

Speaking of election coverage, I assume results and talk will be aired on WBZ (Rea) and WTKK (McPhee;
wonder if she will stay on past 10?). AFAIK WRKO sticking with Savage and Doyle; don't know if they will
have some local content. It's poss. Hank Morse could help out on WTKK--he did the night of the
mayoral debate last wk

 

[DanStrassberg]

Alex Langer returned 1060 to the air from Framingham in early 1997 as WJLT ("Jesus the Light"), a 1 kW daytimer running satellite Christian programming (in AM stereo!!).

When WJLT went on the air in 1997 as a nondirectional daytimer, it ran only 500W. The power was half what the station had run as WGTR from the short tower on Kendall Ave in S Natick, because the tall top-loaded WKOX tower into which WJLT and WSRO were triplexed was so much more efficient than the old 140' stick. Even at 1060, the WKOX tower, which was designed for 1200, was taller than half wave--enough taller, apparently, that the ground system, which was shorter than 1/4 wave at 1060, did not reduce the inverse-distance field below 281.7 mV/m @ 1 km, which is the minimum for a 1 kW Class D AM. The towers on Sewell St are electrically shorter by a few degrees than the WKOX towers but the Sewell St towers have an oversized ground system, which probably makes them more efficient at 1060 than the Mt Waitt towers.

 

[FPB]

Re: EAS tests

As far as the "Save Progressive Radio" group -- they are a non-issue. A handful
of the regular participants have any clue at all about the radio business and
how it works. The remainder (most) just want a place to whine, bitch and moan,
and advance their own political agendas. It is fun to read, only as nonsensical comedy...
[/quote]

How many casual listeners GIVE A DAMN about YOUR station?

 

[NHRadio]

Have you considered WLYN/WAZN? Decent coverage, a 57 minute hour, and less than half of what you're paying now. I'll be happy to put you in touch with them. Send me a PM.

They only have 3 people on staff and no sales department. Our show has been looking for a new station for awhile but everyone else charges double.

Have a good one

 

[in3media_be1]

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