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WBNW 1120/Money Matters Radio

what's to know? Money Matters is probably like every other financial show on the air, they pay to play, and use the radio show to generate sales leads and give themselves the appearance of being big time players.

Ask Brad Bleidt how that helps you in the business
 
MRBIboredop said:
what's to know? Money Matters is probably like every other financial show on the air, they pay to play, and use the radio show to generate sales leads and give themselves the appearance of being big time players.

Ask Brad Bleidt how that helps you in the business

Money Matters Radio owns WBNW. I believe they also own WPLM-AM as well.
 
Still pay for play in my book, they probably bought the stations for short money and use it to drive business to the investment business and related clients.

Considering WADN was pretty much bankrupt when Barry Armstrong bought it and flipped it to the former 590 calls and format I can't see that he paid much for it.
 
I enjoy it, if business content is your cup of tea, where else can you get it weekdays? wbix ends up going to health. ZGlad to see it working for them. I did some workt here in early 09. their studio space is awesome.
 
SharkBites said:
I enjoy it, if business content is your cup of tea, where else can you get it weekdays? wbix ends up going to health. ZGlad to see it working for them. I did some workt here in early 09. their studio space is awesome.

I agree. Barry Armstrong hired Scotty McCall as GM of WBNW and WESO and he seems to have come up with a formula that sounds good on the air and apparently makes money (or at least doesn't lose much). I believe that it's leased time (or some clever variation of leased time) that doesn't have the sleazy sound of leased time. There must be some sort of trade-out deal between most of the guests and the station--seems unlikely that actual money changes hands--but whatever the deal is, the station sounds professional and, unlike WBIX, which, despite calling itself a business station, seems to carry more "health" shows than business shows, WBNW seems to be almost 100% financial. (I've got to say that I HAVE heard some WBNW guests and maybe even program "hosts" promoting deals that sound questionable to me, but I am not a financial advisor, so what do I know?) Since WBIX has by far a better signal than WBNW--at least during the day--I would have hoped that the innovative programming that sounds pretty good would be on the station with the better signal, but, at least so far, it hasn't worked out that way.
 
DanStrassberg said:
SharkBites said:
I enjoy it, if business content is your cup of tea, where else can you get it weekdays? wbix ends up going to health. ZGlad to see it working for them. I did some workt here in early 09. their studio space is awesome.

I agree. Barry Armstrong hired Scotty McCall as GM of WBNW and WESO and he seems to have come up with a formula that sounds good on the air and apparently makes money (or at least doesn't lose much). I believe that it's leased time (or some clever variation of leased time) that doesn't have the sleazy sound of leased time. There must be some sort of trade-out deal between most of the guests and the station--seems unlikely that actual money changes hands--but whatever the deal is, the station sounds professional and, unlike WBIX, which, despite calling itself a business station, seems to carry more "health" shows than business shows, WBNW seems to be almost 100% financial. (I've got to say that I HAVE heard some WBNW guests and maybe even program "hosts" promoting deals that sound questionable to me, but I am not a financial advisor, so what do I know?) Since WBIX has by far a better signal than WBNW--at least during the day--I would have hoped that the innovative programming that sounds pretty good would be on the station with the better signal, but, at least so far, it hasn't worked out that way.

thanks Dan. i hear that talks are going on with some FM stations and also possibly WBZ for Barry and Scotty's show in the morning.......I hear that's why BZ did that piece on them but not sure how true that is........they could always help out the troubled WRKO team??!!
 
OreoJoe417 said:
thanks Dan. i hear that talks are going on with some FM stations and also possibly WBZ for Barry and Scotty's show in the morning.......I hear that's why BZ did that piece on them but not sure how true that is........they could always help out the troubled WRKO team??!!

I doubt whether things have gotten bad enough for WBZ to carry Money Matters on weekday mornings. Weekend mornings I could believe. I also believe that if WBZ ran a financial show on Saturday mornings, there would be howls of listener protests that might cause the station to back off. They MIGHT get away with doing it on Sunday mornings, though. But even then, I think Armstrong & Co would have to settle for an early time--5:00AM to 7:00AM, maybe--so that the news could run uninterrupted after it started. On WRKO, I would not rule out ANY time weekends or weekdays--especially if they lose Limbaugh to WKO--I mean WXKS (AM). Once that happens, I think WRKO will broker any and all times that it can sell. They may be a little picky about the program content (no colon cleansers at dinner time), but nothing much more restrictive than that.
 
DanStrassberg said:
I doubt whether things have gotten bad enough for WBZ to carry Money Matters on weekday mornings. Weekend mornings I could believe. I also believe that if WBZ ran a financial show on Saturday mornings, there would be howls of listener protests that might cause the station to back off. They MIGHT get away with doing it on Sunday mornings, though. But even then, I think Armstrong & Co would have to settle for an early time--5:00AM to 7:00AM, maybe--so that the news could run uninterrupted after it started. On WRKO, I would not rule out ANY time weekends or weekdays--especially if they lose Limbaugh to WKO--I mean WXKS (AM). Once that happens, I think WRKO will broker any and all times that it can sell. They may be a little picky about the program content (no colon cleansers at dinner time), but nothing much more restrictive than that.

WBZ has already conceded some of their "all news" programming on Sundays with the addition of the Ric Edleman show in late mornings being discussed in another thread - http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=160336.0

What makes you think they wouldn't add more shows?

I think if the price is right WBZ, and any other station for that matter, would take any program in a heartbeat even colon cleansers.
 
MRBIboredop said:
Considering WADN was pretty much bankrupt when Barry Armstrong bought it and flipped it to the former 590 calls and format I can't see that he paid much for it.

Barry Armstrong did not buy the station when it was WADN and did not flip the calls to WBNW. Ned Crecelius did that. He had worked in sales at the old WEEI 590 when it flipped to business talk and became WBNW. When Salem bought 590 (from Peter Ottmar, IIRC) and flipped it to brokered religion, Crecelius was out of a job. That's when he bought 1120, and since Salem had flipped the 590 calls to WEZE, he was able to get the WBNW calls for 1120. (The WEZE calls came to 590 from 1260, which Salem had flipped to WPZE.) I believe that Crecelius owned 1120 for more than five years and I don't believe he started the business format right after he bought it. Even though he had experience selling business talk at 590, I think 1120 remained WADN and continued to carry the folk format--at least in some dayparts--for a year or more. He really seemed to want to make the folk format work, but he couldn't. If I'm not mistaken 1120 was already WBNW and had a business format when Armstrong bought it. Crecelius stayed on and worked for Armstrong (in sales, I imagine) after Armstrong bought him out. At first and for a long, long time thereafter, 1120 did not do well at all as a business station. Even if it is barely breaking even now (I do not know whether that is or is not the case), this is the first time since the folk format that the station has sounded reasonably good.
 
I hope fellow R-I Boston Scott Fybush doesn't mind me posting this, from his NERW site at WWW.fybush.com/nerw.html From the 5 years ago section...

A strange story from central MASSACHUSETTS this week: it's not every day that much of the staff of a radio station walks out, taking the station's music library with them. It happened at WESO (970 Southbridge), the result of a feud between the station's new general manager, Dick Vaughn, and his predecessor, Joe Grivalski. Grivalski, who's known as "Joe G" on the air, co-hosted WESO's morning show with Derek Moison until last week, when the two abruptly left the station. With no music on hand - Grivalski owned most of the station's CDs and took them with him when he left - WESO was left with dead air for a while Wednesday morning, until the station's Jones satellite classic country was put back on the air, reports the Southbridge Evening News. The paper quotes station owner Barry Armstrong (who also owns Concord's WBNW 1120) as saying Grivalski had been removed as GM because he failed to make the station profitable. For his part, Grivalski told the News that Vaughn wouldn't talk to him or Moison, calling Vaughn "the most unethical and unprofessional man I've met in my life." And Armstrong, in turn, told the News that Moison and Grivalski "took the coward's way out" by walking out of the station. (It's a change, anyway, from the usual "resigned to pursue other career interests" that we're so accustomed to...) For the moment, WESO's running the Jones satellite programming in morning drive, with no word on who might replace Grivalski and Moison in the long run.
 
About a year ago, after I brought to Scott McCall's attention the fact that the WBNW TOH legal IDs were illegal because they IDed WBNW as WBNW Boston (the station is licensed to Concord and does not come close to providing CoL coverage to Boston), he promptly changed the recorded ID to say WBNW Concord-Boston, which is legal. WBNW is free to mention (and does mention) only Boston in the IDs that air at times other than TOH. Well, after about a year on good behavior, WBNW is again IDing at TOH as WBNW Boston.

Also, although it sounds as if WBNW is reducing its power at night at some point, I've listened for a pattern change at February sunset (5:15PM--I listened from about 5:05 to 6:00PM) and did not hear it. It sounds to me as if the station is backsliding into its old ways of playing fast and loose with FCC regulations.

Although WBNW's on-air product has shown a dramatic improvement recently, it does not excuse a lack of attention to the detail of complying with the terms of the station's license. Why should the ownership and management expose themselves to being hassled and potentially fined by the FCC when the cost of complying is negligible--or zero? Barry Armstrong has made himself a rather potent media force in this market, with his regular appearances on TV and major radio stations. Yet he runs the risk of getting negative publicity for running a radio station that does not operate within the terms of its license. That sort of negligence is not smart--especially when complying would cost so little, probably nothing.
 
DanStrassberg said:
Although WBNW's on-air product has shown a dramatic improvement recently, it does not excuse a lack of attention to the detail of complying with the terms of the station's license. Why should the ownership and management expose themselves to being hassled and potentially fined by the FCC when the cost of complying is negligible--or zero?

Probably for the same reason that there are more than a dozen pirate stations proliferating in the Boston area. Lack of FCC enforcement. Perhaps they figure that enforcement is so unlikely that it's worth the small risk to hold on to the few daytime listeners that they would lose on night pattern, and to delude potential sponsors into thinking they're a Boston station with a false ID.
 
(IMHO:)Twelve years of radical deregulation (1984 - 1996) gives today's laissez-faire pseudo-broadcasters all the sense of entitlement they need to ignore the FCC's eviscerated regulations, whether the agency enforces those remaining rules or not.

I wholeheartedly encourage that type of operator to continue in that mode of behavior until by chance they do receive an enormous fine for not watching a clock and flipping a switch.
 
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