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WBZ New Lineup
- Thread starter dhoule
- Start date
Norm,
I don't agree that Madison stumbles a lot. With traffic, weather, sports, business and other reporters out-of-studio these days, there are several times during the WBZ broadcast day where an anchor will "punch up" a traffic or weather or sports or business report only to get dead air.
Madison, actually, is "cool" and unfazed by any on-air screw-up, and tends to recover rather nicely, especially if this is her first gig out of Emerson College.
There was another female anchor, now doing mostly reporting at Newsradio 1030, who used to stumble more than Madison, the difference being this other anchor/reporter usually didn't recover as smoothly, and it was sometimes painful to listen to.
Let's see what the weekend and this coming Monday bring. As I stated earlier, when someone at 'BZ is MIA for 3 or more weeks, then it's time to worry.
It says something about the state of the industry, at least for air talent, that a major-market, big-billing station like WBZ would be hiring people for on-air roles right out of college. An air shift on WBZ used to be something to aspire to and work your way toward, from small-market to medium-market to major-market. But now, with syndicated talk and satellite-fed/automated music formats dominating at the grass-roots levels, and local news being eliminated at most stations everywhere, the entry level has moved higher.
I'm edging close to retirement from the newspaper business. My first job out of college was at a 5,000-circulation daily in a town of 10,000. I then moved to a city of 55,000 with a paper circulating about 30,000. Some colleagues took the next step up (metro dailies in secondary markets, major markets for those with outstanding talent); others like me settled down and became "lifers" at this level. Of course now, those 30,000-circulation papers are at 15,000 or less (sometimes MUCH less) and have become the entry level papers for the few college grads who want to get into newspaper work, so it's understandable that the quality of the product has declined.
I'm edging close to retirement from the newspaper business. My first job out of college was at a 5,000-circulation daily in a town of 10,000. I then moved to a city of 55,000 with a paper circulating about 30,000. Some colleagues took the next step up (metro dailies in secondary markets, major markets for those with outstanding talent); others like me settled down and became "lifers" at this level. Of course now, those 30,000-circulation papers are at 15,000 or less (sometimes MUCH less) and have become the entry level papers for the few college grads who want to get into newspaper work, so it's understandable that the quality of the product has declined.
You have one example, and that says something about the state of an entire industry? Isn't she surrounded by a mostly veteran staff? Won't they help train her? Isn't it good for the industry to bring a few young people in, especially a young woman? I don't see this as a negative. I think it's helpful to bring in newcomers to a veteran staff.
I agree with CTListener fully.
WBZ is no place for people right out of college, unless there is some kind of Devine intervention where these old souls sound like they have 20 years of experience.
Being this is Iheart, and me being familiar with their penny pinching business model at the expense of good programming, why should their treatment of WBZ be any different?
I have a feeling that these newbies get paid less than the veterans, who most have been fired.
Sherry Small and Madison Rogers should not do live anchoring at this time. The mistakes come fast and furious.
To be fair, I've never been to The Iheart studios, so I have no idea whether they
have the opportunity to practice reading the copy BEFORE they have to read it on the air, or whether they have trouble reading copy to begin with.
WBZ is no place for people right out of college, unless there is some kind of Devine intervention where these old souls sound like they have 20 years of experience.
Being this is Iheart, and me being familiar with their penny pinching business model at the expense of good programming, why should their treatment of WBZ be any different?
I have a feeling that these newbies get paid less than the veterans, who most have been fired.
Sherry Small and Madison Rogers should not do live anchoring at this time. The mistakes come fast and furious.
To be fair, I've never been to The Iheart studios, so I have no idea whether they
have the opportunity to practice reading the copy BEFORE they have to read it on the air, or whether they have trouble reading copy to begin with.
So is that the requirement that the company should place on all job applicants? They must sound like they're old?
Seems to me the ability to read news copy isn't a function of age or education. Either one can read or one can't.
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What bias?
Delivery is more of a talent than a college-taught skill. College is big on textbooks and theory, and short on practical experience; I have worked at immensely successful stations where the owner refused to interview fresh college grads as they "were big on ideas and short on skills".
While a college degree is helpful, particularly in covering and writing news, delivery is a very different subject.
Radio's revenue is down, as I have said about a hundred times before, by about 60% in inflation adjusted dollars since 2005. Stations can't afford the salaries and staff size that used to be common.
Oh, yeah, it is worse in newspapers. Until I finally cancelled, I would count the spelling, grammatical and usage errors in my local paper each day. And forget any concept of the inverted pyramid or any newspaper writing technique.
Nearly no news operation gives a rehearsal for newscasts.
Training is a key element to media today. In my #119 revenue ranked market, the TV stations have rather common turnover. The best operation is a farm team for people who jump right to markets like Phoenix, San Diego, LA, Chicago. That is because they have a news director who coaches them. They start with "OMG, how terrible" to "she/he's getting better" to "they ought to be in LA 'cause they are better than some people there".
It is interesting to see how fast that operation moves people up to major market level. But they start with pretty raw material. And they are doing a great job with minorities and women, too.
In radio, there are no small market all news operations. So it can be expected to see people with potential getting trained right on the air.
Of course, I enjoy seeing talent develop. I feel pleased as someone gets better and more polished. And I know that I was pretty awful when I started off, so I root for the underdog!
Now "bias" is the same as "reality check"?
I have never worked in a small market. I wouldn't know what that's like. I started in a Top 20 market because that's where I went to college. I was hired straight out of college doing on-air work. I was taught by a legend who had 30 years experience. I was the youngest person in the building. They took a chance and it worked out for both of us. It was learning by doing, under deadline pressure. I've seen hundreds more come up the same way. It's not unusual for a college intern in a major market to get hired right out of college. In ANY line of work. They get to know you that way, and they'd rather hire someone they've seen than some unknown from a thousand miles away. That's the other thing about this new reader: She's lived in Boston for at least 4 years. She's not some import from Indiana. She knows how to pronounce street names and she knows where things are. Boston is a big college town, and employers would be crazy to overlook the college talent that already live in town.
When I started in radio while in junior high, I was in market #8, Cleveland. I was "adopted" by the staff of WJMO and WCUY (r&b and jazz) as their "token white boy" and trained at the start to do the stuff they did not want to do... cleaning the john, filing records, emptying ash trays (ugh!) and the like. Of course, food runs were a key part of the job description.
They took me to station events, even smuggled me into jazz night clubs. I helped in voter registration, even going to Mississippi with a group of them to register in a town outside of Meridian called Newton. And I learned how to write copy, log the transmitter, run the board, type the log and a lot of other things. After a year of doing this for free, I got to do board shifts and other paid stuff. I even changed high schools to be closer to the station, which was right across the street.
After four years of that, I went for a school year in Mexico. Instead of even visiting the school, I got the chance to be an intern at Grupo Radio Centro, which had 5 AMs in Mexico City, the largest market in our hemisphere. Their slogan was "Every station #1 in its type". I learned how to manage a cluster while carting newscasts and running copies to the five studios and stuff like that. As an intern, the union even let me run the board under supervision for the different stations.
My point is that I became skilled enough to jump the next year into successful ownership. I did not finish high school (got a GED 10 years later) and did not go to college (did that a decade later, Dean's List and all... but nearly no broadcasting courses).
My school was the studio, the transmitter site, the production room, the manager's office. I was fortunate to have good teachers like Hawkins (PD at WJMO) and Garza (group PD at GRC) to teach me and to tell the rest of the staff to guide me.
But I learned on the job. Not in a classroom,
In the current virus environment, we have a harder time training as "newbies" can't watch others do their job and emulate. Isolation is not a good teacher. So recent hires are going to grow in a slower manner and we have to be tolerant, remembering, too, that many of the senior radio folks are in the most susceptible group and are now retired, fired (euphemism of choice: downsized) or staying at home and unable to train.
So the armchair critics should be a bit more patient given both the status of the industry and the current pandemic.
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I believe Kristina Rex works for WBZ-TV, as Newsradio 1030 didn't completely sever ALL connections with its TV namesake, thanks be to God. (Of course, there is that unfortunate thing where Jon Keller can't do his "Keller at Large" or "Eye on Politics" anymore.)
Drew Mulholland was/is a producer or news writer for WBZ Radio.
But back to your first comment: YES, Madison is one of my favorite anchors, too! Nice voice, "cool", calm delivery.
And let me be the first to say that Shari Small, an excellent reporter, was heard anchoring last week with nary a flub; she's come a long way from when she came onboard in, what?, 2017.
No, but there are long-form newscasts, which is essentially the same thing, just a shorter shift. A 30-minute newscast on WSVX in Shelbyville, Indiana would be a perfectly adequate training ground.
The problem is that being "the news department" for WSVX requires a fairly intimate connection to Shelbyville. They'd be better off to hire a long-time resident of the community to fill that role and teach that person broadcasting, than to hire a 22 year old broadcasting graduate from Boston University looking for their start in radio. They know that person is going to stick around for a year or two at most, and leave them with a vacancy just as soon as they get comfortable working with all the movers and shakers in town.
Very much so. When I started, I was awful. If they had hired me as a substitute anchor at WBZ straight from college, I'd have been demoted to an off-air position on day 1!
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