Weekday Infomercial Expands on RKO

[blackgold]

Talk Radio 68 will soon be a fond memory. And we will welcome back the Big 68! Now Radio for Boston. Bring back the Million Dollar Weekends and Much More Music in AM Stereo. And of course, HD3 simulcasts on WAAF-FM and WKAF-FM!

 

[DanStrassberg]

Anyone see the irony of Barry going head to head now against his long running Money Matters radio show that he formally hosted with the move to 9 a.m.? Does Barry Armstrong still have a vested interest in the station(s) running the syndicated Money Matters radio shows?

His 9-11A show on WRKO will be simulcast on WBNW and WESO (the stations Armstrong owns) and WPLM (AM) (the station Armstrong has been LMAing and which has been // WBNW) as well as the stations that Armstrong doesn't own that have been simulcasting the 9-11A show from WBNW. I don't know how many such stations there are or where they are, but I think there are at least two or three of them and at least one is not in New England.

 

[Laurence Glavin]

Does anybody out there know if at least the 11:00 am to noon Laura Ingraham show is live with the noon-to1:00 pm segment on tape delay, or are both hours on tape delay? (Don't forget that Ingraham's show was carried live for the whole three hours on WNSH-AM 1570 for a long time. Can't happen now).

 

[Smoke]

Wow, from Jerry Williams doing middays to this, in just over a decade? RIP WRKO.

 

[thirdendorsed]

If I can be Assistant PD, I would make that station SHINE!!!!!

Indeed. The entire industry is built on assistant program directors.

 

[ChrisNH]

I don't listen to AM radio any more...a vast plea for advertising dollars is all AM radio exists for. As soon as WBZ started making every single thing they said a 'Brought to you by...' sponsor-fest, and as soon as their top-of-the-hour news came one or two minutes late because they were too busy squashing in commercials, I gave up. That I'm an Arbitron meter household gives me tremendous satisfaction because I only listen to Podcasts exclusively in the car. Happily, my listening choices are extrapolated across many more listeners because I wear a meter. Because WBZ felt the need to bludgeon me with their endless commercials several years ago, I quite happily bludgeon them right back with my Arbitron meter. And I get paid by Arbitron to do that bludgeoning!

 

[Laurence Glavin]

I don't listen to AM radio any more...a vast plea for advertising dollars is all AM radio exists for. As soon as WBZ started making every single thing they said a 'Brought to you by...' sponsor-fest, and as soon as their top-of-the-hour news came one or two minutes late because they were too busy squashing in commercials, I gave up. That I'm an Arbitron meter household gives me tremendous satisfaction because I only listen to Podcasts exclusively in the car. Happily, my listening choices are extrapolated across many more listeners because I wear a meter. Because WBZ felt the need to bludgeon me with their endless commercials several years ago, I quite happily bludgeon them right back with my Arbitron meter. And I get paid by Arbitron to do that bludgeoning!

Why haven't you been able to boost WXKS-AM 1200's rating?

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

I don't listen to AM radio any more...

Why haven't you been able to boost WXKS-AM 1200's rating?

What part of "I don't listen to AM radio any more" do you not understand?

 

[DanStrassberg]

I have read this thread a couple of times and I am amazed by the posts that suggest that the people writing them are under the impression that the Program Director had something to do with the decision to run paid programming Mondays through Fridays from 9:00AM to 11:00AM. I suspect that Sales Department presented the PD with a fait accompli. Either Armstrong called the Sales Director and suggested that he would like to move his program from the noon to 1:00PM slot into the 9:00AM to 11:00AM slot (a time period in which Armstrong had been successful on smaller stations for several years before he started buying time from WRKO) or the Sales director, remembering Armstrong's former success in that time slot, came up with the idea of resurrecting the Money Matters program on the big 680 signal and Armstrong jumped at it. WRKO is obviously in some financial difficulty and no executive there would be likely to keep his job if he turned away a two-hour-a-day five day a week buy from a client whose checks don't bounce.

 

[Laurence Glavin]

I don't listen to AM radio any more...

Why haven't you been able to boost WXKS-AM 1200's rating?

What part of "I don't listen to AM radio any more" do you not understand?

Once you became an Arbitron "family", it must have occurred to you that you COULD boost the rating of a preferred station, especially one that parrots your bizarre opinions. Thus for the duration, you could have made WXKS-AM a listening choice. Lately, it HAS edged up above the 6-figure cume, but I guess that's happened without your participation.

 

[raccoonradio]

I noticed Armstrong or some others of his type are doing market updates on WEEI now. Before, WEEI
would stick to sports (and yes, some brief political discussion) and you'd have to turn elsewhere for
news, weather, traffic, etc. But now biz news is making a very small inroads onto Sports Radio 93.7

...because it makes Entercom $$$$$

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

Once you became an Arbitron "family", it must have occurred to you that you COULD boost the rating of a preferred station, especially one that parrots your bizarre opinions. Thus for the duration, you could have made WXKS-AM a listening choice. Lately, it HAS edged up above the 6-figure cume, but I guess that's happened without your participation.

Why *must* it have occurred to him? You may find this difficult to believe, but the entire world does not revolve around politics OR radio. Just because someone has a certain set of political views does not mean that he must immediately do what he can to boost the ratings of a radio station that airs similar views.

 

[Laurence Glavin]

Today's (Saturday 02/18) NY Times has a feature story on the price of gasoline and how it could be used by Republicans to hammer President Obama on the economy. In the body of the article it's mentioned that the price of oil on the spot market is out any administration's control. Turmoil in the Middle East, ranging from violence in Syria to changes in government elsewhere there plus Iran's threat to close off the Strait of Hormuz, has led to a price runup on the options market. A growing middle class in Asia is also impacting gasoline prices. Now neutrino-brained presidential candidates are saying THEY could lower gasoline prices! Duh. They've made so many promises to turn the clock back (including women's health issues) they're issuing tiny diamond-shaped stickers to put at 640 and 1240 on any radios people own to bring back the Conelrad days. Since WEEI-AM&FM and WRKO are right-wing tinged, they may be inserting "business reports" only to portray the economy as still in decline.

 

[raccoonradio]

No, it's probably to make money, the first priority in commercial radio. If WRKO thought it could go
all progressive talk and make money with it, they would. You would have hosts praising Liz Warren
to the heights, left-leaning hosts like Mike Barnicle, and so on. In the liberal bastion of Boston,
someone has to pay a station to put prog talk on (a commercial station, we're not talking NPR)
while WRKO makes money with conservative talk. (WEEI, the cheerleaders down the hall, makes even more.) WXKS must be doing at least a slight profit,
or else maybe come January it'll hire Barney Frank for morning drive. The powerful WBZ has Dan
Rea, no liberal he, at night. And even the inept folks at Greater Media are still holding on to
conservative talk (well, except for morning drive--"Jim and Margery? I LOVE them!," says my liberal
sister) and awaiting the day when Howie can jump to FM.

Entercom has a prog talker in Buffalo, and it must make money. Surely there must be enough people
on the left to support this in Boston, without having to broker time as Santos does with WWZN? And
I would think he must be making money too; if not, perhaps he can get donations from
the Senator who married a ketchup heiress; the U.S. Senate candidate who gets paid $350,000 a year
to be a Harvard Professor, or the political family whose latest candidate jumped into the 4th dist. race.

WRKO: All JoeJoeJoeKennedy III Radio. If it made money, they'd do it. (by the way, the young lad's
campaign spent $25 to send a cake to Howie Carr. He appreciated it and many at the Entercom
cluster of stations enjoyed a nice treat. What a guy!)

http://howiecarr.us/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Cake-300x225.jpg

---
http://www.kb1520.com/
Check out the really conservative voices Entercom puts on THIS station: Stephanie Miller! Bill Press!
Ed Schultz! Randi Rhodes! Yes, Entercom, that far-right company... But apparently, much like that
line in "Spinal Tap", it's not a big liberal town.

--SPINAL TAP (about a ludicrous heavy metal band)
--Ian Faith: The Boston gig has been cancelled...
David St. Hubbins: What?
Ian Faith: Yeah. I wouldn't worry about it though, it's not a big college town.

 

[raccoonradio]

>>Since WEEI-AM&FM and WRKO are right-wing tinged, they may be inserting "business reports" only to portray the economy as still in decline.

If that's true then maybe NPR is doing their own biased reporting, leaning left. If one side has an "agenda"
then perhaps the other side does, too. WRKO is catering to its audience and sponsors. NPR is catering to its own audience, donors, etc. (Only one of these two accepts taxpayer dollars, however...)

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

Today's (Saturday 02/18) NY Times has a feature story on the price of gasoline and how it could be used by Republicans to hammer President Obama on the economy. In the body of the article it's mentioned that the price of oil on the spot market is out any administration's control. Turmoil in the Middle East, ranging from violence in Syria to changes in government elsewhere there plus Iran's threat to close off the Strait of Hormuz, has led to a price runup on the options market. A growing middle class in Asia is also impacting gasoline prices. Now neutrino-brained presidential candidates are saying THEY could lower gasoline prices! Duh. They've made so many promises to turn the clock back (including women's health issues) they're issuing tiny diamond-shaped stickers to put at 640 and 1240 on any radios people own to bring back the Conelrad days. Since WEEI-AM&FM and WRKO are right-wing tinged, they may be inserting "business reports" only to portray the economy as still in decline.

WEEI and WRKO are not "right-wing tinged.". They are businesses. They air whatever makes them money. If you want to continue to inject your politics into a radio discussion, Take It Outside.

 

[raccoonradio]

'Young man, this radio station is a business. It is not here for your personal listening pleasure."--Mrs
Carlson, first ep. of WKRP in Cincinnati. (Number of commercial classical stations in Boston: 0.
But there's a public/non-comm. one. Maybe if classical had more fans, you'd be hearing Verdi on
105.7 and Mahler on 102.5. Instead, you're hearing Elton John and Toby Keith...give the people
what they want. )

Overheard at an Entercom meeting, Bala Cynwyd, PA:
"Don't you think we should put liberal talk on WRKO? It would make money."
"Yes, but we need to inject our right wing ideology into the Boston media market. That's
more important." (I'm just kidding!)

By the way I mentioned Entercom does have liberal talk in Buffalo on WWKB 1520, and maybe it makes
them money. Oddly enough, a look at the Buff. ratings shows the station has ratings not much
better than what WXKS 1200 pulls here. But lo and behold, sister station WBEN, which has some
local hosts as well as Rush and Hannity (right-leaning overall?), gets VERY good ratings so I guess that makes up for 1520.
http://www.wben.com/

 

[Laurence Glavin]

For several years, I constantly complained about the very limited playlist of classical and half-classical music WCRB broadcast when it was a commercial operation owned by Charles River Breeding Laboratories, I Mean Charles River Broadcasting (I always get them mixed up) and pre-bankruptcy Nassau. They RESOLUTELY refused to play pieces that people who cared about classical music LOVED while endlessly replaying crap that NOBODY cared about. Two examples...a syrupy piece of glop by Gerald Finzi for piano and strings, and a set of short orchestral pieces by Tomaso Albinoni. People here are constantly complaining about the way that stations that play mass-marketed recorded material play the same pieces over and over...and right-wingers write that radio stations are in the business of providing fare that people want. For over a decade, WCRB violated both those precepts. At least in diaries, WCRB might have gotten a higher rating number, but if that was reflective of actual radio listening, people were using the station as a latter-day WJIB-FM as background music.

 

[raccoonradio]

Not into classical, but I will say here in Vermont (where I temporarily am) there's not only the VPR All classical network but Radio Vermont's WCVT 101.7 (improved signal) and I heard announcer Joel Najman, who also has been a longtime part of
WDEV AM-FM and VPR (Sat night oldies show My Place)...relaxing voice. Anyway they do have 2 choice for classical up
here (incl 90.9 in Burl/Williston area)
http://www.wcvtradio.net/

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

For several years, I constantly complained about the very limited playlist of classical and half-classical music WCRB broadcast when it was a commercial operation owned by Charles River Breeding Laboratories, I Mean Charles River Broadcasting (I always get them mixed up) and pre-bankruptcy Nassau. They RESOLUTELY refused to play pieces that people who cared about classical music LOVED while endlessly replaying crap that NOBODY cared about. Two examples...a syrupy piece of glop by Gerald Finzi for piano and strings, and a set of short orchestral pieces by Tomaso Albinoni. People here are constantly complaining about the way that stations that play mass-marketed recorded material play the same pieces over and over...and right-wingers write that radio stations are in the business of providing fare that people want. For over a decade, WCRB violated both those precepts. At least in diaries, WCRB might have gotten a higher rating number, but if that was reflective of actual radio listening, people were using the station as a latter-day WJIB-FM as background music.

Thanks for the best laugh I've had this week.

Translating the above screed into English: "WCRB played music I hated, therefore anyone who knows anything about classical music hates it too. And since I'm a leftie, everyone who disagrees with me is a rightie."

Apparently your prejudices have blinded you to just about everything that's been written here and elsewhere about radio programming, written by people who do just that for a living, and successfully. Further, you continue to ignore the fact that broadcasting is a business, run by business people, who routinely ignore their own politics to attain their primary objective: turning a profit.

But, go ahead and rant if you must. We can use the comic relief.