WGBH lineup minus blues & folk shows

[raccoonradio]

Out of curiosity I went to the WGBH site and looked up the first week of Dec 2009. Under Sat 12/5, I find that 89.7 will have:12p This American Life, 1p On the Media, 3p Celtic Sojurn, 6 pm Prairie Home, 8 p Says You, then 10p Jazz with Bob Parlocha. You see what is replacing the folk and blues shows. Is this worth dropping these long running shows?

 

[CTListener]

Out of curiosity I went to the WGBH site and looked up the first week of Dec 2009. Under Sat 12/5, I find that 89.7 will have:12p This American Life, 1p On the Media, 3p Celtic Sojurn, 6 pm Prairie Home, 8 p Says You, then 10p Jazz with Bob Parlocha. You see what is replacing the folk and blues shows. Is this worth dropping these long running shows?

Maybe GBH brass thinks those shows are more mass-appeal -- thus, more likely to have a bigger audience during the beg-a-thons.

 

[JustinT]

Nice find, Raccoon. The weekday lineup is very interesting.

Right now it looks like a The Takeaway donut with an hour 6a-7a, two hours of Morning Edition 7a-9a, and another hour of Takeaway 9a-10a. Doesn't WGBH produce that show? You'd think they would want to air the whole thing.

Diane Rehm comes on 10a-12n (already heard on tape delay on WBUR), then something unannounced 12n-2p, then Fresh Air 2p-3p (already heard on WBUR), then the existing The World/All Things Considered/The World block (All Things Considered also already heard on WBUR), then leading into Eric in the Evening with a thrilling simulcast of the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

The new lineup seems like quite a disappointment. Clearly they want to be more competitive in fundraising, but considering WBUR's impressive news department, if all WGBH is going to do is replicate what I can already hear on WBUR, what's the reason in switching the dial? Is WBUR switching up their lineup at all?

 

[carmen]

we used to put on Eric in the evening during dinner. but now it starts at 8.. for several years now

nothing like annoying NPR chatter when youre trying to find some decent backgroundmusic


and they fired Al Davis! how can you do that. did they save 30 bux a month?

 

[carmen]

on second thought, eliminating the music is a good idea. have you tried listening to WGBH when say, a jazz bassist is playing?

on most radios i have, the signal is so strong it clips the input, causing awful distortion.

for best results on WGBH reception disconnect your antenna - yes, take it completely off

 

[MHB]

And here's the other side of that, the changes coming to 99.5:

http://www.wgbh.org/listen/allclassicalschedule.cfm

Pretty much all classical, with the current WGBH personalities. The schedule includes WGBH's weekend classical-related shows ("From the Top," "BSO on Record," "Sunday Concert"). 99.5 seems to be keeping one of their current personalities and the Saturday night BSO show.

 

[raccoonradio]

Globe article; the loss of folk and blues mentioned in a sidebar. Read the comments; complaints about losing these shows, worries about not being able to pick up 99.5 for many (check out the coverage map on the GBH site--south of Boston? Out of luck)

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/11/18/gbh_takeover_of_crb_alters_more_than_letters/

I made the following comment:

"Looking ahead at the schedule page on WGBH's site, we see that several shows that WBUR carries will also be heard on WGBH. Why? Unnecessary duplication. The move to dump the folk and blues shows is sad and I hope they'll reconsider. The blues show was started in '78 by the late Mai Cramer. Both shows ran for many years and exposed great music to many. I have done a long running blues show on a North Shore station, but our 130 watts is nothing compared to WGBH's 100,000 watts. It's sad."

(and in reply to one of the Globe article comments by someone who hoped Carlo would stay):
"I believe Carlo may still be part of the new WCRB. On their sched page when you look up Dec 6 you will see Laura Carlo 5-9 am, Cathy Fuller 9a-1p, In Performance at 1, Ray Brown 2-6 etc"

 

[Don Juan]

If WGBH wanted to make a splash and get noticed, they should hire Chris Leydon to do a local show either from 10-Noon...or from Noon to 2PM.

That would get them noticed and talked about

I hear Chris has some time on his hands....and would probably love the challenge of recreating his popular show.

 

[DanStrassberg]

on second thought, eliminating the music is a good idea. have you tried listening to WGBH when say, a jazz bassist is playing?

on most radios i have, the signal is so strong it clips the input, causing awful distortion.

for best results on WGBH reception disconnect your antenna - yes, take it completely off

That would depend very strongly on your location. I live in Arlington a little west of the top of Belmont Hill, just north of Route 2. Even though 89.7 is substantially more powerful than 90.9, the 90.9 signal here is better than the 89.7 signal. 89.7 is not as strong here as 90.9 and 89.7 is bothered by multipath to a much greater extent than 90.9 is. The reason is that 89.7 (Milton) is further from me than 90.9 (Newton) and 89.7's antenna height is 665' above average terrain whereas the 90.0 antenna is ~1000' AAT. Since coverage of FM signals increases roughly in proportion to the square of the HAAT, 89,7 is, in effect, not 10 times as powerful as 90.9 but is a little shy of five times as powerful. But in my case, the greater power does not appear to make up for the greater distance.

Obviously, YMMV.

 

[aaronread]

Right now it looks like a The Takeaway donut with an hour 6a-7a, two hours of Morning Edition 7a-9a, and another hour of Takeaway 9a-10a. Doesn't WGBH produce that show? You'd think they would want to air the whole thing.

They are airing the whole thing. The Takeaway, just like Morning Edition, is a two-hour show. They just roll it over several times with updates to segments as needed.

I've said this elsewhere but I'll repeat it here: there's been numerous studies that show that multiple NPR outlets airing the same shows, even at the same time, can lead to more total listeners to both stations. And airing them at different times can attract a completely different audience, since different people listen in different ways at different times on different days.

As for Chris Lydon, he's still producing Radio Open Source as a podcast. I just got an email last week from them about how they're assembling the podcasts into radio-friendly formats with an eye towards a weekly offering. Right now it's just six specials available at PRX.org. Knowing Chris, I seriously doubt he wants to go back to being a daily talk show host; it's a lot of work and hassle and he's already done it twice.

 

[WLYNWAZNgm]

Lydon

I seriously doubt that Lydon has the option to return to the airwaves
in any signicant capacity. He believed in his own publicity, got too greedy,
and he was gone. That ship has sailed...Don't slam the door on your way out...

 

[aaronread]

I seriously doubt that Lydon has the option to return to the airwaves in any signicant capacity. He believed in his own publicity, got too greedy, and he was gone. That ship has sailed...Don't slam the door on your way out...

Oh please. You think if Lydon got stations ratings they wouldn't start airing ROS again? It's all about the money...if ego alone kept people out of the biz, there'd be nobody left!

And for what it's worth, WEOS will be airing ROS's podcast series next month. (shrugs) Granted, we're not exactly a top-ten station in a top-ten market, but it's on the air. And in a market that takes its public radio, ehem, "very seriously". (Ithaca)

 

[WLYNWAZNgm]

Lydon

Suzanne Somers pulled the same thing when she figured that she was the
real star of Three's Company, and the show couldn't survive without her...

All about the money - absolutely. That is, however,
one huge IF you put forth. How long has it been already?
Something like 8 or 9 YEARS? The radio industry has long
since moved on. Don't hold your breath for a comeback -
Ithaca, NY is not exactly a major force to be reckoned with...
Not only has that ship sailed, it has disappeared over the horizon...
Bye-bye...

 

[WLYNWAZNgm]

typo

Oh yea - the word in my above post was supposed to be
"significant". I was on the phone while I was typing...

 

[aaronread]

Huh? Yes, Lydon's departure/shoved-out-the-door of The Connection was in 2001, but Radio Open Source switched from radio to podcast-only back in 2007...not all THAT long ago.

 

[dyeingeye]

I don't understand what the big issue is for the stations. Why isn't 'GBH just putting its old lineup minus the news stuff on 99.5? Why in the shift is 'GBH dropping the blues and folk shows?

 

[DanStrassberg]

Why isn't 'GBH just putting its old lineup minus the news stuff on 99.5? Why in the shift is 'GBH dropping the blues and folk shows?

Pretty obvious that they had to trim costs to save money to refill the coffers after paying $14 million for WCRB. The cuts in weekend staff at 89.7 obviously don't help a whole lot but they must help to some degree.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

I don't understand what the big issue is for the stations. Why isn't 'GBH just putting its old lineup minus the news stuff on 99.5? Why in the shift is 'GBH dropping the blues and folk shows?

They say they want 99.5 to be ALL classical. That's their liner for the station, "99.5 All Classical". That means no folk, blues, etc...

But, I believe Dan is also correct. The weekend folk and blues shows that will be dropped from 89.7 are being replaced there by a smorgasbord schedule of syndicated Public Radio talk and music shows, which eliminates payroll for the three local hosts. It costs them much less to run syndicated shows than to pay local hosts.

 

[dyeingeye]

Slightly off topic, but maybe somebody can answer. A while back, at least 10 years I stumbled upon a show on WGBH that explained and broke down a classical music piece for novice listeners. For example, the host would point out how the 'theme'(?) would be repeated.

If anybody knows of it, is the show still on the air.

 

[DanStrassberg]

A while back, at least 10 years I stumbled upon a show on WGBH that explained and broke down a classical music piece for novice listeners. For example, the host would point out how the 'theme'(?) would be repeated. If anybody knows of it, is the show still on the air.

You could be thinking of a half-hour weekly program that appeared for many years, not on WGBH, but in the "culture ghetto" early on Sunday mornings on the old WHDH (AM) 850. I think the name of the program was "A Note to You" and the program host was a (retired, I think) professor from (again, I think) Northeastern U. I think his name was Roland Nadeau. ISTR that the theme song was Dance Macabre by SaintSeans. My guess is that this program last aired about 15 years ago, but it could be even longer ago than that. When was 850 last WHDH (AM)? I don't think the program survived the format/ownership/call-sign flip to WEEI and it might have ended long before that. If Prof Nadeau is still living (doubtful) and if he was a pack-rat, he or his estate might have some tapes.