What are Boston radio's biggest failures?

[raccoonradio]

WHBA may seem like a shipwreck but who knows. When Mike 93.7 debuted I think I was among those who called it a train wreck, with the different genres colliding. They are appealing to an important demo with,
like it or not, very popular artists among the public even if hipsters like us shake our heads. (Just like with
WODS into "Amp"--they're playing currently popular music...and there's a reason why it's called "popular".)

Mike got great ratings and billing. bostonradio tweeted to me:
>>Mike's last book in August 2011 - tied at #7 with WAAF in 18-34 demo

So who knows, as much as we'd call it a shipwreck, it could work. Disadvantage: the signal not as wide-ranging. We shall see.

 

[Retro]

Mike was a work in progress. At first there were good to lame, then eventually found their niche. Once they did, it worked very well!

The Harbor will be welcomed. Entercom's loss is Clear Channel's gain! Well lets see on the radio failures, hmmmmm:


Hit Radio WHTT to Power 103, didn't work too well.

Jam'n 94.5, before the purchase to Pyramid.

WCGY rates up there.

But perhaps the biggest radio failure has to be WBCN's flip from AOR to all modern. That was a lame duck just waiting to be sunk.

 

[Retro]

Ooh, I just thought of another one. People may or may not remember 1510 WNRB. This station was out to challenge the mighty WEZE. Not only did they fail, but it actually made WEZE a better radio station. And speaking of 1510, are they doing any better now? What about Talk 1200 as well?

Another radio failure of sorts, 99.5 WOAZ The Oasis. It was moved to 96.9 to become smooth jazz before GM made it talk.

WRKO continues to be a pathetic of a radio station too!

OK, I am off my soapbox now. ;D

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Ooh, I just thought of another one. People may or may not remember 1510 WNRB. This station was out to challenge the mighty WEZE. Not only did they fail, but it actually made WEZE a better radio station.

Except for that WNRB was in AM stereo, and WEZE wasn't.

 

[Retro]

Ooh, I just thought of another one. People may or may not remember 1510 WNRB. This station was out to challenge the mighty WEZE. Not only did they fail, but it actually made WEZE a better radio station.

Except for that WNRB was in AM stereo, and WEZE wasn't.

True, I forgot that they were in AM stereo.

 

[Retro]

OK, just thought of another one. WROR's attempt at free-form Classic Rock back in 2002? Nah, don't remember it. ;D

 

[CTListener]

OK, just thought of another one. WROR's attempt at free-form Classic Rock back in 2002? Nah, don't remember it. ;D

I do. It wasn't really free-form, since most of the stuff being played was, as you said, classic rock -- and much of it was familiar. I do remember lots of live versions of well-known classic rock tracks being played, as well as the occasional deeper album cut. But it wasn't like they were playing Captain Beefheart or Moby Grape, it was all by artists everyone would recognize.

 

[Ciao9999]

the last 10 years of BCN...how could it be humanly possible to destroy such a heritage station?

Easy. Corporate ownership. Programmers that cater to the whims of out of town board members instead of listeners.

 

[iyiyi]

WBCN was a management failure. They had an excellent, qualified staff right to the end. Corporate decisions ruined the station.

In the 70's, they became cute and pretentious... Until WCOZ stomped them back into reality. After the demise of COZ, they played too much classic rock during the 80's trying to counter WAAF. In the 90's they were basically classic rock trying to counter WAAF and WZLX. BCN would have played no new rock at all if Oedipus hadn't maintained Boston/Nocturnal Emissions.

Adding insult to injury, they just HAD to block program BCN with talk in AM drive with LaQuidara's "Big Mattress", PM drive with Mark Parenteau AND Howard Stern (tape delayed) in the evenings. FNX waltzed away with all of WBCN's P1s, just like WBOS did at the end with any Alt WBCN P1s left that couldn't get 101.7.

One of the best days for WBCN was after O&A was cancelled. Everyone was waiting to see what they would replace O&A with. Oedipus came on and said they were going to (pregnant pause) play music! Shortly thereafter CBS "promoted" Oedipus to V.P. Once he was gone, so was the "new music" spirit of BCN. BCN still had qualified rockers, but nobody could fight for the music like Oedipus did.

From then on, WBCN was basically a talk station with somebody's mom attempting to program music trying to hold listeners between Stern (or whoever) and the afternoon show de jour. WFNX stuck with modern rock from day one.

That is why there is 30,000+ posts about little Class A 101.7 and nowhere near that for WBCN and WODS together! Neither 104.1 or 103.3 had such a faithful audience because their programming catered to too many different tastes.

The two important points I'd like to make is: WBCN was a CORPORATE MANAGEMENT-- NOT a STAFF-- failure! Also, I do not believe that CC will ultimately drop the ball on the 101.7 acquisition.

Thanks!

-

 

[thirdendorsed]

An interesting question.

I'd say
1. WITS. Hands down. Major talent, big sports contracts, total failure.
2. WRKO's attempt to go no-jingles adultish rock
3. WRKO's attempt to go A/C.
4. WHDH "The Information Station"
5. WCGY in any incarnation you could name under Cheryl Ann
6. WEGQ. Talk about drifting with no direction
7. WVBF when they went automated/board op
8. WEEI in the pizza regime under Doug Stephan. Exercise shows on the radio. Nuff sed.
9. John MacLean doing Red Sox baseball and Curt Gowdy doing the Pats.
10. WCDJ.
11. WMEX under Garabedian
12. WBOS. On general principle
13. Two-W-D-L. And the rest of the nonsense under Anthony Robert Martin-Trigona.
14. Larry Glick before midnight at WBZ
15. Larry Glick at WHDH.
16. The shrink who did middays when WRKO went talk



I don't bother with WMRQ, WKKT, WACQ or WTTK since I consider those formats to have been placeholders to allow old formats to die. One could also point to stations that soared and crashed, such as WCOZ, or stations that struggled but found a niche for a while, such as WZOU

Also, the WEZE formats through the 70s were probably the most underrated, with the exception of the lapse into Wonderful World of Muzak days.

In addition to a brief rock era. it had a pretty good run under Bill McCormack and Tech/Ops as an oldies station, including a jok lineup that had Alan Colmes, Bill Lowell, Keith Simmons, Neil Cannon/Gran and Bob Stuart. They had news, including ABC-I and some respected local broadcasters like Wally O'Hara (despite being the prototype for Bob and Ray's Wally Ballou) and Paul Cunningham. For a while Linda Albin was on staff, later to become Mid-East and then London correspondent for ABC radio. Later they tried adding "future gold" and drifting toward AC, and a while as Z-1260, but it didn't work.

The album days of WEZE were not the precursor to WEEI-FM. It was a shameless rip-off of WEEI-FM.

 

[thirdendorsed]

I can't resist four more:

17. RKO General's failure to get a good product onto WROR until it was too late
18. WBZ-FM's automation days and the "will the beatles get back together" debates
19. Charlie and Harrigan.
20. Pairing Tom Doyle with Jess Cain.
21. WBCN picking up the network's replacement for Stern, David Lee Roth

 

[dhoule]

WCOZ's brief shift to adult contemporary in 1984. This was just before the start of the Zoo.

 

[raccoonradio]

RKO paired together Howie Carr with Victoria Jones (a liberal from England). Howie did one shift, Victoria the next, and they one hour they did jointly...didn't work

WBZ got listener disapproval from getting rid of Brudnoy for Tom Snyder, then Steve Leveille for
Jon Grayson

 

[raccoonradio]

>>WHBA is certainly on its way. Not a train wreck, but a ship wreck!

Actually the sad thing isn't that it's probably going to flop. The sad this is it's probably going to SUCCEED! As in, make money at low cost. Yes the signal isn't the best but the lowest-common-denominator-rock/alleged variety can do well and make money, even if we don't like it. I don't know how long it will last but it could turn a slight profit at low cost, enough to keep it going. As for the possibility the format is temp. (till Labor Day? or a bit longer?), what does CC follow it up with:
Spanish? Talk 1200 simulcast or progtalk? True Oldies? (naah, demo too old*) Fox Sports? If you're CC and you look at where the stick is, whom might like the format, and how well it can do,you see why they went this way. And btw for the person thinking they'd go country--while it might be interesting to try and peel away KLB's audience, it's a city signal and most country fans are out in the suburbs etc (WKLB does well with them). Longshot that they'd do well but I'll the first to applaud them if they try it and succeed.

But you think of the vast majority of people out there who want this stuff on their commute, on their boombox in the backyard or on the beach...they saw a demand for mostly rock 80s-90s,
filling a format hole. Again, the problem isn't that they may fail. The problem is they very would could _succeed_!

*--might they have tried to replicate the WODS sound that just went away? A lot of baby boomers may love it! They probably shifted to ROR etc. But the demo is old. That's why CBS pulled it off 103.3

 

[DanStrassberg]

RKO paired together Howie Carr with Victoria Jones (a liberal from England). Howie did one shift, Victoria the next, and they one hour they did jointly...didn't work

I wonder how much the fact that Carr and Jones REALLY HATED each other had to do with the program's failure. I rather doubt that were two air personalities who shared a program in any market and despised each other as much. I do not believe the contempt was feigned.

 

[thirdendorsed]

RKO paired together Howie Carr with Victoria Jones (a liberal from England). Howie did one shift, Victoria the next, and they one hour they did jointly...didn't work

Good one. They then booted them both and replaced them with Leykis. You will notice considerable disdain when Carr mentions Leykis, which isn't often since Leykis is a non-entity.

 

[raccoonradio]

Yes...they hated each other. The left-vs-right idea.

Leykis gets mentioned by Howie on occasion as the guy who "mistook his wife for a Duraflame log". Met him and talked briefly with him at a Liberty Tree Mall appearance. 2 wks later details of the open bar RKO
Christmas party came out. He was about to take his show to L.A. anyway. Sometime later WFNX's Tai, who I think had worked with Tom, had him on his morning show and he gave his own side of the story.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/abuse-rap-dj-who-named-kobes-accuser
>>busted in December 1993 after his then-wife Susan told cops that he struck her in the head with a drinking glass during an argument in their home. Leykis then allegedly "pushed the victim's head into a brick fireplace" and "threatened to kill her,"...(later) successfully completed a year's probation and the domestic violence class, the criminal charges were dismissed in March 1995

(Tom told Tai he was tired and had to a show the next day and he, maybe she, had a bit too much to drink and he didn't feel like staying up talking about something with her etc)

 

[Fenway1912]

9. John MacLean doing Red Sox baseball and Curt Gowdy doing the Pats.

John MacLean was fired because he was drunk on the air for any night game and this is the game that got him canned.

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1972/B06290BOS1972.htm


Coleman was doing play by play in the top of the 9th and the Red Sox saw their 4-0 lead vanish - MacLean said 'What the **** is the matter with this ******* team'.

Dave Martin was hired the next day.


Gowdy was bad on WHDH but the worst ever was when WBUR hired Ken Coleman to do BU Football. Coleman kept saying over and over 'The Boston University Eagles'. He was fired mid-season and Bernie Corbett took over.

 

[indystorm]

Hey I LOVED The Oasis 99.5.... It was the best thing on the radio back then. I tuned in all the way from Eastern CT....

Ooh, I just thought of another one. People may or may not remember 1510 WNRB. This station was out to challenge the mighty WEZE. Not only did they fail, but it actually made WEZE a better radio station. And speaking of 1510, are they doing any better now? What about Talk 1200 as well?

Another radio failure of sorts, 99.5 WOAZ The Oasis. It was moved to 96.9 to become smooth jazz before GM made it talk.

WRKO continues to be a pathetic of a radio station too!

OK, I am off my soapbox now. ;D

 

[indystorm]

I'd say that anything Clear Channel has done is the biggest failure, not only in Boston, but America as a whole.

What a terrible company. It has destroyed radio as we once knew it.


Talk to anybody who's worked in the radio biz, and they will say the same thing. Unless you are one of the poor unfortunate souls who happens to work for these scum bags.