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WMMS

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Yo anybody know what numbers MMS is doing? I'm just back in town after having been in Seattle for over a year, wondering.
Rover's Show hasn't changed much at all. Not sure that's a good thing as the rest of radio changes. Where is Maxwell these days? Liked that show. Messed up, but flowed and seemed current. That Alann Cox show is pretty bad. I tried to listen for a while. He tries way too hard and has nothing to say and that other guy in the room is super lame and not funny. I heard some girl. I guess it's that old school "main jock, funny idiot and hot chick" package that was popular in the 90s. Cox did say one thing that made me never want to listen to his horrid show again. He was talking about condoms and stuff and said something like, "hey every guy who has kids has thought in the back of his mind how things would be better if he didn't have kids." I was like wow, you're a father? You have kids and you say that??? You suck dude. I have kids and know that no real man would ever think or wish them away. I'm done with that dude. He's a radio *****.
 
Shane "Rover" French's show can't even be considered "syndicated" anymore. He lost the so-called "third affiliate" in Columbus (which flipped from Modern AC to a gold-based 90s-2005 format). Funniest part was, French teased and hyped the arrival of this "third affiliate" for a far longer duration (nine months) than the station actually WAS an affiliate (less than six months). ONLY WMMS and "94.1 The Zone" in Rochester carry it now, which, IIRC, isn't really "syndicated."

WMMS will be hurting over their release of Maxwell for a long time to come. Listeners to Maxwell knew it was coming, it was HOW WMMS handled it: allowing French to air the news first, then allowing his sycophant sidekicks Mike Toomey and Shawn Street to "take over" the time slot, insulting and ripping Maxwell's entire listener base. That turned me off of WMMS for good, and I haven't listened to them ever since. Unfortunately, I think Maxwell's totally now out of the radio business, as no station either a) wants to hire him or b) has a format remotely compatible with his style. He *might* get hired in Florida, but that's about it.

And who is this "Alan Cox" guy?
 
WMMS went from an overall 7.0 in October, the last full MWL book, to as low as I believe 3.8 a month or two ago.

I can't imagine all of Rover's listeners suddenly departed. A pretty good indicator of how (un)well the rest of the day is doing.
 
From what I've heard, Mr. Cox's show has been annihilated in the ratings. Almost as bad as the "Jerry Springer-for-Glenn Beck" disaster that saw WTAM's ratings in that time period go down 66% - but it didn't impact WTAM's overall ratings that severely, because they still had Triv, Wills & Coleman/Snyder, and the Tribe, Cavs and Browns. WMMS only has Mr. "Rover" French... and that's about it. Oh, and Loveline. Whee.

Save for Big Rig (who, despite being in Florida, should have taken the Maxwell slot and made it music-intensive IMO), the other jocks are not much to carry a station (whatever ones are left that AREN'T Premium Choice).

I can't see Mr. Cox lasting a full year, especially if the ratings do not pick up. And I don't see that happening, quite frankly. I think enough of Maxwell's listener base (who were in many ways mutually exclusive to Rover's audience) were so upset about WMMS' treatment of Maxwell that they won't listen again. I'm one of those people, and I can't blame them.

Maxwell, albeit still on the beach - probably permanently - can now look and say, "Captain Showbiz... I told you so! Welcome-to-horrible-ratings-dot-com. Annnnnnnnnd punt!" :D
 
Well, at least the average-wage listeners to Maxwell's show didn't lower themselves to gullible status by going to a club and, once there, waving signs and yelling "pay the man".
 
Maxwell forewarned everyone on the air throughout all of 2009 that he could leave because of compensation. "2010" actually became a catchphrase on the show.

Honestly, I can't blame him. He was the top dog at WMMS before they acquired Rover, and then, save for the scarce billboards that featured Rover and Maxwell together, it was Rover that got the lion's share of the attention. Which was totally understandable, given Shane's hefty contract and promise, but CC/Cleveland's management - not just "Captain Showbiz" - forgot the only other successful show on the station in the process. Back in 2007, Maxwell was promised for eventual regional syndication (sound familiar?) and other neat new ventures. All Maxwell got, no thanks to his hideously low-balled contract, was a show website run by Oaktree and free public-domain podcasts (which he obviously resented), while Rover had ownership of his website and all social media-related ventures. And Rover had the ability to employ his own people, too, insulating them from CC's corporate bloodletting.

That's why Maxwell did the "Metallica to perform in the Oak Tree Parking Lot this evening at 6:00PM!" April Fool's joke... that famously (and hilariously) backfired. After Rover kept getting all of the events and high-profile remotes (some of which Maxwell couldn't do even if he tried, given his very public sobriety issues) it was just sad to see The Maxwell Show be neglected like that, even with the boffo ratings. Even though he would tease about landing in mornings on 92.3, it had to be deep in his heart that he might never ever do a show again in the Cleveland market.

I would have done the same thing myself, if not on principle alone. What was shameful, again, was HOW WMMS handled the impasse. The CC Soviet-style purge I can understand. But Rover's pack dancing on the show's grave wasn't, not by a long shot.
 
Rumor is, after finding out about Maxwell's talks with CBS (Cleveland), Clear Channel has now offered to bring him back. If anything happens, October will be the latest.
 
Having grown up listening to the legendary Home of the Buzzard, I find it tragic what has happened to that once-great station. It is now virtually unlistenable. Such an irony that the so-called Rock and Roll capitol doesn't have a decent rock station.
 
Something has to be going terribly wrong at WMMS for them to have Alan Cox on the air. I remember when he was on the x @ 105.9 in Pittsburgh, when he wasn't spewing negativity, he was trash-talking the very city he was broadcasting in. I'm guessing he does the same on WMMS.
 
The Alan Cox show isn’t a bad listen. No, its not perfect and Cox himself can come off as a smarmy-hippy-type-dude at times, but by and large, the show is much more listenable than Bornstein (Maxwell was a “stage name”) was in that same spot. While Cox’s ratings aren’t high, as is the case with most newer shows when they debut in a market, Id be curious to see how his numbers stack up against Bornstein’s during the same time period in town. What are the comparison to Cox’s numbers vs Bornstein’s after 7 or 8 months, rather than at the end of his run late lass year.

As for his treatment of the city, from what I have heard he has been very complimentary of the city and its people. He also has had nothing but good things to say about his time in Pittsburgh.
 
I'm one of the many people that was so disgusted by how Shane "Rover" French, Mike "Chocolate Charley" Toomey and Shawn "Dumb" Street basically dancing on Mr. Bornstein's grave. I would never listen to the station, and while I wouldn't hold anything against Alan Cox, I can't comment on his show directly because not only will I never listen to his show, I refuse to listen to WMMS. That being said, there has been a minuscule amount of buzz or commentary regarding Cox's show that it surprises even me.

Maxwell's show excelled in its' imperfections, and with Max baring all about himself (so much so that a rehab center became a MAJOR SPONSOR for his show!). Plus the other sophomoric gags - slowing down audio soundbytes because they always sound funnier that way, "new turd Tuesday," "Who's that wh---?," ripping management for playing favorites with Rover, etc., they were funny in an endearing way. A break from the usual talk fare.

You'd have to get archives of Arbitron data to compare how Maxwell's show fared after he replaced Tim Slats in 2004, but that was a direct replacement. It also wasn't a talk show at first - Max played music with quick comedy bits and the like before stopsets. The show was revamped into all-talk in January 2006 or so, after 92.3 added O&A in afternoon drive, as a way to blunt that duo's impact.

WMMS' failing this time was that they dilly-dallied for almost an entire month, airing Street and Toomey in afternoon drive. After publicly releasing Max, Street and Toomey would mock Max's listeners that called in, all the while delivering an inferior product (there's a reason why their daily program is iHeart and internet-only). Did it not occur to anyone that this would be the wrong call? Complicating matters now is that the ratings system switched as well, this time to PPM, so there can't be any logical or accurate comparison.


If unpwn's earlier statement actually IS true, it's because Captain Showbiz is panicing from the PPMs, and they could be far worse than what we are led to believe. Anyone with a brain can see that French's show isn't what's holding the station down - French's and Bornstein's audiences always were mutually exclusive. They rehire Max, it wouldn't be the first time that a station attempted to make up with its' listener base; and Alan could be sent to middays or released.

I just want to see, should that all actually happen, is just how French and Bornstein can co-exist.
 
Lol. He loves Pittsburgh now that he is in Cleveland. Ha ha jk Cleveland is pretty cool too.
 
I guess we just disagree, Nathan. I disagree that lame bits like “Who’s That Wh---?” and constant talk about getting high are endearing and good radio. “New Turd Tuesday”? Was that the music rating thing they did? Uuuuggghhhh.. Awful. I listened for a time period but grew tired of it and began to despise it toward the end. I would surf in and out at times and when I found out they were gone, I cant say I was shocked as the show was really bad at that point.

I don’t know you from Adam, but I don’t believe for a minute that you have never listened to Cox or listened to WMMS, at all, since your boy Ben got released. You are/were too much of a Maxwell Show “fan boy” to just ignore the competition and the replacement. You admitted yourself that you did listen to the immediate replacements.

You probably wont admit it, and you don’t have to, this is after all, an internet message board, but there is no way I believe that, with all the knowledge you show around here and all the legitimate information and facts that you have, that you have totally, 100% not listened to that show. I just don’t buy it. You are too detail orientated in all other posts for you to ignore the replacement for what was obviously one of your all time favorite shows. Your unabashed love for Ben Bornstein and his show is apparent when you refer to him by his nickname “Max” yet refer to every other on air WMMS staffer not by their on air names, but by their given legal names, as if to be showing some sort of disrespect or something.
 
I keep mispelling Bornstein's name most of the time, give up, and type in Maxwell instead.

Frankly, WMMS' error in judgment was and had been clearly evident from the get-go. It's not as if Ben/Max hid his intentions to leave if his next contract offer wasn't up to snuff in comparison to Shane/Rover's contract - he openly stated as such on-air for nearly a whole year! Because of that alone, Alan should have had a contract secretly signed to take Ben/Max's place the minute, or at the most, one week, after the initial impasse was reached.

There could have been a number of creative options that could and should have been done to handle his departure, but plugging Charley/Mike and Shawn/Dumb into that slot for a whole month signified a total lack of preparation on the station's part and was the worst possible thing to do. For one, playing just music - even jockless music with construction sounders and segues - during that time slot, frankly, would have made some sense. After a day or two of trying to listen to Charley/Mike and Shawn/Dumb (compare it to trying Brussels Sprouts for the first time), I ended up attempting to physically yank out my car radio and throw it out the window in disgust. After that failed, I flipped the dial over to Hannity on WEOL/930 for the most part (aside from the occasional listening to Triv), where I've been at ever since.

Yes, I know this took place during the month of December, and it would have been difficult to have a show launch during that time. That said, Alan's show was launched with a clear disadvantage, as Ben/Max's audience was lo-o-o-o-o-ong gone by that point. That I do feel very bad for Alan about. If WMMS' management's intention was to blow out and start anew with a new audience (which, even if they didn't want that, was what resulted), actually allow the true successor to do it and prove himself that way. Which is what Ben/Max had to do in the first place when he took over for Tim Slats. Again, I don't have anything against Alan personally, but WMMS' mishandling of the situation just disgusted me and has turned me off from the station for a long, long time.

I remember a lot of stupid stuff anyways, most of it unnecessary information, but can never recall passwords when I need them the most. ;)
 
I agree that WMMS bumbling of the situation was terrible. Anything rather than what they actually did would have been better. They were caught off guard, thinking that Bornstein wouldnt really walk out, which he did. That explains why they didnt have Cox, or someone else ready to go. It doesnt explain why they didnt just either play replays or music rather than the ridiculous Charlie thingy they tried to shoe horn in.
 
A larger question is being missed here..does WMMS want to be a rock station or a talk station aimed at 18-34 males? You can't do two formats at the same time..having full blown talk shows sandwhiched between voiced tracked middays and evenings is not going to make a dent in the market..
 
Never cared for WMMS in its heyday..Even less so, now..I think what they ought to do is just go full-blown FM talk..The Ratings cant be much worse than they are already..

In other words, have a plan/direction..And stick with it for awhile..
 
I don't know. Pay substantial money for morning and afternoon drive talk and run the music on the cheap. Might be an ok business plan, particularly during an economic downturn, and can be used to test the viability of a potential move towards more or full talk.
 
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