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WRKO: Worst Day Ever

Fifteen years ago, it was the highest rated station in town. It has slipped over the years, but has now reached its lowest point ever. It's like when the Yankees were owned by CBS.

Today, Saturday, March 20, 2010, 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. The once mighty station hit absolute rock bottom.

First, the paid-time financial planning guy does a long riff on the health care bill that consisted of just making stuff up. That happens a long in talk radio, but this was so obviously from someone out of his field it made me cringe. But this was just the warm-up.

Then the main event. The paid-time breast-implant guy apparently subleased a guest spot on his program.

He managed to get two women running a colon-cleaning clinic. Hydro-therapy they call it, as it apparently involves getting hooked up to an enema machine.

Yup, noon to one was devoted to these two nuts with a scary obsession with human waste and their planted callers (Q: "How old do you have to be?" A: "We've had clients as young as four and as old as 94." Q: "Great, it might be good for my 16-year old son" A: "yes it would be" Q: "Where are you located " A: [insert hard sell here] Somebody call DSS right now on the nitwits having their toddler's colon cleaned out with a jet spray or suggesting that a teen aged boy needs that sort of humiliation)

I did have something of a morbid interest wondering how low they could sink. It came when one of the nitwits suggested that people watch as the poop being pressure-washed out of their large intestine goes down the drain -- so as to develop better eating habits.

So from Ted & Janet, Gene, Jerry and Brudnoy we go to a show about sticking the equivalent of a kitchen sink sprayer up your wazoo and watching what emerges.

It's time to turn out the lights.
 
Re: WRKO: Worst Day Even

its all about the money and lack of programming these days how sad entercom should sell or do something else with it like espn full-time and simulcast on a hd2 or 3 on one of the fms well thats my thought
 
Re: WRKO: Worst Day Even

Your post title is prob. worst day _ever_
Back to spackle and paste radio?

ESPN 680 (w/ Howie, the one non-sports show, in pm drive)?
They are prob committed to current format thru this election yr I guess. Note bostonradiowatch.com has
revenues...they are #15 w/ 6 million. The jocks down the hall make 4 TIMES AS MUCH.
 
You obviously haven't listened to a Saturday on WEEI. What you describe sounds good compared to Mustard and Johnson. By the way, on the Big Show one day this week, LJ said that Butch from the Cape called him one night for forgiveness of his sins and Larry is sure that he went to heaven. How do they leave that imbecile on the air?
 
ArtSpooner said:
You obviously haven't listened to a Saturday on WEEI. What you describe sounds good compared to Mustard and Johnson. By the way, on the Big Show one day this week, LJ said that Butch from the Cape called him one night for forgiveness of his sins and Larry is sure that he went to heaven. How do they leave that imbecile on the air?

oy vay... maybe he could co-host a new show with Sherri "The Earth Is Flat" Shepherd. She did recant it, though. I'm glad I've stopped listening to the Big Show... and WEEI almost all the time, for that matter.
 
Dumb talk show hosts are one thing, such as with the brokered-time financial guy and the health bill.

But live two-way talk about sticking a hose where the sun don't shine, turning the water on and being encouraged to a) have four-year-olds do it and b) watch the effluent float away as inspiration for new dietary habits, is quite simply the worst thing ever heard on this formerlyi format-dominant 50K flamethrower.

It means they have no standards -- not lousy standards, as is the case with bad programming, but no standards, wherein Dr. Nose Job pays for play, then brings in the biddies of the bidet to talk about pressure-washing your colon.
 
I listened to some of the financial guy, he pretty much says the same thing week after week. He's had the phone call to his wife on for about 3 weeks now and the same with the phone call to his brother in CT, boring radio. The plastic surgeon is another boring waste of time.

There's not much on RKO on the weekend worth listening to, they took all the good stuff off and replaced it pretty much with crap. They cut the pundit review guy back to two hours and moved it to 6pm so they could broadcast more crap like Bob Brinker instead of something worth listening to like Bill Cunningham.

They broadcast 4 or 5 financial programs on the weekend, seriously, how many financial programs do you need? All financial all the time on the weekends with a little plastic surgery thrown in and oh yes, now they have a garden program on from 6-8am Sun morning and one of the guys is barely understandable. Programming on RKO and other stations is just beyond anything I've ever heard in my many years of listening to talk radio.

Today much to my surprise RKO actually has Avi Nelson on LIVE - I believe he's on now until 4pm - a special program due to the healthcare vote taking place later tonite.

Anyone listen to Charlie Manning on RKO? Um ah um umah um um um um ah um um, seriously? ??? ??? ???This is supposed to be radio? ??? ???
 
Its this type of thing that DRIVES people AWAY from radio - to MP3 player, to Sirius/XM, to internet streams or whatever amoung hundreds of choices. Once people determine they can't rely on it for entertainments, up to date info, etc. then they find something they can rely on.

Radio keeps looking to cheapen the weaker, less billable parts the day and the spiral to the bottom starts. Soon people discover the primary dayparts on the alternate medium, like it and stay.

Overall the average margin is, what, 30-40%, but in the unrated periods they put some garbage on to save money. Tough being in a business that makes 40% - most are happy with a quarter of that return. Listeners don't care that stations were overvalued and debt service requires more than 40% return - they just want decent programming.

Make all the excuses you want but radio's problems are self inflicted - they are forcing their loyal customers to new media.
 
Two words

There are two words that describe why WRKO was number one then: Dan Griffin.

Dan was VP/GM of WRKO and the one who transitioned them to talk. Dan is a programming genius who also is able to atract the most talented people around to work with him. You WANT to work hard for Dan, because you are part of something. Dan knows people and only hires the best. His instincts arre amazing! He also believes in going for the long term: his radio stations are all built with strong foundations. That's why it took WRKO almost five years to get to #1 and they STILL were strong players long after he left to go to 850 WHDH. See, stations built with strong foundations take a while to crumble. After WRKO, he went to WHDH where he continued to work his magic-every book WHDH went up half a point and WRKO went down half a point-until they were neck and neck. THEN David Mugar lied to Dan and sold WHDH out from under him-to WRKO no less. WRKO gutted WHDH and took all their talent to WRKO-(Clapprood and Whitley, Rush Limbaugh, Howie Carr, and all the weekend shows). Dan was so angry that he left with two weeks notice and didn't even tell Mugar where he was going (to WCBS in NYC).

I had the honor of working for Dan at WHDH from 1989 until he left. WRKO laid me off a year later (like I said-IDIOTS!). Dan is retired now, but the people who know him and especially those who have worked with him will agree with everything I've said about him. A great boss, a great man and a true genius.
 
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