WRKO’s long, painful decline

EB3 here.I agree with you Dan, but I see Howie mailing it in like he has been doing with his current show and for the most part his column the last few years.Can he blast illegal immigrants all morning? I don’t think so. If Finneran could add some comedy he will kill Howie. Howie plays the same song over and over again.Even Frank Sinatra’s biggest fan would get tired of watching him sing “My Way” all day everyday.One reason for Howie’s big radio numbers is that the competition sucks. You have sport radio and WTTK crap up against him. The morning ratings battle with be alot different for Howie. Also WTTK seems not to do alot to improve the shows they currently have. Braude and Eagan have gotten very boring and predictable. Michelle McPhee is simply god awful. To call her a cop sniff is an insult to cop sniffs. She is in a league of her own. As a result her show and her writing is far from journalistic standards. She is a stenographer. Write what the police tell her to write.So what will TTK give Howie to work with? Not much I bet.

As a newborn (under the premise that life begins at 40) I, too, remember the golden age of ‘RKO, and I don’t even put ironic quotation marks around golden age. Jerry Williams was a crank, but he got his audience engaged like few others (I still can’t get his “Cry Baby Stockton” campaign out of my head — his petulant response to some slight by the CBS sportscaster Dick Stockton). Gene Burns, a straight-up libertarian, may have been the brightest talk show host ever and, though his pomposity was often palpable, he was always respectful to callers and guests who disagreed with him (Remember the days of political debate before ad hominem attacks?). But the story doesn’t end with ‘RKO; while 680 AM focused on politics, WBZ had an excellent sports show, “Calling All Sports,” which competed with WHDH’s “Sports Huddle with Eddie Andelman.” At night, ‘BZ boasted Larry Glick, the late Norm Nathan (though also, it must be said, the execrable Bob Rawley — Raleigh?). And, of course, ‘HDH’s mornings kicked off with the classy and funny (what, those things can go together on talk radio?) Jess Cain. Sadly, those days are gone forever and, while I might enjoy hearing some liberal voices, most liberal programs are garbage-filled rantfests with hosts as dutiful in their recitation of lefty talking points as the Fox News “personalities” (there are those ironic quotes) are with regurgitating the right’s marching orders.Whew. Sorry about the length of this screed, but the delight in being reminded of Janet Jeghelian and Ted O’Brien has just given way to the depressing reality of just how far Boston talk radio has fallen. At least Lowell’s WCAP has Dr. Joy Browne.

EB3, this is common error…but it’s WTKK, not WTTK. :-)Is it wild speculation that Entercom would just sell off 680AM to someone else? It’d bring in serious bucks, and probably invalidate that goofy Red Sox carriage agreement; presumably getting the Sox back on WEEI full time…something I’m sure the Sox have loved (it separates the games from the biting criticism of the Sox during the regular shows) but I’m still very skeptical that it’s gone as smoothly as Jason Wolfe has claimed.

WRKO can hire Chris Lydon for the afternoon slot. That should give them a few thousand listeners.

If you’re willing to look past their “shock jock” reputation, you will find that Opie and Anthony offer the most intelligent and entertaining morning radio show available in Boston. Dan, what do you think of them?

Have we all forgot the late great David Brudnoy?I would love to hear someone who has just a clue about economics and can make their talk interesting. Braude, Eagan, and Severin couldn’t play checkers with Brudnoy forget about chess. I almost fell asleep today hearing Ozzie Nelson. Todd Feinberg may sound libertarian but he is a terrible model of someone who only half gets it. In less than a generation having a national government run school monopoly has led us to the dumbing down of talk radio. We get what we have grown up on.

David Brudnoy and Jerry Williams were the two greatest radio talk-show hosts Boston ever had. I didn’t mention Brudnoy only because I was talking about WRKO’s heyday. Yes, Bruds did a stint at ‘RKO, but it was a long time ago, and he was much more a part of the WBZ tradition, along with Peter Meade, David Finnegan and a few others.

To anonymous @ 6:11 PM Neither Ed Schultz nor Stephanie Miller are associated with Air America Radio. They are syndicated by another syndicator. So, I’m not exactly sure what your point is.To anonymous @ 7:14 PM Have we all forgot the late great David Brudnoy?No, we haven’t all forgotten Brudnoy, but his heyday was in the 1980s. Indeed, he was the first talk radio host that I would actually listen to after moving to the Boston area in 1979. The sad fact, though, is that, in his later years, talk radio took a significant turn towards the more (right wing) ideological and he seemed to go gleefully with it. Shortly after he recovered from his bash with AIDS, he seemed to be more genteel, but as time went on, it became clear that he was reverting to his ideological form. Sad, but true.On another note, every once in a while, we click onto Gene Burns’s San Francsico station’s web site, and listened to him. It actually is very disheartening to hear what his show has devolved to. He was excellent in Boston in the 1980s. Not in SF.–raj

EB3 hereJerry Williams was a windbag. Very much over rated.

I for one, would love to hear liberal talk in the car but I’m not even given the option. When Imus was on, I’d listen on the way into work but on the way home I couldn’t turn the dial fast enough when I started up and that weasel Micheal Graham’s voice would come on.Now I just listen to news and CDs. Too bad some advertiser wouldn’t like to tap into my 100K liberal disposable income spending.

A few notes:- “Shame on the Globe for not mentioning that Carr is a herald columnist. They’re withholding the full truth from their readers. How silly. 8:29 PM “Actually what caught my attention on the first couple of articles on the Herald site is that none of those couple of initial report mention that he was indeed a columnist for the paper breaking the news about him. I would start there if you wanted to fault someone. It is easy to assume that most will obviously know Howie has been linked to the Herald for so long, but I still expected a boring but necessary reminder. It wasn’t there. Lay off the Globe on this one. No shifting blames and discussions on this one.- raj: I am not sure how big of a slice of people that only listens to/thinks greatly on ONLY Ed Shultz and Miller. That must be a tiny tiny sliver of people. Both are good people and very capable hosts, but don’t cut the mustard well-enough.I especially like Stephanie who seems like a really nice person, a very smart one, passionate one but her shtick needs a lot of honest tweaking to make it more..shall we say…gracious and national. As of now, she would only appeal to a certain profile, which is a shame.- As for Brudnoy this argument will continue indefinitely. His popularity is a product of media ellitist circles chumminess. He never rose to be a national host or widely syndicated one. Without BZ’s strong signal (again) he would have never been heard by anyone outside this state, apart from an occasional op-ed. Can someone explain how come he was never “shown the love” outside of local confines?Out of respect for a dead person’s memory, I’ll limit my criticism minimally to some mild but necessary one to explain why this exageration is so out of step with reality. You didn’t like his shtick/weren’t approved by him unless you were a certain ethnic profile. At least demaguoges like Rush and O’Reilly are pretty explicit about whom they target and favor. David made it seem like he was this wonderful intellectual but his positions were intellectually dishonest. He sounded very snooty and that doesn’t sit well with a large part of listeners.He made it a signature hobby to trash religion but on his death bed, he confesses that he prayed in “many” religions.” Huh?He was this great honest intellectual, but hid his lifestyle for a long time, most importantly from a conservative following he spent years pandering to. Someone tell me how wonderful that is and how commendable. And we are not talking 60’s and 70’s but 80’s and 90’s and early 2000’s, so it wasn’t a mortal sin anymore to be ‘out’ and public. Why didn’t he?And why was he canceled by BZ in 1990? I truly don’t know. SOmeone inform me, but that doesn’t infer greatness, does it? Was it that his bosses were bothered by his hypocrisy between what he preaches and his lying about his lifestyle? The issue here is not the lifestyle, but his lying about it. If he were that passionate and outspoken, why wasn’t he as fearless on being open with the world? Only a circle of Boston Patrician ellitist media-types elevate him as high. When you hear regular people reminisce about old hosts, you can hear they have alot of warmth for Jerry Williams but you don’t hear that coming as often about David. He was a conflicted man and not a unanymous first choice. He had it in him to be great, but he was playing fast and loose with too many things to be called great.May he rest in Peace.- Brian Baloney: Does it get more cynical than that phoney and the the two delusinonal nuts with him? First they put up an ad among the Howie postings to remind people to click back and not ignore them like they do the rest of the time. It looks like only Julie and Jason are regular visitors to SaveWRKO. Then there is this gem of hypocrisy: Mr Brian argues that it is ok to have an uncomfortable situation where Howie crosses so many old adversaries in TKK hallways since ‘you know’, it is a business and management should do whatever to prop up ratings. ‘It is a business, you know.’But it ISN’T ok to have Finneran alongside Howie, because in that case…what? it isn’t about money, ratings and bottomline? Or do we only play the ‘Business Guru’ card when it is people we like and decisions we approve of? THAT is why Brian is a failed host and desperate webmaster. He isn’t honest with himself, let alone…. Oh, and being one of Rush’s stack among other stacks is because 70% of the posts are these pandering fluff pieces about Rush and his ‘greatness.’ Not his intellectual or investigative merits. Equalizer barely budged in ratings according to Alexa, despite the fury of posts.Surprisingly, neither did the Herald’s click count unfortunately.- Can we officially call WRKO as the ‘toothless station’ now if the the only two stable host are two out-of-step 80 year-olds? Out of repsect for their seniority, we won’t go into their shtick today, so is it fitting then?N.

EB3 said:>>Can he blast illegal immigrants all morning? I don’t think so.<<Why not? He’s been doing it for years in the afternoon. (And sucessfully.) Whats to stop him from doing so in the morning?I don’t get your point.>>Finneran could add some comedy he will kill Howie. <<Finneran has not proven himself in any measured way as even a moderately sucessful talk-show host.Simply “adding comedy” won’t make him suddenly sucessful.>>Even Frank Sinatra’s biggest fan would get tired of watching him sing “My Way” all day everyday.<<Sinatra sang “My Way” at every concert until his passing. And thats what his audience wanted to hear.EB3, I think your reasoning is getting clouded by your personal tastes and dislikes….

EB3 said: >>Morning radio is different than afternoon. Howie gets big boost from old people listening in afternoon. They doin’t listen in the morning. They’re asleep<<#1.) I’m not sure where you get this fact…but it’s just not true. Plenty of older people are up in the morning. If you have a reference, please cite your source.#2.)Howie’s audience in the afternoon is relatively young. As a matter of fact, it is the youngest audience WRKO has all day. Check the 25-54 ratings and Howie does just fine. >>I like him. I wish I could buy stock in his show.<<Like I said, your personal bias’ are showing. >>Too early for any real ratings return. You need a good 12 months to really catch<<Not true. Quite often the best showing for a new product is right out of the gate. >>True. It has to be good comedy.<<God OR bad…Comedy is not what people would expect from a Finneran in the morning. >>Try sitting in front of Sinatra every day for four hours listening to him sing the same song.<<While “immigrant issues” are one of Howies hot topics…he doesn’t do it for “every day for four hours”. He has lots of other trivial topics. >>No. I think people in the media like you, who have been kicking the crap out of Finneran for years<<I have nothing against Finneran. Good *OR* bad… I could care less that he got this gig.The fact is that he has not proven himself. Considering the show he replaced was at an all-time low…he had nowhere to go but up! (But hasn’t!)Considering the amount of free publicity he had going in….you think there’d be SOME interest in his show. (But there isn’t!)>>(you should know this, you’re in the biz)<<Thanks for allowing me to straighten you out! 😉

Not “in the biz”, but I do have a few off-the-cuff reactions from a transplant who’s been listening to talk radio here since 2003 …1. On Brudnoy: I came to Brudnoy in 2004, very late in his last stint at WBZ, with no knowledge of how he was before. I’m no elitist and no golden-ager, but my impression of Brudnoy is that he was one of the few talk hosts I’ve ever heard who genuinely seemed to be LISTENING to his callers and LEARNING from them. He gave the impression of someone who was not a know-it-all. I would say in the last five years of listening to talk radio here, he’s the best I’ve heard.2. Carr — and I listen to him as often as possible — works better in the afternoon than the morning. I agree that it’s a mistake to move him away from his audience, but what was WTKK going to do, oust Severin? (I wouldn’t mind, but he might!) I don’t think Carr would take noon-3. Nobody’s listening. A compromise might be to break up the drivetime into two slots — say, Howie 2-6, Jay 6-9, or vice versa. But Howie’s shtick is building a community and b*tching about the news after a half-day’s reflection. I don’t think it’ll work as well with half-asleep morning commuters. Nor do I think the middle-aged news consumer wants to hear Angry Howie on the kitchen radio while frying eggs. But hey, I’d like to see him try.3. The question nobody’s answering is: what does this do to the affiliates? In Worcester County, is WRCN going to keep simulcasting Howie, in his new time slot? What will that do to Peter Blute, who actually has a decent handle on the drivetime? I wouldn’t mind Peter in the afternoon; I also wouldn’t mind seeing Jordan Levy follow Hank Stoltz to the 50,000-watt signal (and thereby kill WTAG even more than WTKK is killing WRKO). What I’d really like to see is something local in the early afternoon. I’m sick of flipping back and forth between Ingrahm and Limbaugh. And don’t talk to me about Egan and Braude.4. I’d like to see WRKO go liberal, as one poster already said, just to see if it would work. I’m a conservative, but if someone can do a show as entertaining as Carr’s from the left, I’ll listen.5. Finneran is toast. He is too wordy and too wishy-washy — he talks like a politician (go figure). If they could pair him up with a real firecracker co-host, witty, well-read and pugnacious, he might have a chance. I love the idea of WRKO going lib and giving Finneran a moonbat (‘scuse me — “progressive”) cohost. Even Finneran and Fineburg as a pair would be better than the status quo (it could be 10 lbs. of prolix in a 5-lb. bag, or it could be intellectually engaging — both have the same strong suit and the same drawback, but they could cancel each other out).

>>check out stats for ‘elderly” not older people. howie has many many 65+ listeners and most aren’t listening to radio between 6 AM AND 9 AM.<<When we are talking 25-54 demos…65+ are not a factor.>>these same you say are younger people who listen to howie in the >>afternoon listen because there are few choices. Afternoon drive time >>is very limited in choices. Morning has many choices.<<And on FM Howie will have access to many more younger demos that weren’t even available to him at RKO.>>Did you go to any other school besides c t. school of broadcasting? <<B.A., Boston University…you?>>My opinion is the show is good and will catch on. Your opinion is the show stinks and will fail.<<My opinion is based on his track record, so far (or lack of one) Your opinion is based on “wishful thinking” and personal bias.>>howie does not just talk about immigrants. he mixes in bulgers and taxes. >>But he is shallow and appeals to morons.<<We are not talking about our personal likes or dislikes about his content…we are talking about his sucesses. Wether or not you or I like him personally doesn’t affect his ability to attract ratings, listeners, advertisers, etc.>>but an unbias observer, like you, would agree that the localtalk radio >>media has knocked the idea of giving him a show<<I too was surprised after 30 days the papers proclaimed his show a failure. However, maybe they knew Finneran and knew he didn’t have what it takes….as is evident now.Maybe they listened and heard that his show and talent lack what it needs to be sucessful.>>you make no mention of the differences in competition and listerner >>wants of morning v. afternoon radio<<Then let’s address that. You are correct that he had less competition in the afternoon…and there are more choices in the morning.I’d say he’s proven his ability to get listeners in the afternoon and has a better than average shot than any other choice that WTKK had for that slot.But WTKK hiring is is two-fold.One, is for a replacement for Imus.Two, is to clear the competition in the afternoon for Jay severin.>>and you assert i am bias because i have an opinion opposite of >>yours.<<No, I assert your bias because they are based on feelings, not track records, trends or fact. Your visceral attitude is evident in your use of the word “morons”…and “(you should know this, your in the biz)”…and “c t. school of broadcasting?”>>Howie in the afternoon because no matty in the morning, no oppie and >>anthony, no loren and wally, <<If Howie can maintain the meager ratings that Imus had….the move would be considered a sucess.If Howie can coninually beat WRKO in the morning, it would be considered sucessful.If Howie keeps WTKK in the top 10 in the demo….it would be considered a sucess.He doesn’t have to beat L&W or Matty, BZ…which are all in the top 5.

Biz-guy, go sell some time.EB3, take your “debarting skills”(sic) somewhere else for a while. Those of us with lives are weary.

>>>’And on FM Howie will have access to many more younger demos that weren’t even available to him at RKO.'<<<>> oh really. hmmm the aaf crowd and bcn crowd are going over to howie? <<Gee did I say that? No I didn’t.However, if you are on AM…you barely have acess to anyone under 45…because to them the AM band is like shortwave. Check out the AM presets of anyone under 35….they are probably not even set.Who said anything about AAF & BCN listeners? Are they the only ones on FM?>>so the papers initial dismissal of him is better than my initial projections.<<Only in that they were proven correct…and we have yet to see your projections take root.>>what is evident now/ what has changed? what info do you have? <<Every month of ratings that have yet to show *any* traction for the Finneran show. (i.,e…they’re lower than the guy they fired previously in that time slot because of his low ratings.)>>You just say he is good on rko in the afternoon right now so obviously he will be good in morning in future.<<No…what I said was with his sucess in the morning…and in the market…he’s pretty well qalified to make a go of it. (I can’t think of another person that could/would be a better bet…than someone who has proven himself in the afternoon…and in the market. Can you?)>>it is my understanding that it will cost tkk more $$$ to have howie than imus. so he needs bigger ratings than imus to cover the differnce. Am i wrong about that biz guy?<<I don’t know the exact cost of the Imus show…..but it was pretty expensive. Remember WEEI dropped them because of the cost. I believe the contract was in the millions. So they are saving the money they paid for the Imus show.Second, with the Imus show, the network took 1/2 of all the spots. With Howie, WTKK gets to sell ALL the spots in morning drive.Third, with the Howie move, they expect an increase in ratings and revenue on Severin’s afternoon-drive slot. With Howie out of the way, look for that to clear the way for increase listenership/revenue for Jay Severin. All this with Howie simply matching the meager numbers that Imus produced. Now if there’s an increase over the Imus numbers…they hit the jackpot. Again, a rising tide lifts all boats…so a sucessful mornming show would benefit the station as a whole in all dayparts.>>I can’t believe you found it necessary to tell me you have a bachelors degree from B.U. because of a joke i made.<<I can’t believe you tried to belittle me with a joke instead of debating facts and ideas. >>You are obviously thin skinned with an unheaqlthy need to establish your credentials.<<No, you asked for them.Also, you must be thinned skinned to name call others when you feel you cannot debate. >>Of course you know a b.A is what a high school diploma use to be<<Again, you decide to derride me instead of staying on topic. Nice touch. >>i believe many of the top people in radio have graduate degrees like most in other businesses. <<Actually many in the Biz have no degree. Larry King is one of them. >>And b.u. Obviously you are a transplant.<<Born in Salem Mass in 1955.