By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

WTKK continues to inch toward the grave

Talk radio station WTKK (96.9 FM) continues to inch its way toward the grave. The latest word is that the operation will shuffle off this mortal coil on Wednesday as corporate owner Greater Media paves the way for robo-music of some kind.

Today I’m among those interviewed by Boston Globe reporter Callum Borchers on what went wrong. In a nutshell: lack of a clear identity in recent years, compounded by the rise of sports radio.

At the Boston Herald, Gayle Fee reports that WTKK’s principal remaining asset — the morning team of Margery Eagan and Jim Braude — may end up at former rival WRKO (AM 680) or at public station WGBH (89.7 FM).

Update: And it’s finally official.

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7 Comments

  1. Lou gawab

    Egan & Braude are under contract. So itmighttake mucho machinations for them to be anywhere else. And no one is going to pay them their current salary. I assume they are going to try to collect their final year salary. And tkk will use every leverage they can to try not to pay it. WRKO and WGBH don’t have this kind of money to finagle this.

  2. I have said many times that talk radio is in desperate need of reinvention. it has become an almost entirely angry-white-male “we hate Obama” format, and even Michael Savage (gasp) warned that if that’s all talk radio has to offer, why listen to it? Talk used to appeal to a wider range of listeners. These days, I can’t stand most of it– so much rage, so much exaggeration, so much ranting. Gives me a headache, and I say that as a long-time radio consultant who has trained many talk show hosts. David Brudnoy is spinning in his grave.

  3. After “Talk 1200,” and now 96.9, the next one to go is WRKO, whose ratings also suck. Can we bring back Jerry Williams from the dead? Talk radio just hasn’t been that good since the early ’90s (I still can’t believe Howie Carr has been on for over 18 years!), and that’s really a reflection of our increasingly authoritarian, lazy-thinking culture in general.

  4. Glen Bergendahl

    It wasn’t so long ago Boston might have been the talk radio capital of the country. We had the likes of David Brudnoy, Gene Burns, Jerry Williams, Paul Benzaquin, and Larry Glick. These were all compelling and provocative personalities. How sad.

    As for the demise of WTKK, I believe a radio station which (twice) gave Jay Severin a platform was living on borrowed time from Day One. Something you and I can finally agree on Dan?

  5. Chris Daly

    I think you went easy on Michael Graham, Dan. If anyone ever didn’t need a megaphone. . .

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