Author: Dan Kennedy

Entercom’s latest disaster

It’s one thing for Entercom to screw up its fading Boston talk station, WRKO (AM 680). It’s quite another for the company to mess with its highly successful sports operation, WEEI (AM 850). But that’s exactly what has happened.

Boston Sports Media’s David Scott got the scoop late last night, reporting that WEEI’s top-rated morning hosts, John Dennis and Gerry Callahan, have been locked out over a contract dispute. The Herald’s Jessica Heslam and Laurel Sweet follow today with a story that actually leads the paper. (Callahan is also a Herald columnist.)

Now, consider the ill-fated moves that have brought Entercom to this impasse. The big one took place last fall, when the company negotiated a deal with the Red Sox to move most of their games from the sports station to the talk station. Yes, some games are still on WEEI. The schedule is determined, as best as I can tell, by the phase of the moon. Fortunately, those of us who live in Media Nation are able to hear all the games on a non-Entercom affiliate, WBOQ (104.9 FM).

The residual effects: WEEI now has a talented host, Mike Adams, trying to do a sports show that competes with the Red Sox, an impossible task. WRKO’s Howie Carr (like Callahan, a Herald columnist) is said to have been furious over having his show cut short by Sox games, thus helping to precipitate his move — pending the resolution of lawsuits he and Entercom have filed against each other — to rival WTKK (96.9 FM). Finally, both WRKO and WEEI have had their identities fuzzed up (a talk station with the Red Sox? a sports station without the Sox?), which is deadly for marketing.

In the case of “Dennis & Callahan,” there is an additional drama. Callahan has been off the air for months, recovering from what Scott describes as “multiple surgeries to his throat.” Supposedly Callahan was going to return to the airwaves today and explain, finally, what was at the root of his health problems. Scott also writes that “D&C” may not return to WEEI at all:

The final bit of intrigue in this whole complicated mess is the multiple reports we are receiving that D&C are being coveted by a completely separate broadcasting entity that would use the pair as its cornerstone to build a New England regional sports talk network. While some industry insiders are telling us that is a real, viable possibility others are more skeptical and assume it is a ploy on behalf of D&C’s representatives to drive up their clients value on the open market.

Shots can confirm that a regional player fitting the description does have the infrastructure in place to build such a network, but whether or not the group would be able to guarantee the kind of money that Dennis and Callahan are looking for is open to debate.

Personally, I wouldn’t miss “Dennis & Callahan,” which trucks in low-rent populism, homophobia and — in one notorious incident — out-and-out racism. I think you could move the vastly superior “Dale & Holley” show into the morning drive-time slot without missing a beat or a ratings point.

But “D&C” is the number-one radio show among men between the ages of 25 and 54. I wouldn’t think Entercom executives Jason Wolfe and Julie Kahn would want to take the chance of losing them.

Then again, maybe Tom Finneran can do sports.

Virtual Dennis: If you click on the WEEI home page right now, you might see a virtual John Dennis talking up the Jimmy Fund radiothon.

Casting a misspell

At the beginning of each semester, I tell my students that I have a rule about spelling: botch a proper name — person, place or thing — and it will cost you a letter grade. Even so, I often find I have to temper justice with mercy, lest I risk failing someone for the course despite turning in work that is otherwise quite good.

Apparently it’s not much different at the New York Times, whose public editor, Clark Hoyt, weighs in with a piece today on misspelled names. He writes:

The fact is, The New York Times misspells names at a ferocious rate — famous names, obscure names, names of the dead in their obituaries, names of the living in their wedding announcements, household names from Hollywood, names of Cabinet officers, sports figures, the shoe bomber, the film critic for The Daily News in New York and, astonishingly and repeatedly, Sulzberger, the name of the family that owns The New York Times.

Pretty amazing, and I’m not sure why it’s so difficult. Hoyt thinks the Internet might have something to do with it, as it’s become all too easy for reporters to pass on other people’s mistakes. But that doesn’t make sense, because any reporter ought to know enough to visit an authoritative Web site.

A small example. One day in the early ’90s, when I was working for the Boston Phoenix, a fellow copy editor and I were trying to figure out how “Dunkin’ Donuts” ought to be rendered. One of us ended up walking to Kenmore Square in order to look at the sign outside a DD. Today, all we would have needed to do was click here.

When I was going to journalism school, one of my professors, Bill Kirtz (now a colleague), used to say that if you couldn’t be trusted to get the little things right, then you couldn’t be trusted to get the big things right, either. It’s a credo I’ve tried to live by, even as I’ve gotten my share of things wrong, both little and big.

Media Nation on hiatus

I’m leaving tomorrow morning for a six-day, 50-mile backpacking trip in the Berkshires with the Boy Scout troop I help lead. I would ask that you not try to post any comments during this time, since I’m keeping moderation on and won’t be able to approve them until I get back late next Thursday.

I did consider quietly turning moderation off. But the last time I went away, Blogger got hit with a bot attack, and I was glad I had kept the gates up.

Million Dollar Howie?

Carolyn Johnson reports in the Globe that Howie Carr last year made $790,000 from WRKO Radio (AM 680), the station from which he is now seeking a less-than-amicable divorce. If you figure in what he’s making as a Herald columnist, I’ll bet he’s at $1 million or close to it — and that’s not counting whatever he’s making from his book, “The Brothers Bulger.”

That ought to put things in perspective the next time he goes off on some poor bastard grasping for another $10,000.

Over on Cape Cod Today, Peter Kenney offers some thoughts and insight into the Carr-Cary Pahigian relationship. Kenney gets at something very odd: the propriety of Pahigian, an executive with one radio company, freelancing as an agent and messing with the star property of another radio company.

Howie’s unusual agent

This is way inside baseball, but it’s odd enough to mention. Both the Globe (which quotes me) and the Herald, in reporting on WRKO’s countersuit against Howie Carr, note that Carr’s agent is Cary Pahigian.

But Pahigian is a radio management guy of long standing. As recently as late June, he was oozing sincerity in front of the FCC in his capacity as president and general manager of Saga Communications’ Portland (Maine) Radio Group. He’s still listed in that capacity on Saga’s Web site.

One of Saga’s Maine stations, WGAN (AM 560), carries Carr’s show from 3 to 5 p.m. every weekday. And in the late 1990s, when Pahigian was running a hate radio station on Cape Cod owned by the late auto magnate Ernie Boch, he carried Carr’s show and provided airtime to Carr’s then-sidekick Giles Threadgold.

So clearly there are ties between Carr and Pahigian. Still, it’s pretty unusual for someone to walk both sides of the management-talent divide.

By the way, Howie was still doing his WRKO show yesterday. What a strange situation.

Patrick to Murphy: Uh, no

There’s really nothing left to say about the saga of Middlesex Superior Court Judge Ernest Murphy, other than good for Gov. Deval Patrick for refusing to approve Murphy’s request for a disability pension.

I don’t consider myself a Murphy-basher. I don’t doubt that he suffered terribly at the hands of the Herald’s sensationalistic coverage of him — although Media Nation readers know I disagree with the libel verdict that he won, and that the state’s Supreme Judicial Court upheld.

But surely the $3.41 million he pocketed recently, along with the regular pension he could receive by working for just three more years is enough — provided he doesn’t get bounced for alleged misconduct over those weird letters he sent to Herald publisher Pat Purcell.

On the plus side

The Weekly Dig’s Web site loads a lot faster than it used to.

You know, guys, there’s this thing called Blogger. It’s free, and you can set it up in about two minutes. You could use it to get some of your content online while you continue with the endless redesign. What do you think?

Adam Gaffin points out that it’s not July anymore. But what I want to know is this: Isn’t it kind of pushing things to run a vodka ad, complete with audio, on an “under construction” page?

A $2 million reward

Secretary of State William Galvin might want to take a close look at today’s Enterprise of Brockton, which reports the following:

A town police lieutenant, who was in charge of security for Saturday’s town meeting that approved a casino for Middleboro, and his family could score more than $2 million if the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe buys land they own near the casino site.

Middleboro Police Lt. Bruce Gates and two siblings own 204 acres of land off Precinct and Thompson streets. The land consists of a handful of parcels, which abut 125 acres already in the hands of the tribe.

The tribe is now negotiating with Gates and his family for their land, said Wampanoag spokesman Scott Ferson.

“We hope to have an agreement in the next week or two,” Ferson said.

This, of course, would be the same Middleborough police department that reportedly refused to let casino opponents distribute their leaflets while at the same time allowing supporters to enter wearing orange T-shirts and white caps emblazoned with a pro-casino message.

In other casino-related news:

  • Rich Young, director of the anti-casino group Casinofacts.org, makes his case on the op-ed page of the Patriot Ledger of Quincy. He writes:

The real story from Saturday’s “vote” was that while a majority at the FedEx-style town meeting supported the warrant article dealing with the agreement, they also voted against the idea of a casino coming to Middleboro in the next warrant article.

This came as a surprise to no one. During the three-week campaign, hundreds of voters we spoke with did not want a casino, but they were afraid if they did not vote for the agreement, the casino was going to come anyway and the town would receive nothing in return.

  • The Globe reports that a challenge is being made to the legitimacy of the town meeting vote, alleging a number of irregularities, including the presence of those orange T-shirts and a videotaped moment of what may have been ballot-stuffing.

The truth is out there.