Tag: talk radio

A doze of Finneran

Sounds like Tom Finneran’s new morning show on WRKO Radio (AM 680) is off to a somnolent start. Media Nation confesses to having missed yesterday’s debut and to having no time to listen this morning, but here are a couple of early reviews. First, the Phoenix’s Adam Reilly:

[J]ust before 9, a guy called up and said, basically, I never thought I’d be calling in to Tom Finneran, but here I am, and I like the discussion you’re having about Iraq. Finneran responded with a long soliloquy: We’re all entitled to an epiphany moment, I spent 26 years in the Massachusetts legislature, I was the most conservative Democrat ever, blah blah blah. Then he tried to bring the caller into the conversation — but he’d hung up.

Next up is Michael Levenson of the Globe:

“Speaker DiMasi and I are going to challenge you and the lieutenant governor to a pleasant, social, recreational round of golf,” Finneran told [Gov. Deval] Patrick. “There’ll be no press coverage. We’ll have a lot of fun.”

As his producer waved frantically from a glass booth, yelling for Finneran to ask about DSS, Finneran appeared not to notice. Instead, he urged Patrick not to be afraid to take trade missions.

“You are the very best salesman we have,” Finneran told Patrick. “And if the press gives you a hard time, you know you’ve got comfort and protection over here.”

I’m sorry, but that’s just gruesome.

You will not be surprised to learn that Brian Maloney, of Save WRKO, is unimpressed.

Finneran’s predecessor, Scott Allen Miller, maintains his silence. Scotto, to his credit, has taken the high road, even though WRKO’s corporate owner, Entercom, has not come through with the new gig that had been hinted at in the press.

Finally, the Herald keeps its fangs uncharacteristically sheathed, as Jessica Heslam weighs in with a balanced, pro-and-con piece.

Rooney and Severin

The Herald goes public with some news that’s been brewing for a while: Emily Rooney, the host of “Greater Boston” on WGBH-TV (Channel 2), will be sparring with WTKK Radio (96.9 FM) talk-show host Jay Severin every Friday at 6 p.m., starting today. (The Herald Web site is down at the moment, but I think the story will pop up here.)

Severin thinks Rooney is a liberal, which shows that he’s wrong about at least two things: he also thinks his audience is callers are “the best and the brightest.” Anyway, Severin’s going to have his hands full unless he uses the mute button — and I can guarantee you that won’t go over well at all.

(Disclosure: I’m a paid contributor to “Greater Boston”‘s Friday media panel, “Beat the Press.”)

Out of bounds

If only I’d been taking notes. I post this in the hope that some sharp-eared Media Nation reader will be able to expand on what I heard yesterday while parking at Target to run a few errands.

Howie Carr was hosting his WRKO Radio (AM 680) show, and the topic was the killing at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School. Some of Carr’s observations were sensible. You do have to wonder what the parents of suspect John Odgren were thinking as he went off to school wearing a Columbine-style trench coat.

But then a caller opined that Odgren ought to be executed. I’m not making this up. Odgren is 16 years old and living with Asperger’s syndrome, a serious mental disorder, and some know-nothing know-it-all was ready to strap him into an electric chair as an example to others. I believe the caller also described Odgren as “an animal,” and “not a human being.”

And Carr agreed.

Then, within moments, Carr sounded like he was ready to change his tune. Those of us who’ve been reading and listening to Carr for years know there’s a good Howie and a bad Howie, and that occasionally he’ll remember that he’s supposed to be the adult in these exchanges. Or perhaps the producer was screaming in his ear, relaying orders from Entercom to inject a little sanity into the proceedings.

But alas. All Carr did was point out that you can’t reinstate the death penalty and use it on someone after the fact — a state of affairs he lamented. He further observed, bitterly, that Odgren would probably serve just 11 years or so, unless someone kills him in prison.

Maria Cramer reports in the Globe today that Odgren has a troubled history — so troubled that you have to wonder why he was allowed such freedom of movement at Lincoln-Sudbury. If he had been more closely supervised, James Alenson might be alive today.

There are plenty of questions about the way Odgren’s disability was managed. But for some mouth-breathing talk-radio caller to demand his execution — and for the host actually to agree — is so reprehensible and irresponsible that Carr, on reflection, would be deeply ashamed if he were capable of such an emotion.

Finneran begins again

So it’s official. Former Massachusetts House Speaker Tom Finneran, barely a week after pleading guilty to federal obstruction-of-justice charges, is the new morning drive-time host at WRKO Radio (AM 680). But why?

Finneran used to do a lot of fill-in work at WBZ (AM 1030), especially when the legendary David Brudnoy was alive. He struck me as OK as a substitute, but not someone I’d want to listen to every day. He talked too much, throwing out a blizzard of verbiage when a few words would do, and wasn’t particularly funny, either. (Unlike legislators, Mr. Speaker, listeners don’t have to laugh at your jokes.) In fact, he was pretty much like the way he came off at today’s news conference, which you can watch here.

Nor do I think Finneran is much of a marquee name, although Entercom honchos Julie Kahn and Jason Wolfe obviously believe otherwise.

In his press conference, Finneran did sound as though he wants to try something a little more newsy and elevated than WRKO is used to. (Of course, he’ll be doing it without a news department.) Presumably we won’t have to snore through Finneran’s complaining about how mad he gets when the ATM makes him choose between English and Spanish — an actual Todd Feinburg topic yesterday. So I wish Finneran well.

Scott Allen Miller, the man he’ll be replacing, will stay at the helm until the Finneran show makes its debut on Feb. 12. This is unheard-of in radio, but Wolfe said at the news conference that Miller is being considered for another Entercom job outside of Boston. So Miller will be a good boy.

Miller’s not a bad guy (disclosure: I yakked with him on his show a few times, and once did a morning as his substitute co-host), but I don’t think he ever figured out the Boston market. He really could have used a piece of advice I once heard from Brudnoy: In talk radio, the callers are far dumber than the listeners. The trick is to find a way to deal with the callers without alienating the listeners. Unfortunately, Miller’s show all too often sounds like he thinks the callers are his listeners. By this point, maybe they are.

Save WRKO is apoplectic.

Talk preservation societies

You wouldn’t think anyone would want to preserve WRKO Radio (AM 680) as we know it, but three conservative bloggers — Brian Maloney of the Radio Equalizer and Matt and Aaron Margolis of Hub Politics — have started a Web site called Save WRKO.

They write: “Without any apparent business-related reason, … WRKO as we know it is now facing sudden extinction.” Uh, boys. The “business reason” would be that no one listens to WRKO anymore. But don’t worry — Howie Carr’s almost certainly safe. And possible new morning guy Tom Finneran’s a lot more conservative than you seem to think. (Via the Herald’s Messenger Blog.)

Meanwhile, some liberal bloggers have banded together to bring back “Boston’s Progressive Talk.” Never mind that Clear Channel has already changed the programming at AM 1200 and 1430 to Spanish-language shows. This would appear to be a case of the horse long since having exited the barn.