Tag: WTKK

Severin to return on Tuesday

Jay Severin’s suspension will end next week, and he will return to WTKK Radio (96.9 FM) on Tuesday. The following statement is from Heidi Raphael, spokeswoman for Greater Media, WTKK’s parent corporation:

We have had conversations with Jay Severin over the past several weeks about his hurtful, inappropriate remarks. He understands that we will not accept this type of commentary on our airwaves in the future. Based on this understanding, we have agreed to conclude Jay’s suspension and he will return to the 96.9 FM WTKK airwaves on Tuesday, June 2, 2009. We want to emphasize that WTKK still strongly supports an open and spirited debate about the many issues our community and our country currently face. There will no doubt be times when people disagree with what Jay says. Our goal is to maintain a level of discourse that is compelling and thought-provoking, yet civil and respectful. While we will not always succeed in walking this line, we will continually strive to do so.

Given that Severin’s entire show is based on making hurtful, inappropriate remarks, it will be very interesting to see how this plays out.

The Boston Herald’s Jessica Heslam and the Boston Globe’s Martin Finucane have more.

For Jay Severin, every day is Groundhog Day

For weeks now, if you visit the Web site of WTKK Radio (96.9 FM) you’ll find this:

WTKK and Greater Media value an open and vigorous dialogue, but we also adhere to basic principles of civility, common decency and respect for all cultures. We believe Jay’s suspension is the best way to uphold both of these corporate policies. WTKK Management met with Jay Severin and his agent today. He will remain on suspension until further notice.

Like Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day,” every day for Severin is the same day: he gets up, realizes he’s been suspended and sits down for a meeting with management and his agent.

You really get the feeling that station officials are in no hurry to resolve this. And Joe Kahn’s story in the Boston Globe on Monday (I was among those quoted) did nothing to dispel that notion.

WTKK statement on Jay Severin

This now appears on the Web site of WTKK Radio (96.9 FM):

WTKK and Greater Media value an open and vigorous dialogue, but we also adhere to basic principles of civility, common decency and respect for all cultures. We believe Jay’s suspension is the best way to uphold both of these corporate policies. WTKK Management met with Jay Severin and his agent today. He will remain on suspension until further notice.

V.B., who took the afternoon shift today, said he was “filling in for Jay.” Sounds like Severin may be back. And if management means what it says, it also sounds like Severin will be helming a very different show.

The numbers tell the story

Jay Severin has been disappeared from the WTKK home page, though you can still find his blog if you know where to look.

The Boston Herald’s Jessica Heslam has the numbers, and they tell a gruesome story. During the first quarter of 2009, Severin dropped to 14th place among 25- to 54-year-old listeners, the most demographically important group. Severin’s WRKO rival, Howie Carr, was in sixth place. Severin had a 3.6 share; Carr, 5.2.

Heslam notes that Severin’s plunge came as radio stations switched to a new method of measuring audience. What’s unclear is whether the old system was artificially inflating Severin’s numbers; the new system is artifically hurting him; or people are just sick of listening to his race-baiting rants.

I love this:

Sources within Greater Media, which owns the station, have told the Herald that management has been dissatisfied with the “hateful” tone his show has taken. One source said Severin had been warned in the past.

So when was this magical period when Severin’s show was not “hateful”? No doubt Greater Media executives thought Severin sounded a whole lot less hateful when he was beating Carr every day. I’m sure one thing they really hate is paying a reported $1 million-plus a year to a host who’s coming in 14th in the ratings.

Lehigh on Severin

Boston Globe columnist Scot Lehigh, who’s tangled with Jay Severin before, weighs in with a terrific column on Severin’s suspension from WTKK Radio (96.9 FM). I love this:

From the start of his talk-radio career, Severin was just bright enough to be an accomplished charlatan, clever enough to coat his gut-level biases and bigotry with a thin veneer of analysis. But he was neither smart nor knowledgeable enough to add much of value to the public discussion.

On “Beat the Press” this evening, Emily Rooney expressed the view that Severin will be back. Perhaps she’s right. (The segment should pop up on the new BTP Web site over the weekend.) I believe that was Curtis Sliwa I heard filling in for Severin this afternoon, which suggests that management didn’t even have a Plan D in place, never mind a Plan B or C.

Still, I find it hard to believe that management is happy about paying Severin a reported $1 million-plus a year only to lose the ratings battle to WRKO (AM 680) host Howie Carr — who, after all, would now be ‘TKK’s morning host if only he hadn’t signed a contract with ‘RKO that would make Curt Flood weep.

Are these the Severin sound bites?

The Boston Globe posts two brief audio clips of Jay Severin insulting Mexicans. They are utterly unremarkable — pedestrian, humorless, racist crap of the sort that’s been tumbling from his mouth for years.

If WTKK (96.9 FM) managment wants to claim that these are what got him suspended (and we don’t know that), then you’d have to say this is a John DePetro situation. That is, management wants Severin gone and is looking for any convenient excuse.

Brian Flaherty writes that Severin makes more than $1 million a year, although I don’t know who or what his source is. And Flaherty notices something I’ve noticed, too — Severin’s afternoon drive-time rival, Howie Carr of WRKO (AM 680), has been crowing about having the largest talk-radio audience in the afternoon lately, something Severin had bragged about for quite a few years.

More than a million dollars is a lot to pay a talk-show host who is essentially in last place, given that there are only two major-station political talk shows in Boston during afternoon drive.

More: Lance has worse. Vile stuff — though, again, I’ve been hearing this garbage from Severin for years.

WTKK suspends Jay Severin

Jay Severin’s ratings must really be slipping. WTKK Radio (96.9 FM) has suspended him “indefinitely” for making derogatory remarks about Mexicans, according to the Boston Globe’s David Abel. As anyone who has listened to him over the years knows, he couldn’t possibly have been any more offensive this week than he’s been for the past decade.

You have to wonder if this is really about ‘TKK trying to get out from under a contract that makes no sense in the current economic environment. So what did Severin say? Anyone hear it?

At least for the moment, Severin is still featured on ‘TKK’s Web site. (Thanks to Ron Newman.)

More: The Boston Herald’s Jessica Heslam doesn’t have Severin’s offending remarks, either, but she does report that ‘TKK was actually using those very same sound bites as promos. That tends to confirm my suspicion that this is all about money. Prediction: If Severin ever returns to ‘TKK, it will be with a new contract for substantially less money. It’s a different world now.

A question about Michael Graham’s arrest

I am determined not to get caught up in WTKK Radio (96.9 FM) talk-show host Michael Graham‘s loud, high-pitched crusade against the Registry of Motor Vehicles. Graham, as you may have heard, was arrested last week and charged with running a red light and driving after the revocation of his license.

But let me ask a question. Graham says the issue is the Registry’s policy of not notifying drivers when their licenses have been revoked. Everything I’ve seen, though, including Jessica Heslam’s latest in the Boston Herald, suggests that Graham was notified. Graham himself comes off as ambivalent, writing on his blog this past Saturday:

–According to my insurance company, I was contacted by the RMV in October 2008–almost three years after leaving VA–about Virginia threatening to cancel my drivers license in 2008 (huh?) unless I proved I had insurance on my car in 2006 (huh?), and MA was going to suspend my license here, too. (Huh what huh?)

–According to my insurance company, I gave them the VA DMV’s fax number, contact information and my VA drivers license number in October of 2008, and they forwarded my information to Virginia.

–I never heard another word about any of this until I was handcuffed and read my rights yesterday morning.

By Graham’s own account, it sounds like he was notified, took some steps to clear up the matter and then failed to follow up and make sure everything was all right.

Or maybe: Graham also writes, “What you didn’t read in the Herald, however, were the notes from my insurance company showing that they had responded to that letter in October and giving the Virginia DMV the information requested. You also didn’t see the portion of my personal RMV file showing that more than a week AFTER that supposed revocation notice, the RMV gave me a brand-new driver’s license.”

So Graham presented a new driver’s license to the Framingham police, who ran a check on it and found it had been revoked? I guess.