All Sports, All The Time
by Brian Maloney, January 15th, 2007 at 10:12am
We’re hearing from SaveWRKO readers who were stunned to find the station carrying a football game yesterday.
But it wasn’t a match-up with any New England connection: WRKO chose to run the Seahawks - Bears playoff game!
More and more, it appears that WRKO has sadly been reduced to a dumping ground for whatever doesn’t fit on sister WEEI’s schedule. It’s been decades since the Celtics have generated radio ratings and the college games it now runs are part of the Red Sox deal.
It’s hard to believe Entercom couldn’t have found a throwaway AM signal for the purpose of dumping this third-tier programming. At this moment, however, we’re guessing the company has bigger matters on which to focus.
Entry Filed under: General
3 Comments
1. raccoonradio | January 15th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
In the past WRKO has picked up some sports broadcasts that WEEI couldn’t carry due to other obligations, or their own wishes. In the case of the Chi-Sea game yesterday WEEI preferred to have its listeners call in about the upcoming Patriots game.
WRKO carrying sports? They’ve run the Celtics for two years and will add the Sox. Why is anyone suprised? So they don’t have “sports” included in the name “the Talk Station”. Well, other stations across the US run baseball
at night but can still call themselves
“Talk (Freq.)”.
WBZ is “The News Station”. Oh, and the Bruins too.
I’m sure WRKO would have loved to run the
Patriots game but the NFL gives WBCN exclusivity.
Maybe WRKO will add “sports” to its nickname,
or maybe Entercom should just shift all
sports programming (or most) to 680 and make
850 a talk station…
2. Andrea | January 15th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
I had the same revulsion about the airing of the football game. I suspect the folks at Business 1060 are taking a look at what’s going on at RKO. They could easily rearrange their schedule and have a business talk format during drive time.
Ms. Kahn’s perceived “star” is falling fast.
3. WRKO Fan | January 19th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Are you kidding? Do you think more people cared about what WRKO would ordinarily run on a Saturday than an NFL Playoff game? That seems counter-intuitive. Sure, it may not be old-school WRKO, but old-school WRKO was not performing well with enough listeners or advertisers. Sure, some people loved it and the people there no doubt did a good job at what they do, but being ranked outside the top 15 stations in Boston in ratings and revenue isn’t good enough for Entercom.
With Jason Wolfe at the helm, it appears that the mission is to make WRKO the “WEEI” of talk radio. You may not like it, but the success of WEEI (highly rated, #1 in revenue) is unassailable. No doubt he will turn off some traditional listers, but the gamble is that he will find more new ones. Time will tell.
As for Kahn, the Boston cluster of stations has returned Entercom increased revenue and profit margins every year of her tenure. Falling fast? She is among the brightest of stars in the industry, honored by the trades and respected by her peers. Sorry to rain on your parade, but that’s how it is. Anyone who may tell you otherwise doesn’t have a complete picture of the facts.