WBZ Newsroom Closed?
by Brian Maloney, January 7th, 2009 at 11:15am
At Radio-Info.com, the claim has been made that WBZ’s newsroom is now “closed” (unstaffed) between 8pm and the early hours of the morning. Given the cuts that have taken place, this seems plausible.
But isn’t WBZ primarily a news station? Doesn’t that require a staffed newsroom?
Some of the biggest stories in history have broken during evenings, weekends and holidays: Saddam’s capture, Diana’s death and the last Space Shuttle explosion are just a few of many.
If it can’t afford to maintain a news presence, the only real options are to revert to satellite-based network news feeds or dump it all and run syndicated talk programs.
Funny enough, while CBS Radio can’t seem to afford on-air staff, there are many layers of management still in place. Without reporters and hosts to oversee, why will they remain necessary?
Entry Filed under: Finneran Deal, Uncategorized
19 Comments Add your own
1. Celtic Frost | January 7th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Unbelievable, Bri! How sad.
2. NHradiofan | January 7th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Maybe WBZ will go all the way and pipe in Scott Pike from WRKO’s “news hub”.
You all know Scott Pike, don’t you? He’s the guy who can’t get through even one (1) broadcast without mispronouncing someone’s name or mispronouncing the name of a local town.
Next time he is on, play the game that I like to call: “A Million Reasons to Bring Back the WRKO Professional News Team!”
All you have to do is listen! It’s just like the “Wizard of Uhs”. Just count the flubs, flops and various screw-ups. You are guaranteed not to be disappointed (unless you appreciate quality news broadcasts - if that’s the case, you only have yourself to blame for listening to WRKO, don’t you?)
Thanks again for the increase in quality programming, Coffee Boy!
3. NHradiofan | January 7th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Oh, I forgot. Scott Pike is THE GOOD NEWSREADER in the WRKO stable these days. The other jokers sound like wash-outs from Bunker Hill Community College’s “Introduction to Radio Broadcasting” class.
Has the Coffee Boy placed the bar (or the pay scale) so low that a once proud station like WRKO is reduced to putting these types of High School quality broadcasters on the air?
I suggest remedial reading classes for all of WRKO’s newsreaders. It is embarassing to listen to them make such fools of themselves.
If you think I’m exaggerating, prove me wrong. Just listen for yourself.
4. ChrisNH | January 7th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
To be accurate, the more recent shuttle explosion happened during morning daylight hours, not overnight.
5. NHradiofan | January 7th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
ChrisNH,
Maybe you were listening to me on that Saturday morning when you heard about the Columbia disaster?
6. WMassGuy | January 7th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
So Boston radio listeners will get what we in Western Mass. have had for a while. For example, the 2:00 top of the hour “news” segment on WHYN never aired this afternoon…instead we listened to all of the promos and other material offered to stations by the Rush Limbaugh Show…and silence. No news, no weather (we’re having an ice storm, too), no advertising. Guess the station runs on autopilot…until it doesn’t. Look for this kind of quality control coming soon to Boston!
And get satellite radio. I have Sirius in the car and plan on getting it in the home office too. It may not be local, but it is live and competently run.
7. bjd | January 7th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
NHradiofan:
Yes some cuts had to be made in staffing, but look at what RKO got in exchange for those cuts. They have a smart, witty, entertaining, rational, and real morning drive host that really knows and informs his audience about the happenings in Boston. Somebody with his pulse on “the Hub”. A Host that makes sense of the pressing, important issues and clearly expresses the thoughts and feelings of the listeners. A show that makes you want to wake up and be a part of it.
What they did with him and why they choose to air the a$$ that’s on now in the morning instead, I have no idea.
Radio was better than it’s been in a long time this morning. Being caught in bad weather with a longer ride in, I got to bounce between: Liddy, Laura, Glenn, and Graham. It was almost as good as having my TV remote control and flipping through all the channels.
8. The Mole | January 7th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
One more time, THERE WAS NO CONNECTION BETWEEN ELIMINATING THE NEWS STAFF AND THE HIRING OF TOM FINNERAN. It simply isn’t true no matter how many times Brian tells you it is.
The news staff, which carried a significant COST, was replaced by Metro, which instead provides significant REVENUE. WRKO seeks to be known as a talk station and not a news station, thus in tough times it did not make sense to incur a cost that did not return commensurate revenue. Did the old staff do a better job? Of course they did, but not enough to make a real difference in ratings or revenue, and while the human cost sucks and it is always regrettable, the company made a business decision.
The move would have happened whether the morning host was Finneran, Scotto or BJD. Furthermore, given what other stations are doing now, it can be argued that WRKO was ahead of its time and stopped spending bad money after good long ago. Way to go Coffee Boy!!!
9. the real Barbara | January 7th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
NHRadio,,,,I heard a female news reader maybe over the weekend, what a disaster,,,,she just stopped reading in mid sentence…….
10. bjd | January 7th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
I wouldn’t work at rko. I would end up in jail after I pounded on some of the management there. (That would qualify me for on air talent at rko though.)
“…it can be argued that WRKO was ahead of its time and stopped spending bad money after good long ago. Way to go Coffee Boy!!!”.
The comment above must be right AFTER rko signed felon to host fineran’s failure, and it stopped right BEFORE rko signed him again.
staffer you are funny! Thank you for the laugh this afternoon.
11. Brighton Boris | January 7th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
People who bitch the loudest are the ones that don’t even listen to the station on regular basis.
Diana’s death? You’re really grasping now. Tragic? yes…signifcant? hardly.
In the mid90’s Israeli PM Rabin was assasinated on a Saturday afternoon during WBZ’s all-sports weekend block. Guess what? They stuck with covering sports only doing their regular news updates at TOH. They went straight to broadcasting Montreal-Bruins game on that same evening.
WBZ hasn’t been about news for a long time.
12. ChrisNH | January 7th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
“WBZ hasn’t been about news for a long time.”
No, but it sure is the place to go if you’re looking for a car dealer or a new living room set.
13. John | January 7th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Diane Stern, who does the AFTERNOON newscast–was the taped Newscast I heard at –I believe 3 AM this morning.
So what I was listening to at 3 AM was taped 10 hours or so in advance.
14. NHradiofan | January 7th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
The Mole said:
One more time, THERE WAS NO CONNECTION BETWEEN ELIMINATING THE NEWS STAFF AND THE HIRING OF TOM FINNERAN. It simply isn’t true no matter how many times Brian tells you it is.
I disagree with you 100% Mr. Mole! Although there may not be a financial connection between those two actions, there most definitely is a connection of another sort.
The decision to fire the news staff and bring in the dumbass Metro news hub and the decision to hire The Felon to do the morning show are both connected because they are indicative of very poor management. You can point out that the Metro news hub maximizes ad revenue while minimizing labor costs but there is more to quality radio than finding the cheapest labor.
Look at it this way: What has WRKO gained by putting these barely literate buffoons on the air to read the news? Yeah, they’re cheap! That’s because they suck. If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys! WRKO has changed from a reliable news source to a laughingstock with news readers who can’t even correctly pronounce the names of the towns that they are reporting on. We’re not talking about some low watt station in rural Arkansas, we’re talking about a heritage station in one of the biggest media markets in the country. So while the Empress and Coffee Boy are busy dislocating their shoulders patting themselves on the back because of all the money they saved, their station has turned into a crapfest. WOW, what a bargain!
The hiring of the Felon is just one more in a long line of poor decisions from the Dynamic Doofus Duo. You cannot divorce the current state of WRKO from the “management” that has been at the helm. They have run this ship up on the rocks. If you are a Navy Captain and your ship runs aground, you are relieved of command - no questions asked. It doesn’t matter if it was the middle of the night and a junior officer was at the wheel while you were asleep in your bunk. It is your ship and it ran aground. Period. You are to blame - end of story.
This is the line that needs to be used when dealing with the 2 knuckleheads running WRKO. They have presided over a shipwreck and they need to be relieved of command. Period. You can dance around the issues all you want and say things like, “THIS situation has nothing to do with THAT situation”, etc. but at the end of the day there is no escaping the fact that WRKO is in the grip of some awful managers who have done nothing but screw it up.
The WRKO of today bears very little resemblance to the station prior to Coffee Boys ascension. It will not be a quality station again until he is gone.
15. raccoonradio | January 8th, 2009 at 2:13 am
Jessica Heslam of the Herald interviewed Steve who said that his firing was the nature of the biz; wasn’t totally unexpected. He said he’d like
to do a morning show.
Media Biz
16. Celtic Frost | January 8th, 2009 at 7:40 am
Do the J & J twins also manage ‘EEI, which is supposedly very profitable? So they suck when they manage ‘RKO but do well when they manage ‘EEI? Odd. Kind of like Two-Face.
17. raccoonradio | January 8th, 2009 at 9:43 am
‘EEI makes the money and WRKO is a loss leader
which reaps some benefits (though they prob.
do well with Red Sox). ‘EEI runs the ads while
‘RKO gets by on mostly PSAs on Howie’s show!
18. NHradiofan | January 8th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Can someone explain in simple terms so that I can understand: Why does WRKO have to be run as a “loss leader”?
I mean, come on! It’s not like they are selling plasma TV’s at a loss to draw a crowd on Black Friday! Why not try a novel approach and have TWO radio stations that are well run and profitable??!!!!???!!!
I believe raccoonradio is correct. WRKO IS being run as a loss leader. It sure as hell looks that way to me.
19. John J Eldridge | January 8th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
BZ is now nothing more than BS!!! They should team up with Scotts Fertilizer put it all in a bag and claim it will make the grass grow greener. The numbers on the AM dial (1030) should just now read (00)…..the same total of brain mass in the heads of the empty suits at both BZ and CBS
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