When the awards are handed out for Delivering The Most Humiliating Blow To Your Top-Rated Morning Sports Talkers, Entercom will take first prize. In fact, it won't even be a contest.
It turns out that morning sports jocks Dennis & Callahan only thought they had a shot at moving to classical FM station WCRB-FM. What they apparently didn't know was that Entercom was negotiating to buy half of the station, in a deal that also includes expanding Empress Kahn's WEEI sports empire to 11 of WCRB parent company Nassau Broadcasting's New England stations.
While others may have a different take (I purposely haven't looked at the other sites, I want to see if their positions even resemble mine), it appears D & C have been played for fools.
Because WCRB will remain with a classical format, this couldn't have been part of a calculated stunt. That's because D & C clearly aren't headed there, no matter who owns it.
Interestingly, there are a number of people inside the Boston media scene who despise D & C for leading the charge against the AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) union last year. I've been hearing from them. In a nail-biter of an election, the union was decertified by just one vote.
Entercom has been adamant about busting unions within its operations, despite the far-left political views of CEO David Field. And this is the second time I've seen anti-union staffers get knifed in the back after successfully killing AFTRA. It happened in Seattle as well.
As a result, I'd expect D & C's union-supporting rivals to be laughing their heads off tonight. In their eyes, justice has now been served.
Now, D & C have little choice but to come crawling back to Empress Kahn and her evil regime, because there are few other options available in this market. Since Entercom clearly had been negotiating with Nassau for some time, it was well-positioned to play hardball with D & C, who now look like fools.
Expect them to come begging back to Guest Street, hoping and praying their key cards will once again be activated. Raises? Who said anything about raises?
Also, one question you might have is why an uncontroversial company like Nassau would be interested in dealing with the likes of Entercom. I think it's clearly about money: Nassau gets a much-needed ca$h infusion, both for the classical station and to air WEEI programming on its smaller New England outlets.
The issue's being discussed at Radio-Info, check it out there.
UPDATE- Now, I've gone ahead and looked. Here's what the other sites are saying:
--- At Boston Sport Media's Scott's Shots, David Scott indeed believes D & C are in bad shape over this turn of events.
--- Boston Radio Watch updates with the latest details on this deal.
--- Other sites haven't yet posted their thoughts surprisingly enough. Let's see what the Herald has to say in the morning.
--- I'm cooking up an update for the morning myself, it promises intrigue and hidden, smoke-filled rooms.
