After spending part of the week in New York City, I'm now back home in New England. On Tuesday, I was at the FOX News Channel, where I did my bit for the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.
Because Amtrak service has been curtailed beyond Mystic this week, I drove to New London to catch the Northeast Regional (no Acela this time, it hasn't gone north of NYC this week and I had no desire to repeat my last experience). Oddly, hardly anybody was riding the normally-packed trains, the service outage scared most of them away.
During the drive to New London (civic motto: where your "private property" belongs to politicians), I listened to quite a bit of talk radio. Impressions:
WRKO: The Felon was struggling to get through the show as usual. Lately, there's a tone of desperation apparent at times, as though he knows the vanished audience has defeated him. This wretched show should have been put to sleep a long time ago. Why does it continue?
WTKK: As he addressed his latest flap, Imus actually had a bit of entertainment value, a rarity these days. He's doing well for WTKK, but for how long?
WPRO: As he dug into the issue of an non-deported illegal alien who kidnapped and raped a Providence woman and the resulting political fallout, John DePetro was doing a great job. Unlike the nervous wreck he often appeared to be while at WRKO, he's in his element at WPRO.
I also liked the fact that WPRO still has a functioning newsroom that can deliver updates to the hosts as they develop. It sure exposes WRKO for the two-bit operation it has become.
I only had one small complaint: he needs to quickly reset his topic after returning from each break. Anyone tuning in after the hour has begun isn't going to have a clue about the issue at hand.
Driving the length of Rhode Island, it quickly becomes clear why WPRO has migrated to FM. Their 630 AM signal is lacking in many areas.
WHJJ: Another nice surprise was hearing Todd Feinburg filling in at WHJJ, which is largely syndicated and poorly marketed these days. Todd was clearly enjoying having a chance to be back behind a local microphone.
On the late evening drive home, I caught Michael Savage with a female guest who was talking to the audience in Spanish, a truly surreal experience.
That was followed by a host whose voice I didn't recognize, who gave a lifeless, sadly low- energy take on the Gloucester pregnancy pact. In 20 minutes of listening, he never identified himself or the program.
Only during the next break did I learn who I was listening to: a former actor who decided to play radio and convinced a syndicator this wretched program should go national. It's used by the firm as a "must carry" add-on: if a station wants a more-coveted show they own, it's required to run his as well.
That was a lot of talk radio listening in one dose, wasn't it? Overall, I believe the Providence stations sounded far superior to their Boston counterparts. Remember when the Hub was a nationally-recognized center for compelling talk radio?
