Entercommies are buzzing about a previously-unexpected visit to Boston by the WRKO-WEEI owner’s CEO scheduled for Wednesday morning. Though David Field does occasionally stop by for rah-rah sessions to put a happy face on his debt-laden operation (repeat after me: “easy comps, easy comps, easy comps”), this one seems rushed and may have a more significant purpose.
Some staffers apparently believe Empress Julie Kahn may finally find her days numbered for a myriad of reasons, both personal and professional. Her replacement may already be in the building, but names will be omitted here as I don’t want to jinx anyone’s chances of being promoted, particularly since this person is said to be a pleasure with which to work.
After the overnight success of rival CBS’s WBZ-FM sports talker, Entercom is now so far behind the curve that the Boston operation may be beyond saving. And with Clear Channel’s new political talker set to arrive on scene shortly, WRKO could become as endangered as WEEI.
Good luck, guys, you’ll need it.
Tags: Entercom, wbz-fm, WEEI, WRKO
February 8th, 2010
Monthly Boston ratings were released tonight, here are the news-talk-sports highlights:
— WBZ took a big hit, falling to third place overall from second (listeners 6 and older). Audience share dropped to 5.8 from 6.5 in September. About 45,000 listeners shifted listening elsewhere, leaving it with 791,300.
— WEEI was essentially flat, taking fifth place with a 5.3 audience share. Listeners: 696,700, an increase of over 50,000.
— WRKO fell to eighth, 4.8 to 4.5 share, 60,000 listeners lost, leaving it with 385,000.
— Sports WBZ-FM continued its dramatic surge, moving into fourteenth place, a stunning 0.6 to 3.6 share advance in just two months and an amazing gain of nearly 300,000 new listeners to 780,100. Its head count is now just below WBZ AM’s. The new kid on the block is a smash success, there’s no other way to argue this.
— Sad-sack FM talker WTKK continued its long and painful decline into total oblivion, sinking to fifteenth and a share drop to 3.2 from 3.5. Interestingly, it actually gained listeners, about 4500 (to 386,900), but they aren’t sticking around for long, quick to hit the scan button for better choices.
The key difference between WRKO and WTKK is that the former’s listeners leave the radio on for long periods of time (Rush, Howie, Savage), while the latter’s jumbled programming mess causes tune-out.
UPDATE: The Herald has more detailed data here
Tags: ratings
November 5th, 2009
I’m amazed at the amount of negative publicity generated over a single stale joke told on WEEI’s morning show. Why is this even news?
Talk about sore winners: the mainstream news media won this election and yet they are still looking for petty reasons to gripe, all because somebody told a joke they didn’t like. Are these basketcases ever happy?
ALSO: Media Matters can’t seem to find one reason to be happy this morning. Is it because they realize that conservative talk radio has just become 100 times more important in our society?
Tags: mainstream news, Media Matters, negative publicity, WEEI
November 5th, 2008