New England Radio Watcher - WBZ, WHDH, WEEI
Scott D Fybush
Big changes coming! First the facts: WBZ is dropping its weekend
afternoon specialty talk for sports-information. The current
schedule looks like this:
SATURDAY
12:30 Second Opinion (medical)
1:00 Auto Works
3:00 Money Managers
5:00 Kid Company
7:00 Lovell Dyett Show (talk)
SUNDAY
12:00 First Day with Dave Maynard (talk/lifestyle features)
6:00 Calling All Sports
9:00 Looking at the Law Live
11:00 Norm Nathan Show (talk)
The new schedule will look like this:
SATURDAYS (starting 9/3)
12:30 WBZ Sports Saturday
7:00 Kid Company
9:00 Lovell Dyett
SUNDAYS (after Patriots season ends)
12:00 WBZ Sports Sunday
6:00 Calling All Sports
9:00 Looking at the Law Live
The new sports shows will reportedly be to sports what WBZ's all news
format is to news...heavy on sports news and sports features, light
on callers and opinion pieces. Combined with Patriots football and
starting in 1995 Bruins hockey, it will make BZ more of a sports player.
A new staff is being brought in for the sports show.
Now onto the rumors...
If what I'm hearing is true, there's about to be a shakeup involving
American Radio Systems' WHDH 850 (50kw DA-2) and "Back Bay Broadcasting"'s
WEEI 590 (5kw DA-2, and a tight DA at that -- nothing to the east or
west). Back Bay transferred Celtics rights to 850 when it bought WEEI
earlier this year. Now it appears Back Bay is selling the entire WEEI
programming and calls to ARS. Yep, starting this fall, ARS will own
WEEI AM 850...with the same schedule as 590 had (including Imus in the
Morning and Eddie Andelman in the afternoon). As for 590, Back Bay
will sell it to an unnamed religious broadcaster. My guess is Salem
Communications -- they are strong in the northeast, they already own
WEZE-1260, and they're doing duopoly deals in some of their markets.
WHDH's talk would then consolidate with WRKO like this:
CURRENTLY:
WRKO: 6-10 Clapprood and Whitley, 10-2 various fill-ins since
Leykis left (lately Janet Jeghelian), 2-6 Jerry Williams.
WHDH: 5-10 News All Morning, 10-12 Money Experts, 12-3 Rush,
3-7 Howie Carr
New WRKO: 6-10 Clapprood and Whitley, 10-12 Jerry Williams
(IF they can break his contract which locks him into 2-6),
12-3 Rush, 3-7 Howie Carr.
It would create one talk monster, and relieve the headache
that WHDH has been to ARS. It would also remove the WHDH
calls from local radio for the first time since 1924. The
calls are still on TV, with Sunbeam's WHDH-TV 7.
Will this all really happen? It's sounding VERY likely.
-=Scott Fybush - fyb...@world.std.com - Not the opinions of WBZ=-
M1bz
Fybush) writes:
Scott wrote of the changes in the Boston radio market, and did so rather
accurately. Scott, my friend and colleague, is this really New England
radio, or Boston radio? What about the changes at the former WVEI in
Worcester?
I'm not picking on ya, big guy, but let's realize that Boston radio does
not mean New England radio, and vice-versa. After all, many parts of New
Enland can pick up only one Boston station---if at all, that being WBZ.
[Moderator's Note: I believe Scott does New England because Boston is
handled by Mark Shneyder <sp>. Also Scott does deal with
other-than-Boston stuff as well. Heck, he knows just about everything
:-). Bill]
Scott D Fybush
>[Moderator's Note: I believe Scott does New England because Boston is
>handled by Mark Shneyder <sp>. Also Scott does deal with
>other-than-Boston stuff as well. Heck, he knows just about everything
>:-). Bill]
Bingo! Mark got to the "Boston RadioWatcher" handle before I did,
so I grabbed "New England" ;-) And seriously, I do travel in all
six New England states relatively often, so until such time as
we can find Hartford and Portland and Burlington Radio Watchers, I'm
covering those areas as best I can. And unlike Mark S., I _do_
report such non-Boston news as comes my way.
Now then...I'm scratching my head trying to figure out which of
my "colleagues" has shown up as "m1bz"?...
-=Scott Fybush - fyb...@world.std.com=-