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Josh Binswanger Gone from WBZ

QED said:
Dean is apparently out joining Bruce Stevens who hasn't been around in a while?
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Maybe not—I caught the tail end of Morganʼs show as he was signing off this morning, and said something to the effect of “...so Dean Johnson is definitely going to be here next week at 10. Iʼm just not sure if it is going to be Sat. night or Sun. night”.
Before I heard Morganʼs comment, I quipped on the other board that maybe we should do an over-under on the odds of it becoming an infomercial block! :rolleyes:
 
Kemosabe said:
I'm not sure how reruns of Larry Glick would appeal to anyone under 55.
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They may as well have thrown an old batch of Bob and Ray bits on the air. But hey, it's just airtime in a day part that matters little to listeners or advertisers, so one really can't criticize management too much for reviving Glick. They're saving money by going with a dead Glick over a live current air talent.
 
Chris Culkeen seems to be MIA from morning drive traffic reports as well.

And the bigger question with the latest newsroom cuts, will iHeart replace them with “cheaper” talent or go with less?

I’m afraid they’ll go with less.

And does anyone know how long the partnership with WBZ-TV goes? I still hear quite a few TV reports on WBZ radio.
 
TheBigA said:
How many people do you imagine use AM radio Saturday from 10PM to midnight? Anyone?

It's really impractical. WLW runs repeats of weekday talk shows. KDKA runs CBS News Roundup.
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So, this is the radio industry's lack of vision. If you put on repeats and paid programming from 10pm to midnight on Saturday - yes no one will listen. If you put on something original and interesting, people will listen. Those shows on 'BZ always get callers. They claim a very small percentage of people listening ever call so do the math. Is it as good as morning drive M-F? No. Can they get enough revenue to pay the host those two hours? Maybe/maybe not but they will build brand loyalty which transfers to higher ratings at other times. They have been pushing the "always live, always local" tagline recently so at some level they get what an advantage that is so they need to make sure to execute on that. Re-runs of anything, even Larry Glick, is not going to cut it.

Localization is a big difference for radio from SiriusXM, Spotify, Pandora, etc. Yes it costs money but when I can hear or watch Sean Hannity in 50 different places why would I be loyal to the "local" talk station.

Newspapers and radio - I always wonder what came first - the owners cost cut it to irrelevance so the audience left or did it fail financially first? It seems to me to there is a lot of truth to the former. Papers that stopped carrying stories about the local town meetings and just carried the national stories I can get anywhere on the internet - why would I pay for that. Radio stations popular for decades with a full service, locally oriented format that flipped news/talk (easier to slip in more commercials and make more money), at first with local hosts then increasingly switching syndicated so the loyal audience gets bored and leaves. But who really left - I would argue the radio station left.
 
spt87 said:
So, this is the radio industry's lack of vision. If you put on repeats and paid programming from 10pm to midnight on Saturday - yes no one will listen. If you put on something original and interesting, people will listen.
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The ratings and sponsors they're getting now at 10PM Saturday are with a live & local host. So they're taking the risk. But they also see the results in a more detailed way than just hearing the callers. They know they get a consistent audience with an aging demo, and a diminishing sponsor base. Will that sponsor base return if they hire a younger, more dynamic local talent? Or has that sponsor base reached a conclusion about that daypart regardless of who fills it? Those are the questions the station will ask. Does that demonstrate a "lack of vision" or a "dose of reality?" This is, we must remember, supposed to be a business, not a charity. Business decisions are not often kind or generous. This is a station that is dealing with rising salaries, rising benefit costs, and rising expenses that they can't change. So they deal with it as best they can. Where do you cut in order for everyone else to get their annual union mandated salary increase? Where would you suggest?

The current issues with AM radio have nothing to do with the number of local stories they cover, the number of hours they have covered by local talent, or anything like that. The issue with this station and all of the others have to do with the rise of the options you list. You might call it a chicken & egg issue, but the minute people had an option for something other than WBZ, they took it. Nothing changed programming wise at the time. What changed was their technology and their ability to look for stories they want on devices they now had. That caused a drop in revenue, which led to drops in staffing, and the downward spiral. But the users have to take some responsibility for their actions. WBZ and iHeart can spend millions of dollars on local staff, but none of that will cause anyone to stop using their computers, phones, or other digital devices. That's the simple reality.
 
Wimmmex said:
How long is that?
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CBS News Roundup in an hour, and they combine it with another 1 hour show called Hollywood 360. But CBS News Radio and ABC News Radio (both of which WBZ carries) are launching more long form shows and specials. So there will be no shortage of well-produced news content available.
 
DavidZ said:
Chris Culkeen seems to be MIA from morning drive traffic reports as well.

And the bigger question with the latest newsroom cuts, will iHeart replace them with “cheaper” talent or go with less?

I’m afraid they’ll go with less.

And does anyone know how long the partnership with WBZ-TV goes? I still hear quite a few TV reports on WBZ radio.
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Yes, I'd noticed Chris Culkeen had been missing, and this would be week no. 3; figured he's either on an extended vacation (ROTFLMAO), medical leave, or "iHeart happened" to him as well. After learning about Josh last week and of Garo Hagopian and Bill Marcus just minutes ago, I'd be nervous as heck were I at 'BZ.

iHeart will probably work David Struffolino to the bone; he does weekday AM drive traffic, and a couple of weeks back, did BOTH Saturday AND Sunday. But he does a very fine job and is easy on the ears.

Blast me if you are so inclined and call me an ignorant-about-the-business boob, but it seems to me that even with their moaning and groaning about revenue and earning from Radio, CBS had some deep pockets, something that a near-bankrupt iHeart, despite its ballyhooed whizz-bang state-of-the-art new studios (which, to my ears, produce audio inferior to the gear at 1170 SFR) does not have.
 
WLW is running some iHeart podcasts on weekends, seems to be plenty of material to fill off-hours news-talk slots.



TheBigA said:
CBS News Roundup in an hour, and they combine it with another 1 hour show called Hollywood 360. But CBS News Radio and ABC News Radio (both of which WBZ carries) are launching more long form shows and specials. So there will be no shortage of well-produced news content available.
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nowradioguy said:
CBS had some deep pockets, something that a near-bankrupt iHeart, despite its ballyhooed whizz-bang state-of-the-art new studios (which, to my ears, produce audio inferior to the gear at 1170 SFR) does not have.
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CBS became a very different company when Moonves took over. Hard to believe there was a time when a radio guy, Mel Karmazin, ran the entire CBS Corporation. He and Dan Mason were committed to radio. But that was a long time ago. You think about the founding companies of radio, and most are gone. In the meantime, if you're a big company with deep pockets, some politician will come along and try to break you up.
 
TheBigA said:
CBS News Roundup in an hour. ...... CBS News Radio and ABC News Radio (both of which WBZ carries) are launching more long form shows and specials. So there will be no shortage of well-produced news content available.
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I agree. I'm not a fan of their pulling old programs out of the dusty archives. At least these CBS and ABC offerings are current.
 
TheBigA said:
CBS became a very different company when Moonves took over. Hard to believe there was a time when a radio guy, Mel Karmazin, ran the entire CBS Corporation. He and Dan Mason were committed to radio. But that was a long time ago. You think about the founding companies of radio, and most are gone. In the meantime, if you're a big company with deep pockets, some politician will come along and try to break you up.
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If memory serves me correctly, shortly after Westinghouse acquired CBS in 1995, Mel sold his Infinity Broadcasting to CBS and got rewarded accordingly.

I cursed GE when it obliterated NBC Radio in 1986, and I was unhappy when Cap Cities sold ABC to Disney. Damn, if only CBS Radio could've been spun off as a stand-alone entity.....

The notion that "Entercom happens" and iHeart gasps for breath are not encouraging.
 
nowradioguy said:
I cursed GE when it obliterated NBC Radio in 1986, and I was unhappy when Cap Cities sold ABC to Disney. Damn, if only CBS Radio could've been spun off as a stand-alone entity.....
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It's been my experience that someone has to have deep pockets for radio to weather the financial storms of the marketplace. I imagine if CBS Radio had been spun off, we'd see a lot more belt tightening than we're seeing now. Prior to the sale, they took a lot of criticism for the way they were diverting attention to their online business. I suspect a radio-only CBS would have continued that trend. I don't see as much of a commitment to the online world from Entercom as I did from previous management.
 
I'm going to slightly revise what I said earlier - I put on the Larry Glick re-runs last night (Sunday) which is when they are running it. Seems that Saturday they are running network news programming 10pm-midnight. The Larry Glick re-runs were rather entertaining. I'm a bit too young to have heard him originally - the show is not too news oriented so it doesn't sound too dated. They kept in some of the old bumpers which was cool to hear. I did notice was they had a live news anchor on every half hour and that continued into midnight (and maybe beyond). Previously that would have been network news followed by pre-recorded local news so that's a positive change. Also while they had some layoffs they also brought in some part timers as full timers so it seems they are still tweaking things not so much slashing and burning. Bumping a Sunday talk show host to fund a live news anchor is a somewhat understandable trade off although I do think they would be better off finding a way to do local talk on Sat. 10-midnight and the re-runs on Sunday may get old after a while. Putting that stuff out as podcasts could be an idea. People get used to having a live/local talk show and if they know it won't be there they won't bother tuning in which could spread to other parts of the week. Admittedly CBS started to water down the weekend evenings a while ago with paid programs and etc.
 
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