Meta stuff on Boston talk-show host Howie Carr’s move from afternoons on WRKO to mornings on WTKK
The Boston Herald’s Jessica Heslam was first to report Howie Carr’s move from 680 WRKO-AM to 96.5 WTKK-FM. I assume Mr. Carr instructed his lawyer, who was Ms. Heslam’s source, to give her the scoop.
Ms. Heslam’s original report appeared on BostonHerald.com’s frontpage shortly after 3pm, I believe, on June 9. She updated the story a few hours later, then posted a follow-up blog post on the site’s Messenger blog after midnight. Her orginal piece currently tops Google for howie + carr + wtkk. The Herald’s handling of the news illustrates the secondary but still useful role of BostonHerald.com’s blogs. It reminds me of something Dan Kennedy wrote a couple of years ago. In response to a question a commenter had posted he explained (and I’m paraphrasing here) that he saved his best ideas for the print version of The Boston Phoenix (where he was a senior and very readable writer) and used somewhat lesser material on his blog (which then was Media Log at bostonphoenix.com, he now blogs at Media Nation, while an Adam Reilly is handling Media Log). Ms. Heslam and BostonHerald.com used a similar approach when reporting Mr. Carr’s bailing on WRKO, only it was the web site rather than the printed paper that got top billing. Had the Herald nominally used the print edition to break the news then, I believe, it would have hit the Herald web site shortly before midnight, anyway. Breaking the news online mid-afternoon is obviously a much better way to make a splash. It should also be noted that Ms. Heslam’s frontpage article will soon disappear behind the Great Wall of Subscription, while her blog post will remain accessible to all.
One thing that may not follow Mr. Carr to WTKK is howiecarr.com, which is registered to WRKO’s owner Entercom Communications. Unless there’s a contract stipulating otherwise, it will remain with Entercom I guess.
Former WRKO morning host Scott Allen Miller weighed in yesterday on the latest developments at WRKO. Mr. Miller was let go by WRKO in January this year to make room for former Massachusetts Speaker of the House (who is also a convicted felon who plead guilty in a federal court to what pretty much was a bullshit charge, in my opinion).
I like Mr. Miller’s lead in:
I have kept my mouth shut about WRKO for a long time. … I am still bound by a non-disparagement clause that limits how much I can criticize Entercom and its management. I have to be careful what I say about WRKO and Entercom for fear of being sued. Please bear that in mind.
So allow me to put it this way: WRKO is done.
He then goes on to explain why that is the case.
As one of the commenters to Mr. Miller’s post points out, what makes Mr. Carr successful isn’t his politics but his ability to entertain his listeners. People who think WRKO can command an audience simply by switching to a more left-leaning talk format are way off base, just as the station can’t hold on to Mr. Carr’s audience simply by hiring some right-wing gabber.
WRKO claims to be undertaking legal action to prevent Mr. Carr from leaving, but that strikes me as a desperate act by station management eager to cover their behinds. Their bosses at Entercom should save the company’s owners money by immediately putting an end to that foolishness.
How did WTKK snag Mr. Carr? Or, put differently, who at WTKK snagged him? Was it really the new program director Grace Blazer who started her job on June 6 after 11 years as a producer and program director at a talk station in Philadelphia? Surely she didn’t pull of such a momentous coup in just four weeks? On the other hand, if she didn’t do it, then surely she must at least have been made aware of her new employer’s desire to hire WRKO’s lone star before she accepted the position? Or perhaps it doesn’t work like that in radio? Perhaps, to paraphrase former New England Patriots head coach Bill Parcells, she’s asked to do the cooking while somebody else is buying the groceries?
So who is this Ms. Blazer?
Lancaster native Grace Blazer has been named program director of WTKK-FM, a talk-radio station in Boston. Blazer spent the past 11 years at WPHT-AM, a talk-radio station in Philadelphia, serving the first five years as executive producer and the last six years as program director.
Blazer, who is relocating to the Boston area, is a University of Pittsburgh graduate.
The Boston Globe had a piece on her in mid-June. It is charmingly substance free, but the accompanying photo suggests that Mr. Carr will get along swimmingly with his future programming director.
Finally, since out-there speculation is one of the things I like to do on this blog, let me throw this out: How about the owners of the Patriots, the Kraft family, buying WRKO from Entercom? They sit on an enormous amount of wildly popular content and personalities (and also Major League Soccer franchise New England Revolution) and have shown some ability to increase the value of dead-in-the-water assets. Not to mention that the Krafts having Mr. Finneran on their payroll would be pure Massachusetts.
