Boston's Newsradio Void

[TVHD@aol.com]

Please pardon me while I vent:

Today at 5pm, as my car crept along Rte. 16 in Everett in 
near-flash flood conditions, I turned on what passes for 
"Newsradio" in our fair city. I listened to a seven-minute 
report that included weather, traffic, many  commercials 
and the notice that at 5pm the Mayor had declared a "state 
of emergency" in Boston, and that the conditions extended
throughout the city and its environs. After a few more 
commercials, the station returned to its regular programming: 
a sports talk show. Something is VERY wrong here.

As familiar as I am with our [lack of] radio news service in a 
city the size of Boston, I was freshly aghast at the realization there was
absolutely nowhere on the AM or FM band to turn for
useful information to aid me - along with perhaps hundreds of
thousands of other radio listeners - in this immediate crisis.

What would it take for WBZ to break away from its regular 
programming to provide much needed coverage of a local 
disaster, with steady traffic reports, weather updates and 
other pertinent information? Is this beyond their resources? 
Or simply beyond any service charter to which they might
subscribe - if there is any such thing?

Why is there no other station filling this most important 
niche - or even attempting to do so? Is it so utterly 
unprofitable?

Boston Newsradio today must be declared in a "state of
emergency". Greater Boston desperately needs a true 
purveyor of Newsradio...a 24-Hour News Service, perhaps 
along the lines of service provided by WEEI, some years ago. 

Newsradio in its present form is simply unacceptable. The 
current situation is deplorable and unconscionable, and the 
Radio industry in the city of Boston should be ashamed.

Much more than my $.02, but heartfelt...

- - Henry Dane

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