RE: Newsgroup Postings

["Casey, Peter" <casey@boston.cbs.com>]

Mr. Dane:

Thank you for your comments about WBZ and the storm coverage on Saturday.   
 While returning from a family event on the Cape Saturday I started   
listening just before 7PM and heard of the severity of the storm's   
effects.  At that time I called in to make sure we were doing updates in   
"Calling All Sports" every 15 minutes.  Those updates included the   
flooding conditions, traffic, weather, etc.   The editor on duty should   
have page me when the state of emergecncy in Boston was declared.

I know many of you in the newsgroup feel Boston should have a 24 hour a   
day, all news all the time, news station as the old WEEI was for much of   
its life.  But the old WEEI never turned a profit and was not succesful   
radio station.  The thing about all-news is that the majority of the   
audience only wants it when the need strikes them.   That need doesn't   
come to often for enough people in the evenings and overnights.  The news   
all day and talk all night is a better fit for audience habits in Boston   
and to be able to put our resources on when the available audience is   
there.  The news business has changed quite a lot since WEEI was on as a   
news station.  Even in their later years they'd started doing the Mystery   
Theater in the evenings, and also some sports talk during the evenings.   
 With all the news cable channels available now radio competes in a  very   
different way then it ever did before. TV news and programming is   
becoming today more like the way radio used to be with many stations or   
ablce outlets doing lots of cross over formats.  Radio stations these   
days have had to isolate a more narrowly defined format than ever before.   
   


Thank you.




 ----------
From:  TVHD
Sent:  Sunday, June 14, 1998 9:28 PM
To:  casey
Subject:  CC: Newsgroup Postings


Mr. Casey,

I posted this opinon yesterday on a "Boston Radio Interest"
internet newsgroup
(index at http://radio.lcs.mit.edu/boston-radio-interest/)
and it was suggested to me that you might be interested in
receiving a complementary copy.

 - Henry Dane
 -----------------------
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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