NERW-Radio no-news

[mwaters@mail.wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>NERW wrote:
<snip>
>More Winter Arbs this week, and we'll start with the Hartford numbers,
>where WRCH solidified its first-place status.  Also up this book were
>second-place WTIC(AM), WKSS in third, WTIC-FM in fourth, WWYZ, and
>WDRC-FM.  Dropping this book were WDRC(AM), with a substantial
>fall-off from last Fall's book, WCCC, and WZMX.
<snip>

        The sad state of radio news: When the news broke yesterday
afternoon in drive-time that the Patriots deal was off for Connecticut, #1
ranked WRCH "reported" it by the DJ saying that the news director had
phoned in and told him the news. That was it. "The Patriots are not coming"
is just about literally all that he had to say. He fumbled around and
repeated that a couple more times (making this the biggest ad-lib
extravaganza of his career, no doubt--or maybe someone had quickly written
up a liner card). And then it was back to the 1990s elevator music. #1
station, no news in PM drive. And they couldn't even bother to have the
jock go find the AP story on the computer and read it.

>WBCN will remain the flagship station for the Patriots, with the
>team's Friday-afternoon announcement that it's not moving to Hartford
>after all.

        Scott Gray, a WTIC (AM) sports guy, had said on the air on Thursday
morning, as this issue came back again but before the Connecticut deal
disappeared, that WBCN was going to remain the flagship station even after
the move to Hartford. WTIC (AM) had wanted to get it, but WBCN was going to
keep it, he said.

        One other quick Connecticut note: Bob Steele is back on WTIC (AM)
for the season: First Saturday of each month, 5:30-10 a.m. He had his Dean
Martin records and "Rum and Coca-Cola" with him this morning. If Steele is
on next year, that'll be eight different decades in which he will have been
on WTIC.

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Have you patronized the skywave signal of an AM Class A station today?

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