WMEX NOT going all business--YET

[dan.strassberg@att.net]

It's 6:30 PM on Friday 12/1 and Upton Bell has just 
concluded his show. I was listening via the Web, of 
course, so I don't know whether the _station_ signed off 
when it legally should have--15 minutes earlier. The 
program ended at 6:30 with the full signoff/ownership 
statement that WMEX uses at the end of its broadcast 
day. In December, the broadcast day should not extend 
beyond 6:15 PM.

_However_ contrary to the statement that Marjorie 
Clapprood apparently made during her program today, WMEX 
is NOT going all business--at least, not yet. Bell ended 
his show by saying that Marjorie had resigned and that 
he (Bell) would be taking over her 10:00 AM to noon 
slot. I suspect that Gene Burns' contract has a few more 
months to run (my guess is until early February, a year 
after WMEX boosted its power and signed on with its 
news/talk format). I doubt that Langer wants to pay 
Burns for not appearing on the air, so the news/talk is 
likely to continue in some form as long as Burns must be 
paid. Moreover, Langer may also feel that, by the end of 
January, he has a chance of concluding a deal with a 
buyer and having the station under LMA with the buyer 
pending FCC approval.

Since November 1, when local sunset moved back to 4:30, 
the entirety of Bell's program has been inaudible over 
the air, except in the immediate vicinity of WMEX's 
transmitter on Mt Wayte Ave in Framingham. So Bell's 
program has been, for all practical purposes, an 
Internet-only show. Now the program will again be 
audible over the air to a wide audience. I assume that 
WMEX will fill out the part of its broadcast day after 
the 5:00 PM end of Burns' program with recorded best-of 
shows. Even the huckters who broker time on weekends to 
sell vitamins and herbal nostrums seem unwilling to buy 
time during the period when the station can really be 
heard only via the Internet.