RE: Boston spring 2002 Arbitrends-- two questions

["Bill O'Neill" <billo@shoreham.net>]

> I guess that the "hot talk" format didn't kick Boston's
> butt they way it was
> projected.  Didn't the NAC format that preceded it do
> better?  Just curious.
>
> Brian Vita, President

Mr. President, couldn't agree with you more on hot talk in Boston.
The town is too "established" in the talk concept.  The sense the
the market is too "conservative" for it is not true, IMO.  I just
think that the market was spoiled for such a long time with the
likes of Jerry, Larry, Gene, morning teams like Ted & Janet, that
even Carr has had to tone it down - big difference from his earler
'sound' when he requisitioned the keys to Jerry's file cabinet.

When the format started to welcome "starter kit" talkers and
anystate-packages (Rush excluded) it just got ... boring.  Ironic
that talk for the sake of shock simply dulled.  As for the FM
talker, the further away from establish(ing) local products to
national packages, the closer it will get to hopping on the
format-o-matic and where it will stop, no one will care.

Now residing in talk-starved Vermont/Upstate NY, if it's not
way-left NPR affils VPR and WAMC (WANC Fort Tyconderoga), the latter
of which has a greater committment to daytime talk versus classical
on VPR.  Everything else on the dial is birdtalk, news or sports.
(Is there ANYTHING more not-happening than network sports talk?)

I was driving to a meeting in Stowe, Vt. this afternoon and caught a
local newscast (yes!) on WSNO (1450 Barre) that nicely wrapped a
story about a Sunday afternoon vehicular crash involving a state
police trooper (or sheriff's deputy).  The anchor showed that the
police officials said they "didn't have the time to provide any
details" (even 24 hours later) about the incident, including name of
officer, injuries if any, other party, potential fault, potential
charges pressed, nothing.  Now, I wonder if such a report will
trigger action by the officials to put down the donut and talk to
the tape.  Hope so.  It was just refreshing, even if the story tanks
in the future file, to have been reported in the first place.  A
minor story in a small town in a small state but one that raises
questions about perceived arrogance of the power-holders in any
given community when they aren't answering the simplest of
questions.  What else don't they want us to know?  THAT is what
local radio news is supposed to do.

Bill O'Neill