The All-New 1450 WKXL Concord

["David W. Harris" <dwh@totalnetnh.net>]

An out-of-towner asked for details on the new format at WKXL (1450
Concord NH--recently sold by Vox Media to Embro Communications) and I
might as well share my findings with the list.  Here follows more than
any sane person would want to know about the news/talk situation in New
Hampshire's Capital City...

Two things formerly found on 1450 but absent for the past two years
(blame Vox) are happily present again: personality in the morning show
and correct pronunciation of the city of license at the top of the
hour.  Many other things formerly heard on 1450 are gone; to my ears,
the hardest change is the absence of CBS News on the hour--WKXL had been
with CBS since 1963.  CBS, the Sox, the Bruins, and just about
everything else formerly heard on WKXL and WKXL-FM (107.7 Hillsboro NH)
can now be found exclusively on "107-7 The Pulse," which became WTPL
last month.

I am not of the opinion that everything Vox did after taking over
locally owned WKXL in 1999 was evil.  'KXL was hardly the most
professional operation around and Vox tightened up a lot of the
sloppiness that was a regular feature of WKXL's air sound.  Two things
really ticked me off, though:  why force upon your listeners every hour
an ID recorded by some Big Voice who doesn't pronounce "Concord"
correctly (can there be any better sign of out-of-town-owner
hubris?)...and why put a muzzle on talented morning host Mike Murphy and
relegate his on-mike presence to three sportscasts an hour?

Murphy's still with Vox, doing his sportscasts (and a nightly sports
call-in) on WTPL, but the new WKXL morning team of Warren Bailey and
Dave Stevens has brought back to 1450 the casual conversation that
Murphy used to pull off nicely with whoever was in the newsroom.  Both
WKXL and WTPL have new IDs, of course, and it's no surprise that the
1450 ID gets "Concord" right but the 107.7 ID still doesn't have it
quite right.

In recent days the WKXL morning show seems to have settled on a name:
"Bailey, Stevens & Company."  I consider it an improvement over an
appellation I heard tried out a couple times last week: "B-S in the
Morning" (that's Bailey-Stevens, of course).

Between 6 and 8:30 a.m., every half hour on "The All-New 14-50" follows
this pattern:  USA Radio news, weather from Chris Thomas, chit-chat with
Bailey & Stevens (including a tease of top sports stories), NH news from
Bailey (with occasional comments from Stevens), weather from Thomas,
more chit-chat (usually including lottery numbers), sports from Stevens
(with occasional comments from Bailey), weather from Thomas, and a
network feature (David Letterman, The Rrrrrest of the Story, Craig
Kilborn, Bill Diehl, or Jon Stewart).  If there's a little time left at
the end of the half-hour, expect more weather and more chit-chat.

8:30-9 is a little different.  There's Paul Harvey News & Comment
followed by the weather and then...it depends.  Sometimes there's a
20-minute interview with an in-studio guest (a nice echo of the format
of the Coffee Chat program heard at 8:40 every weekday morning on the
old WKXL), sometimes there's the exact same NH news/chit-chat/sports as
heard two hours earlier followed by repeats of one or two network
features, as time allows.

At least once I've found the NH news/chit-chat/sports heard after the 8
a.m. network news is the same as heard two hours earlier, with updated
time and temperature inserted.  This and the fact that the whole morning
show runs so seamlessly leads me to think maybe everything I'm hearing
on WKXL weekday mornings is recorded except, possibly, the filler before
joining the network news.

Where's Beth Osgood?  During Bailey's decades as morning host on WLNH
(98.3 Laconia NH), Osgood was the newscaster and articles in both
Laconia and Concord newspapers about the sale of WKXL mentioned she'd be
part of the new team.  I haven't heard her yet but I think the morning
show could benefit from her presence.  Bailey and Stevens are very
professional but it's just two guys gabbing for long stretches (there
are no sound bites in those news or sports reports they do) and when
they're both talking I can't tell them apart.  Yes, they're pleasantly
entertaining, but with just those two voices aural fatigue is a danger.

Further fatigue is found in the forecast: if Chris Thomas won't record
an alternate reading of the weather, perhaps our morning hosts could
paraphrase the forecast once in awhile instead of airing the very same
recording every few minutes.  This really grates when Thomas includes
some "cute" phraseology in the forecast and it keeps coming back at us 6
to 8 times an hour.

Another problem:  Bailey and Stevens are Lakes Region folks and that's
clear from their conversations.  If they want to connect with the
Concord audience, they need to throw in a few references to the State
House and downtown parking and the traffic on Loudon Road.  I keep
hearing references to landmarks around Lake Winnipesaukee--but nobody up
there's listening (except possibly family members straining their ears
to make something out of the weak 1450 signal).  I don't care how many
years you were on Boston radio--if you get a gig in New York you don't
go on talking about how you like to jog along the Esplanade.

Bailey seems to have pulled a few advertisers from the Lakes Region with
him.  Vox didn't hand over any of its advertising clients, of course.
Right now the spot load is respectable thanks to political ads but that
won't last forever.  I've heard about a dozen local advertisers in the
course of two weeks of listening to the morning show.  I imagine at
least a couple of those are trade-outs.  Four of the advertisers are
from the Laconia area.  Lakes Region Volkswagen is owned by a couple who
are (according to the newspapers) partners in the new WKXL ownership so
it's no surprise to hear those ads.  Plugging cruises on the M/S Mount
Washington to the folks in Concord makes sense.  McGreevy Buick?  Well,
I suppose somebody in the Concord area might decide it's worth the
drive.  But MetroCast Online (the cable Internet provider in the Lakes
Region)?  There might be a handful of people in Epsom who listen to 1450
but aside from them there's nobody in the WKXL listening area who's in
the MetroCast service area.

What happens after 9 a.m.?  First it's Money Matters with Barry
Armstrong, then at noon USA Radio news is followed by Paul Harvey News &
Comment, NH news from Bailey, weather, and Bill Diehl.  At 12:30, Arnie
Arneson is joined in progress (the show starts at 12:07 on WNTK 1020
Newport/99.7 New London NH and WNBX 1480 Springfield VT).  At 3 it's Don
& Mike, then Michael Savage at 7 and Lionel at 10.  At 1 a.m. it's time
for Jim Bohannon followed by First Light at 5 (America in the Morning
would be the logical program to follow Bohannon's talk show but it
stayed with 107.7 so WKXL chose to go with a similar WW1 offering,
branded as an NBC Radio show).

For comparison, WTPL has Eric Scott (local call-in) at 9 a.m., Tony
Kornheiser (ESPN) at 10, Bill O'Reilly at noon, The Dolans at 2, Howie
Carr at 3, and The Sports Zone (local sports call-in) at 6. ESPN Radio
takes over at 7 or whenever the evening's play-by-play is over and
continues until 5 a.m.'s America in the Morning.

WTPL claims "news, talk, and sports" in its ID.  WKXL has "news, talk,
fun & games."  The Patriots and Celtics are new to 1450 while 107.7 will
continue to have the Sox, Bruins, Concord Quarry Dogs (NE Collegiate
Baseball League), UNH and high school sports.  I think Motor Racing
Network (a big deal in the area thanks to New Hampshire International
Speedway) stays with 107.7 but I know 1450 had some sort of race
coverage last Saturday night.

I checked in a few times last weekend and can report the following talk
shows heard on WKXL (but understand that this does not pretend to be a
complete list): Don Rondo (a local show hosted by one of those dozen
advertisers mentioned earlier), Mr. Fix-It, Tom Leykis, Tom Martino, The
Health Dimension Show, Motor Trend Radio, Halo Radio, Jump Start Your
Health, Health Discovery Hour, Money Matters.

I don't have any tape to prove it, but I'm sure I heard Chris Thomas
being referred to last week as being in the Channel 5 Weathercenter.  I
thought that curious given that WTPL continues to use Mark Rosenthal
from the Channel 5 Weathercenter.  This week Thomas is said to be with
Stormwatch 9 Weathercenter.  Okay, but WNNH (99.1 Henniker, with studios
just a few feet outside the Concord city line) also uses WMUR-TV for
weather as well as news content.

With 3 competing morning news blocks in Concord these days (WKXL, WTPL,
and noncommercial WEVO) I think WTPL has the edge for local news.  The
coverage certainly isn't what it was in WKXL's glory days but there
seems to be at least a minimal effort to go beyond reading AP copy.  If
I needed to hear storm cancellations or there was a big fire downtown,
WTPL would be the best choice of these three.  In afternoon drive,
though, out-of-town talk rules on the commercial stations so WEVO is the
winner even with NHPR's meager local content.

Just in case anyone is wishing for more information about The All-New
1450, don't bother checking wkxlradio.com--all you'll find there is the
WTPL schedule.