WWZN speculation

[Aaron Read <aread@speakeasy.net>]

Been musing over the WWZN speculation on the radio-info.com message boards, 
some things worth considering:

Clear Channel - at least according to the grunts in the trenches - wants 
nothing to do with WWZN.  It's a money pit with that hideous lease and they 
know it.  They know WKOX is a mess, too...but as far as they're concerned, 
dumping WKOX for WWZN is jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

EVERYone I've talked to...commercial and non-commercial alike..thinks 
leaving sports on WWZN is a waste of money and that neither ESPN nor Fox 
Sports will ever even appear on 1510...much less succeed.  It's very 
logical - WEEI has a stranglehold on sports in this area because they're 
local, they're an institution and generally speaking, the product they put 
out is pretty good.

My own question - would WEEI getting the Celtics conflict with their 
carrying the Boston College football games?  I wouldn't think so...but I 
know nothing about basketball schedules, either.

Back to 1510...I think leased-ethnic is still the most likely end-result, 
even if it takes a few years :-)

I think the ideal, however, would be to drastically change the allocation 
and make a non-commercial signal for a good college or similar deal.  I'd 
like to see the experimental side of WGBH's Cape stations - WNAN and WCAI - 
that's manifesting with Transom.org and the Public Radio Exchange 
(www.prx.org) have a nice little Boston outlet.   Say it's diplexed to 
WBZ's Allston tower (which they WILL do if the money's there for it...it 
won't be cheap but WGBH could certainly afford it) and even 10 watts 
nighttime will cover Boston proper pretty well - look at WJIB.

I know I'm a sucker for idealism but I consider public radio the only thing 
worth listening to these days, in spite of all its flaws; commercial radio 
sucks so heavily by comparison...


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Aaron "Bishop" Read             aread@speakeasy.net
FriedBagels Consulting          AOL-IM: readaaron
http://www.friedbagels.com      Boston, MA