Re: Fwd: WBUR budgetary needs

[Aaron Read <aread@speakeasy.net>]

At 05:18 PM 9/25/2003, Laurence Glavin wrote:
>During the summer, I went to a WBUR "Open House", but
>never let on I was a radio geek.  I imbibed the free Sam
>Adams, as did Jane BTW, and the hors d'oeuvres, while striking
>up conversations with the glitterati in attendance.

(snip)

>Eventually I accosted a gentleman  named George (last name
>I didn't catch) described as Program Manager.  I mentioned how

George Boosey.  He's the Program Director - I guess "Program Manager" 
sounds more haughty.

Popular story about George was that at an upper-mgmt program meeting in 
July of 1998 he said that WBUR should run newscasts on Sunday nights to 
catch the Cape traffic coming back to Boston.   Someone then informed him 
that they'd already been running newscasts on Sunday nights for over a 
month - just like they do every summer.   Lord knows if the story's true or 
not, but it's amusing.

I didn't know George too well when I worked there.  He was upper 
management, I was a brash and obnoxious student.  At least now I'm not a 
student anymore.  :-)   Anyways, he struck me as a useless yes-man to Jane 
but, as I just said, my perception was quite colored at the time.  Damn the 
man and all that.


>much I like "On the Media" from WNYC;  and although I can
>hear it on WEVO, sometimes I'm away from home when it's on, and
>asked why it wasn't restored to WBUR after the Iraq conflict.
>He said it "didn't meet WBUR standards."  I was a little


I think that's part of it, but also many media-related underwriters have 
complained - no doubt to many stations - that On The Media pulls no punches 
in its reports, so they'll pull their money unless station WXYZ drops 
OTM.   Wordsworth bookstore is guilty of this, as evidenced in the Dec.22, 
2001 OTM show (transcript here: 
http://www.wnyc.org/onthemedia/transcripts/transcripts_122201_middleeast.html)


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