Thanksgiving Day football on the radio

[Sean Smyth]

A quick scan of the dial today as I was running late for the game I went to
found the following stations near Boston carrying games:

* WSRO (650), Marlborough vs. Hudson
* WSNH (900), Nashua vs. Bishop Guertin
* WBNW (1120), Framingham vs. Natick
* WESX (1230), Salem vs. Beverly
* WJDA (1300), Quincy vs. North Quincy
* WPLM (1390), Plymouth North vs. Plymouth South; they were also doing some
other games on tape-delay
* WBET (1460), Brockton vs. Waltham
* WAZN (1470)//WSRO
* WSAR (1480), Durfee vs. New Bedford
* WCCM (1490), Andover vs. North Andover, fighting it out with (this was in
Woburn on 128) WMRC's coverage of Milford High
* WIQH-FM (88.3), Concord-Carlisle vs. Bedford
* WATD-FM (95.3), Marshfield vs. Duxbury

Feel free to add others in. I think I'm leaving out one or two.

Some stations that have carried games in the past that were MIA this year
including WNTN, which has carried Newton North vs. Brookline forever,
practically. What happened here? Bob Bittner told me when he was there the
North-Brookline game was the station's biggest selling event (spot-wise) of the
year. I know Rob Rudnick used to do the game when he was station manager and
even after he bought the station. I was kind of disappointed this one was not
broadcast (although it's apparently on CN8 tonight).

And how can WWZN, claiming to be Boston's "sports station," not spend a couple
hundred bucks to bring in a host and board-op to at least pretend to cover the
biggest sports day of the year in Massachusetts (outside of pro playoffs)?
Might have gotten some people listening to the station for more than a
nanosecond.

Another observation: the quality game announcers is hideous as opposed to 10
years ago. Half the broadcasts were done by homers who have ridiculously thick
Boston accents; I could barely understand the description of the play being
run. Of course this is coming from a former play-by-play announcer himself so
take it with a grain of salt.

I know local radio has gone by the wayside -- 10 years ago there were several
other stations doing Thanksgiving games, including WKOX, WMSX, and WMFO -- but
Thanksgiving Day games can still bill a decent amount for stations and it'd be
nice if said outlets at least pretended to care about their COL and covered
events there for a day.