WBZ Florida

[SteveOrdinetz]

Pete Ferrand wrote:

>My take is that the audience associates LaPierre with doing a show in
>Boston, and being in Boston, and it would think he was trying to put one
>over on them by doing the show from "an undisclosed location".


I think you're living in an era that doesn't exist anymore (if it ever 
did).  Most people today seem comfortable with technology and, indeed think 
much of this is cool.  Voicetracking is one (aside from the usual 
complainers on boards like radio-info.com), my guess is that this is 
another.  Why are you creating a double standard...one for GL and another 
for everyone else?

>People do naturally want to know about people they listen to, so it
>makes sense to talk about all this stuff if it can be done in an
>entertaining way relevant to the listener, but again, if they don't then
>there's no dissonance created when/if people find out.
> >
> > Or what of the Sinclair News Central operation, where every
>
>Again, a different issue and one probably none of us thinks is a
>particularly good way of doing news. But I would think they're not
>marketing their remote anchors as born and raised in town, and you see
>'em on the street.


Again, I don't think anyone really cares.  What WBZ is marketing is GL's 
knowlege & familiarity with the region, not necessarily that he is there 
all the time.  Just because he's on vacation doesn't make him instantly 
unfamiliar with the region.  I don't know how often he broadcasts from Fla. 
but I can't say as I've heard any variation in his anchoring from one week 
to another.  I think that's far more important to listeners than whether 
he's right there in the studio with his co-workers.


> > twenties, and WOW
> > was it a cold walk from the parking garage to the
> > Sabres-Bruins game in
> > Buffalo tonight - but at least the B's won)
>
>This starts to sound deceptive. Over the last year or two the Wall St.
>Journal did a front page story on DJ's doing out of market shows,
>focusing on someone calling himself "Big Rig", who does two or maybe
>three shows a day from someplace down south.

This is show biz.  Theatre of the mind and all that.  Yeah, it sounds hokey 
when someone mispronounces a local name, or calls something by it's 
official name rather than what the locals call it, but that's just bad 
radio whether you're in the studio or not, and listeners usually pick up on 
that stuff pretty fast.

Do you complain when you watch a movie and they use a stunt double?  That's 
just as "deceptive".  No, because it doesn't matter.  Listeners want the 
end product...if it's done well, they've gotten what they came for.  If 
not, they go somewhere else.  Looking at WBZ's numbers over the past 
decades, I'd guess they like what they hear.  To say that GL loses his cred 
because he's occasionally away is needless nit-picking.