Ratings scandal in Providence?

[A. Joseph Ross]

On 8 Aug 2008 at 14:10, Laurence Glavin wrote:

> One day, while Al Franken was doing a mid-day show on Air America
> Radio, heard locally on WXKS-AM/WKOX, he announced that on a certain
> Monday, he would do the show live from the WHA-I-L-L-L-B-U-RR Theater
> in Boston.  I took a day off from work, pahked nearby and expected to
> walk right in.  Ooops... there was a long line snaking down Tremont
> Street, but eventually everybody got in.  On a Monday at noon, the
> place was nearly full.   The WXKS-AM/WKOX combo was lucky to get a
> full integer to the left of the decimal point, but I wonder if many
> other outlets could fill a theater that size (ok the admission was
> free). 

That's one way to get at least a rough idea of how many people are 
tuning in.  It's only a rough idea, and you can't keep doing it, but 
it's something.

Reminds me of a couple of stories Buffalo Bob Smith used to tell 
about the earliest days of the Howdy Doody Show, when there were no 
TV ratings yet and they didn't know how many people were watching.  
They had started a storyline (this was 1948) in which Howdy was 
running for President of the Kids, and they offered a free "Howdy 
Doody for President" button to anyone who wrote in.  They got many 
times more requests than they had ordered buttons.

Another incident was when they made an appearance at Jordan Marsh in 
Boston, and they got a huge crowd, with a line out to the sidewalk.

-- 
A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                           617.367.0468
 92 State Street, Suite 700                   Fax 617.507.7856
Boston, MA 02109-2004           	         http://www.attorneyross.com