What is magic about St Louis?

[Dan.Strassberg]

Why did CBS choose KMOX as the domicile for its new syndicated
overnight show? Apparently, WBZ was the only one of the initial group
of affiliates to have a viable local show. It would have cost little
to take the Boston show national. Besides LeVeille and his producer,
it would have taken maybe one additional person--and it would have
been a relatively low-paid person at that. Sure, some adjustments
would have been necessary at the other affiliates, but those will
almost certainly be necessary anyway. For example, all stations would
need to create a pre-recorded local news block to follow the CBS
network news--unless the network news runs six minutes and 'BZ has
been covering the second three minutes with its local product. My
guess is that a maximum of 20% of the content of the LeVeille show was
Boston--or New England--related. Most, if not all, of that would have
had to go, but that wouldn/t seem to have been especially hard to pull
off. So what was it--Boston accents make a Boston-based show sound
provincial? LeVeille has no accent that I can discern. Boston is too
Liberal? Maybe. LeVeille is too Liberal? Maybe. In my view, he was
pretty darned centrist. St Louis is very close to the geographic
center of the 48 contiguous states. Yeah, but Kansas City is even
closer, although I don't believe that CBS has an O&O there. Missouri
had--until 2008--a nearly unblemished record of voting for the winner
in all presidential elections. In 2008, Missouri voted for McCain,
although Obama carried St Louis.

I can't believe that CBS isn't spending more to create a new national
show based in St Louis than it would have cost them to put Boston's
own successful overnight show on the bird.

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Dan Strassberg (dan.strassberg@att.net)
eFax 1-707-215-6367