If you were to choose.....

[Scott Fybush]

On 2/23/2012 10:55 PM, D. A. wrote:
>
>> This is a false choice. I'd choose
>> neither one.
>
> I suppose I should have set it up differently.
>
> You're the PD of WBZ.....and your GM has given you the following choice.
>

The reality these days, I strongly suspect, is that the PD at most 
stations wouldn't even get to make that choice. If corporate says you're 
running infomercials, you're running infomercials unless you can make an 
awfully good business case against it.

("Awfully good," in this case, would be a situation like the Leveille 
affair, where there was reportedly a big advertiser that would only 
continue with the station if overnights remained local.)

Having said that, if the scenario really were the way you present it - 
live evening news/overnights or live weekend dayparts - in this 
particular case I'd lean heavily toward live overnights, if only because 
of their importance in providing a lead-in to the start of morning 
drive, which is so vitally important to WBZ. Weekend infomercials are 
bad radio, yes...but they don't have the same potential for affecting 
the most important revenue daypart on the schedule.

And, frankly, if I'm overseeing CBS Radio's spoken-word product in 
Boston, I'm probably going to put my emphasis on WBZ-FM on the weekends, 
rather than on the AM station. Back when I worked at WBZ, it was a 
single station and it was run like one - you had to be winning on 1030 
or else someone else was winning. But it's part of a cluster now, and it 
shares a GM with the FM stations...and if the reality is that a big 
chunk of the weekday 1030 audience is over at 98.5 on the weekends, 
especially if it's a football weekend, why fight that?