Jess Santos Departs; WWZN "The Zone" Returns

[Donna Halper]

On 7/27/2012 9:02 AM, Bob Nelson wrote:
> Among Mark's tweets: "Watching Santos' afternoon show now.He gave a
> shot-out to all his radio affils and then added "fighting to stay here
> in Boston". Pretty sure he's paying Blackstrap for four hours he's
> using 1510's studios for his national show, but not for the other
> 20...On a live A/V stream, it appears he's working out of 1510's
> studio in Marina Bay in Quincy which seems kind of odd....Looks like
> he's still streaming via http://revolutionradionetwork.com/  but
> nothing over the air in BOS or Revs' other radio affils"
>    
Jeff was a one-man gang, basically the only full-time employee.  He 
supplemented with interns, based on what I was told, but Blackstrap 
didn't provide any promotion dollars or dollars for more talent.  Also, 
the reason Dial Global pulled out was the shaky finances and the fact 
that the talk shows were all expected to buy the time.  Nationally known 
hosts like Schultz, Miller and Hartman generally don't have to 
lease-time like a local specialty show does (many of the Zone's former 
programs were leased-time... a real estate guy who wanted to do a show, 
a show about cigars, etc).  In the case of Ed Schultz (and again, let's 
all extend our good thoughts to his wife Wendy, who is currently 
battling ovarian cancer), he even has his own sales staff and the show 
was regularly sold out and very profitable.  But his management was not 
happy with the lack of promotional support in Boston.