WBZ AM/TV

Scott Fybush scott@fybush.com
Mon Apr 2 13:34:07 EDT 2018


"Synergy" between TV and radio at WBZ has always been fraught. When I 
started there in 1992, there might as well have been a wall down the 
middle of the building. One of the first unwritten rules I learned was 
that we radio news people didn't go over to the TV newsroom unless we 
had a very good reason to be there. And even when we did (they had news 
audio we needed, for instance), we went in, got what we needed and got 
right back out.

That melted a little in later years, especially after 1996 when we all 
moved into one big newsroom (remember when LaPierre co-anchored the noon 
show on TV for a little while?), but it was never a very tight working 
relationship when I was there. I know later on there was more sharing of 
news sound, weather forecasts, etc., but radio and TV are still separate 
universes.

And in most other CBS markets, the radio news operations had long since 
been moved to separate physical locations before the stations were sold 
off. In LA, Chicago, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and NYC, radio was in 
completely different buildings; in San Francisco, it was the same 
building but different locations within the building. I remember 
visiting KCBS in the early 2010s and asking if we could go downstairs 
and have a peek at KPIX-TV.... nope, completely different staffs, door 
fobs, etc. (That was even the case in NYC when WCBS AM was at the 
Broadcast Center - its fiefdom up on the 8th floor had a door with 
access available only to WCBS AM staffers; nobody else in the building 
could get in automatically.)

Aside from WBZ, KYW in Philadelphia ended up as the last exception...it 
moved back in with KYW-TV a few years ago and its spaces were all 
integrated with the TV station, which will now have to be undone.



On 4/2/2018 12:48 PM, Don wrote:
> I know people keep talking about the pricekes "synery" withint 
> WBZ-TV/Radio....I really don't see it.
> 
> Same call letters, same service area....some occaisional shared resources.
> 
> But I feel for the past 10 years or so that they were totally programmed 
> separately, and didn't hear much "intertwined".
> 
> But that's me....
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rob Landry" <011010001@interpring.com>
> 
>> Because WBZ Radio was so intertwined with WBZ-TV, I'm a little 
>> surprised they didn't keep it. As a news operation the two stations 
>> complemented each other nicely.
> 
> 


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