TIME FOR CBS TO SELL WBZ

[Garrett]

WBZ AM, that is.

(This is a long rant, so everyone please bear with it).

If you've followed the history of CBS, or seen old CBS TV promos on YouTube, you know then, that the CBS TV network is a well oiled machine. Number 1 more often in their long storied history than any other TV network. You could say also that they have a way with their local stations too, and while WBBM TV has had its troubles, CBS at least knows how to keep some kind of tradition going in the TV world, maintaining the WBZ TV, WCCO TV and KDKA TV names, although be it late, and not exactly true to their original on-air look.

Radio, on the other hand seems to be quite a different story! Outside of KNX and KCBS AM/FM, CBS Corp would seem to be completely inept at understanding the local radio business. Being a veteran of the industry, I'd like to think I've learned something, and that is that the radio set (unlike the TV) is an appliance, much like a room heater, a refigerator, or a toaster, in that we set it to our preferred settings, and that is where we leave it, through good or bad, thick and thin, (that is, until it breaks -then we buy a new one). WBZ is getting dangerously close to being "broken." Scott Fybush (please go read his 1/5/09 story on the cuts at WBZ at http://www.fybush.com/nerw) is 100% correct in everything he said. While radio (like anything else) is indeed a business, CBS seems not to understand what New Englanders listen to. In addition, I would also add that Bostonians (like myself) are a particular species of animal; stubborn in our habits and set in our ways: Don't move our arm chair, or touch our TV remote. We are that kind of people. We love our Dunkin' Donuts, our Boston Red Sox, and hate the Yankees. Don't even think of taking the CITGO sign down, or those Green Line trains off Beacon Street. Too bad CBS does not understand this about our native soil, and you could argue they never have.  In a modern broadcast world where everythign down to TV News character graphics are researched with viewers, you'd think that CBS would do some research about the demographic of thier Boston listeners. Sadly, no such research seems to be conducted, or they do not understand the results.

Just look at the changes at WBZ and WBZ TV since the merger? The Boston stations have undergone more imaging changes than any of the other Group W stations that were taken over into the CBS fold to the point that WBZ is not even recognizable as a former Group W. KDKA AM and KYW AM can not say the same. WBZ and WBZ TV no longer even look like sister stations. Does anyone at CBS even know that WBZ AM pre-dates WBZ TV? Many of those first WBZ TV personalities started at WBZ AM. CBS does not get that or does not care.

Does image matter? In broadcasting it does!

No, CBS does not get it. Forget RKO, get that "SAVE WBZ" site ready: It's time for CBS to sell WBZ AM to someone who cares. Otherwise, how long before CBS turns WBZ AM into "1030 THE FAN?" We can not MUST NOT let that happen to WBZ!

[P Terrance Dactyl]

I just want to clarify a point that many people seem to have forgotten when they talk about CBS including our friend Garrett, he said:

Just look at the changes at WBZ and WBZ TV since the merger? The Boston stations have undergone more imaging changes than any of the other Group W stations that were taken over into the CBS fold to the point that WBZ is not even recognizable as former Group W.

It was CBS that was acquired by Westinghouse not Westinghouse being merged with or acquired by CBS.  Group W disappeared and adopted the CBS name because the folks at Westinghouse believed the CBS brand was a better brand than Group W.  They were right.   The bulk of the CBS Radio managers in charge of CBS Radio O&Os on the national level at the time were let go and then Westinghouse let the wolf into the henhouse when Mel Karmazin and his Infinity group bought into Westinghouse/CBS and they let him retain control.

No, CBS "got it" in Boston.  If you're old enough to remember when WEEI was all news and on 590, and WEEI-FM at 103.3 were around, both were very successful, even with WEEI's poor signal.

As far as CBS selling WBZ?  I maintain that the entire CBS brand and all their properties are already for sale.

[Scott Fybush]

It was CBS that was acquired by Westinghouse not Westinghouse being merged with or acquired by CBS.  Group W disappeared and adopted the CBS name because the folks at Westinghouse believed the CBS brand was a better brand that Group W.  They were right.   The bulk of the CBS Radio managers in charge of CBS Radio O&Os at the time were let go and then Westinghouse let the wolf into the henhouse and let Mel Karmazin and his Infinity group buy into Westinghouse/CBS and letting him retain control.

The company now doing business as "CBS Radio" has DNA from all three of its primary ancestors - and, sadly, it seems to be the worst of each sometimes.

About all that's left of the old CBS Radio are a few of the heritage properties that haven't been completely gutted - WCBS, WOGL, WBBM and KCBS, as well as the name, the radio network news operation and the backbone of the radio network itself.

What's left of the old Westinghouse is WINS, KYW and whatever still remains to salvage of KDKA, WBZ and maybe KFWB if it's not beyond saving by this point.

Most of the company as it now exists is really Infinity, though under the CBS name.

But here's where it gets weird - most of what made Infinity successful, like Mel's idea that station groups work best if they're not clustered and are allowed to continue operating from separate studios with separate sales and programming staffs, disappeared by the time Mel was gone. And the guy running things now, Dan Mason, is actually a former Westinghouse executive, albeit from near the end of the Group W days.

So in the end, you've got a hundred or so remaining stations with NO coherent operating philosophy or common heritage. Heck of a way to run a railroad.

[raccoonradio]

new group on facebook: Slow Death of WBZ Radio

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=58571090118&ref=mf
(you prob have to be a facebook member to see)

[Annoyed in MA]

There are a couple of interesting blogs out there too. It looks like people are trying to organize.

http://bringbacksteve.blogspot.com/2009/01/bring-back-steve-leveille.html?showComment=1231218120000#c4160338877971181366

http://universalhub.com/node/22535#comment-68285

[spt87]

Slow - I'd say it gained a lot of speed in the last week.

Here I am, up late again except now I have nothing to listen to......

[WFNERBSHX]

There's also a Facebook group devoted exclusively to bringing back the LeVeille broadcast: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=44366697218

[aerie]

Frankly, I've thought even WBZ's "all news" programming has been pretty lame for a long time. Weather reports every 10 minutes from some guy in Pennsylvania who can't say "meteorologist". Lame traffic reports from some guy in an office building with binoculars ("yep, the Southeast Expressway is slow again this morning for the 12,000th consecutive morning"). Lame features from CBS. And very little "news".  In a 10 minute segment, you have a minute of weather, a minute of traffic, a minute of sports, some recorded feature from CBS, 4 minutes of spackle and paste commercials, and if you're lucky, 2 minutes of news headlines that sound ripped off the wire machine. Where is the live weather from local meteorologists who know New England weather? Where is the BZ Copter? Where are the street reporters with the breaking local news? Where are the station editorials?

[aaronread]

Well, to be frank...the traffic and weather reports on radio are almost always bogus no matter how live/local they are.  I mean, the traffic suuuuucks in Boston, every day, every highway, without fail.  Not too hard to do a traffic report for that!  And with the proliferation of GPS navigation devices...especially those that can receive alerts about SPECIFIC (too specific to get into on a radio report) points of congestion and propose alternate routes...the radio-based traffic report is rapidly losing relevance.   There's a reason why WBUR stopped doing traffic updates back in 1998, and it wasn't really the cost...it was that none of their listeners really cared.

Hell, when I needed a traffic update I just called the SmarTraveler automated report system on my cellphone as I approached the highway...and that was four or five years ago, long before internet-enabled smartphones became the rage.

Weather reports on the radio can be a little better, but when you're broadcasting to all of eastern Massachusetts, it's hard to be accurate in any one report since the weather varies so much by region.  Although it's usually a safe bet to say the weather will be "bad". 

TV on the Radio, now that's some funky stuff!   

[ChrisNH]

I agree that 'mega-ownership' has turned out to be a bad thing. WBZ has tanked under CBS and The Boston Globe has done the same under the NYT.

They tell me that there is a lot of cash money parked off to the side in this economy...waiting for a place to drive it. It may be a smart play to take some of the Boston media institutions and make them 'Boston' again.