iHeartLayoffs

I don't listen to all news radio. In markets where it runs like Boston do they run all-news 24 hours a day or are only the day parts traditional local news?

 

Usually it's 24/7 - maybe one or two people working the overnight.

 

It depends on several things.
Which team you're carrying......how long you've carried them......your relationship with the team.
The team we carry here, it's considerably less than 10k, but we've also carried them since their inception.

 

See, if I was young, single, and full of piss and vinegar again, I think it would be a trip to work at an overnight in Boston or LA or Denver or NYC or somewhere like that. Big market.
Go in at 9:30 or so in the evening, work a graveyard, out of there by 7.

 

Boston is unique in that the all-newser goes talk between 8 pm and 5 am. Others that I know of (WTOP, KYW, WCBS, WINS) are all-news all night.

 

It appears WBZ dropped its overnight. That is awful for radio history.

WBZ was big because it was 50 thousand watts clear channel. Kids in the Maritime Providences liked the Bruins because they could hear the games. Overnight WBZ had callers from all over the country because of its signal.

 

Those were basically my last two gigs, at ages 33-34 when I realized I was going nowhere and needed a career change.

In Sacramento, I ran the board Friday and Saturday overnights (usually Kings broadcasts), then anchored the Sunday morning news block from 5-9 a.m. and two hours of the garden show. In Raleigh, I played tape-recorded Clark Howard repeats and had live five-minute newsbreaks at the top and bottom of the hour on weekend overnights from 11 p.m.-6 a.m., leading into Monday morning drive.

In hindsight, I should have gotten a real job and played at radio instead, like the well-known attorney who was running the board on the FM side for the same minimum wage. Ah, well.

I don't regret the experiences or helping some of the people who made it big. If I could just figure out how to stop the nagging "you're on the air in 30 seconds!" dreams that pop up now and then!

 

Just out of curiosity, was one of those a certain well-known right-wing radio megastar?
Just asking since it seems like the years might line up.

 

Pretty close. Rush had left KFBK for New York a couple of years before I got there. I thankfully never got face-to-face with the Baron of Bluster. I probably would have flattened his ass, giving me a longer rapsheet.

Don Germaise went from WMEL to Florida Network to TV star in St. Pete/Tampa.
I hired Vicki Moore at KUIC fresh out of college and she's been the morning anchor at KNX in Los Angeles for 16 years.
I also mentored Drew Sandsor (who went on to be news director at KFBK/Sacramento and news producer at KGO/San Francisco).
Plus Paul Hosley (ex-KGO news director).