He’s been hinting at it more and more —”I have to look good for job interviews”— but keep in mind his contract runs till either Sept. or Nov. of 2012. It was renewed for 5 years in late 2007. If he can get legal help to get out of it early...but so far no luck.
WTKK has supp. said they aren’t interested but I bet they are. WBZ, I would doubt (no room, maybe too extreme for them). WXKS Talk 1200, possibly, but who knows what money will be bandied about. Perhaps he may have to settle with going back to RKO, and perhaps they’ll “lowball” him but he may have to take what he’s got.
Keep in mind conserv. talk radio in Boston is taking its lumps lately at least in ratings (not sure about earnings;
a station may not nec. do well in ratings to make a little money). Not long ago WRKO was getting 3.7 per cent of the audience in 25-54 yr olds; now it’s 0.8. WTKK—1.8.
Talk 1200— 0.1....now they use Personal People Meters (think I mentioned before) and can detect if people tune out after just one segment rather than giving them credit for listening to the whole show.
If ratings and earnings don’t improve, let’s say Howie may wind up somewhere but perhaps at lower salary. He’d like to jump but times are tough. If RKO still gave him the best deal he might bite the bullet and stay but who knows.
I will say this: if Clear Channel (1200) takes him they may syndicate him to stations they own in Manchester (610),
Worc. (580) and Prov (920), but not necessarily live. All fairly big stations. We’ll see.
Wed column ping
Exec’s golden parachute leads to hard landing
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, March 9, 2011 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo
Photo by Ted Fitzgerald
It’s all about taking the public payroll private. Period.
Who does Blue Cross Blue Shield think they’re kidding with this latest namby-pamby statement about paying a future Wal-Mart greeter named Clueless Cleve Killlingsworth $11 million to leave quietly after losing $149 million.
That’s not welfare, it’s corporate welfare?
The Blues don’t like being a “public charity” anymore because their annual financial statements are posted on Attorney General Martha Coakley’s Web site. It’s public information. How do you think the Herald discovered how much the board’s bandidos were grabbing?
Busted, the board now says there are “conflicting expectations about who we are.”
Not if you go to the AG’s Web site and click on “Non Profits & Charities.” When you get to “Annual Filing Document Search,” click on the sixth option – “PC—IRS 990.” Read it and weep.
This battle to keep public payrolls private is a recurring theme in the hackerama. Think Billy Bulger at UMass, or the “quasi-public authorities” that have been stonewalling the Herald for years.
I told you last week about Paul Guzzi, who made $84,463 on the board and another $429,600 at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.
How about Gloria Larson, she of the $76,400 payout from the ratepayers? As president of Bentley University (another “public charity” on the AG’s Web site), this RINO is grabbing $560,325 a year. Helen Drinan is the president of Simmons College, good for $84,232 on the board and another $173,427 base salary at the college plus a $29,000 bonus.
Remember Ralph Martin II, former district attorney, now at Northeastern University as “senior vice president” in addition to being a Blues board member. His new salary isn’t posted yet on the attorney general’s Web site, so Northeastern stonewalled me, didn’t even return a phone call to say “no comment” when I asked about his salary. Don’t you think Blues would love to pull a Northeastern, as it were, the next time some reporter calls up asking about an eight-figure payout to a PC caricature and Democrat Kool-Aid drinker?
Now that their hands and feet both are caught in the cookie jar, the Blues issue a statement saying: “Executive compensation generally has gotten too high.”
Or, as the late baseball-club owner Bill Veeck used to put up, “It’s not the high cost of talent that’s ruining the game, it’s the high cost of mediocrity.”
And now, paying a moron $11 million has ruined the Blues’ very profitable non-profit scam.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1322012
Howie has talked about going to Florida permanently, so perhaps he will find a gig in FL - the rest of us could probably live stream him.