Posted on 05/30/2012 10:33:32 AM PDT by raccoonradio
Former Fox 25 morning show anchor Kim Carrigan was mum yesterday on the buzz that she’s joining WRKO radio’s morning-drive show following the exit of talkmeister Tom Finneran — who is leaving the station tomorrow after a lackluster five-year run.
“It’s no secret that I’ve filled in a few times and that’s been a ton of fun, but outside of that I don’t have any comment at this point,” Carrigan told the Herald.
“It’s fun,” she said of being on the radio. “It’s awesome. It’s so different, but it’s so fun.”
Carrigan — who left Fox 25 in January after station brass decided not to renew her contract — joined Finneran on his show last Friday while filling in for co-host Todd Feinburg.
Finneran announced on-air yesterday that he was leaving to pursue other “plans and opportunities out there in the real world.”
WRKO-AM (680) didn’t announce any other on-air changes yesterday, but the station is in desperate need of a ratings boon. During the April ratings period, WRKO was in a three-way tie for 24th place among the key 25- to 54-year-old listeners, according to the latest Arbitron ratings.
The five-year contract for the station’s star — afternoon-drive host and Herald columnist Howie Carr — expires in the fall, and the station has the right to renew him for another two years.
“I’m hoping I can escape from AM radio,” Carr said yesterday.
Finneran debuted on WRKO in February 2007 with much hoopla, but the show never generated strong ratings.
A month earlier, the former House speaker had pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for lying about his role in a 2001 redistricting plan that diminished minority clout in his Mattapan district.
WRKO program director Jason Wolfe said he wishes Finneran all the best.
Matt Stout contributed to this report.
Howie Carr list ping. I have heard Howie say on air “I hope they don’t pick up my contract”. From the above it looks like they can, at their option, for TWO MORE YEARS. Also WGAN’s
facebook said they were to have Howie on this morning (also Col. Hunt) to discuss among other things “Howie’s contract at WRKO”.
Howie though he could get out of Dodge with a sweet deal but RKO enforced their contractual right to match the offer.
We all should have such problems, that BP-MO!
Message to Howie (hopefully he gets it)..I love ya,Howie,but stop with the victim schtick.At least 99% of your listeners would sell their soul for the chance to endure the "slavery" you've suffered over the last 5+ years.And no,Howie,neither I nor anyone I know has *any* connection (employment,stock,etc) to Entercom.
Someone on radio-info wondered if RKO would keep Howie
and move him to mornings (supp. AM drive more profitable
than PM drive?) maybe with a contract extension and a raise (then again, in this economy...Entercom’s WEEI _cut_ the pay of their PM drive co-host Glenn Ordway, in half...)
That could happen, who knows. Someone did point out on boston-radio-interest mailing list that a morning show, however, would not work out well for the Howie affiliates...since they all have their own
morning shows. What would they do, tape delay Howie and run him at 3?
He wants mornings, it’s said..but I think he also would like to be on FM, etc. Would a big
money, extended contract satisfy him though? Where does RKO go in the future with people
abandoning AM?
And how about the fact that the ratings have RKO tied for 24th in 25-54 (last month). I don’t
know how much money RKO makes with ratings like that—would they do better with an FM
presence?
Right now does RKO need Howie more than Howie needs RKO? But if his contract indeed makes it possible for them to keep him for 2 more years, it may be out of his hands
Yes it can be a bit much though I kind of like the humor he puts into it. Of course “the beautiful people” are in the public sector often, and he is in the “dreaded private sector”.
Is it tacky to attack RKO like he has? Maybe. It almost begs the question “does RKO need Howie more than Howie needs RKO”? (They could cut him if they wish, but...) Or vice versa. But in this economy Howie should be counting his blessings. Then again he does have the books and the newspaper column. Other stations covet him. “It’s good to be the king...”
via K. Vahey of boston-radio-interest list:
Howie on WGAN this morning ( May 30,2012 )
http://www.wgan.com/play_window.php?audioType=Episode&audioId=5869165
>>He said AM radio is dead - I want to go to FM but keep my syndication and I
don’t want mornings.
It doesn't matter.He signed a contract with RKO "X" number of years ago.He did so either with or without having sought legal advice.If he did seek advice he either heeded that advice or ignored it.Bottom line...RKO held him to the terms of the contract and the courts backed them up.So either Howie himself is responsible for his fate due to having failed to seek legal advice or having ignored the advice he got *or* the lawyer who advised him gave him bum advice.I've heard Howie himself often say "self-pity is bad box office".
You’re right, it’s a legal matter. What I meant was would Ent. sign him again (or attempt to), and would Howie leaving be a big loss to WRKO? It would.
Here’s a post I made on radio-info.com and most of it is tweets from Mark Schnyder who does the blog Boston Radio Watch
According to Mark of bostonradiowatch, in a tweet to me, Entercom had “3 days to match. They
took 24 hours.” Not sure of the exact terms he’s under now. Some of his tweets (all from Mark S.):
—Howie can still end up at 680 after all is said and done
—Not sure how the renewal clause is structured in his current deal but in ‘07, Greater Media(96.9) offered him a 5-yr $6.75ml
—Howie signed it before his 680 deal expired.His attorney wasnt aware that there was an automatic match clause that kicked in
—Entercom had to match it with 3 days. They matched it within 24 hours which automatically locked him at Entercom for 5 yrs
—All Carr had to do was not sign any deal with anyone until his deal at 680 had expired. Granted, he would’ve had to sit out
—for 3 months(90days) as part of a non-compete which was also in the old deal but he got too greedy and had an idiot attorney
{note the last part; not sure what is in current deal re: non-compete}
Mark’s hunch is that he’ll wind up on “crappy AM” WRKO for 2 more years. Would Ent.
bother to // WRKO on, say 107.3 (keep WAAF on 97.7)...is it worth doing that? How much
money would be made with an FM talk simulcast (something going on all over the place)
and would it be worth losing one of WAAF’s signals? They also had to agonize over losing
Mike FM to // WEEI but that had to be done. Still, Mike made money, but WEEI needed to hit FM.
https://twitter.com/#!/bostonradio
see above post, more on Howie etc
(// is radio shorthand for “simulcast”)
All, there was a Howie column in yesterday’s Herald. I forgot to upload it and late last night the Herald’s website was giving me trouble. Here it is followed by today’s column.
It isn’t even funny, Barney gets a pass
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, May 30, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo
Photo by AP
Imagine if a Republican, say U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, were to use the Trayvon Martin shooting as the basis for a joke at a college commencement. Consider a Republican in front of TV cameras telling a black guy getting an honorary degree, “I think you now got a hoodie you can wear and no one will shoot at you.”
Think national scandal, demands for resignation, calls for civility, popping veins on MSNBC.
Then imagine Barney Frank saying the exact same thing, which he did Sunday, at UMass-Dartmouth. Imagine ... crickets.
Nothing to see here folks, move along.
Just like last week, at Harvard, when Barney was recounting his speech on the floor of the House about some “hate-crimes” legislation. He quoted himself:
“It will still be entirely legal to call me a fag — I just wouldn’t recommend it if you’re in the banking industry.”
If Brown had said it, this headline would have appeared: “Brown Threatens Industry He Regulates; Ethics Panel Begins Probe.”
It’s hard to believe these days, but Barney Frank wasn’t always a garrulous fat old fool in need of a one-way ticket to the dog track. Comrade Barney was once regarded as a quick wit. He came up with a lot of great one-liners.
The Big Dig: “Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just raise the whole city?”
The Boston City Council: “There’s only two things can happen if you run for the City Council, and both of them are bad. Number one, you could lose. Number two, you could win.”
Then there was the Republican state rep he once said was so stupid that he was the only human being in the world in danger of contracting Dutch elm disease. I ran into that ex-solon during the New Hampshire primary last winter. He insisted I call him “Dutch.”
Enmeshed in scandal, Barney came up with this: “Your core constituency isn’t the people who are with you when you’re right, your core is the people who are with you when you’re wrong.”
But as Barney rides off into retirement, let us recall the greatest joke of his final years. He told it on July 14, 2008, just before the collapse of the financial system:
“Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, they are not in danger of going under ... I do think their prospects going forward are very solid.”
That was, what, $150 billion in bailouts ago. Tell that joke at your next college commencement, Barney. If not the house, it always brings the economy down.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061135162
Don’t be standing too close to Marisa DeFranco these next few days. You wouldn’t want to get hit in the cross fire the establishment Democrats have planned for her at the state convention in Springfield on Saturday.
C’mon, you don’t really think she’s going to get 15 percent of the delegates she needs to make the September primary ballot?
Not if Gov. Deval Patrick has anything to say about it, and he does.
Asked about the fake-Cherokee identity this undocumented Indian rode to the Ivy League, Deval shouted back, “We don’t care about that subject.”
Of course he had to do it. Granny and Deval are soulmates under the skin — a pair of four-flushing phonies who will do or say anything to get an edge.
Affirmative action has been very, very good to Deval. Those mysterious multimillion-dollar settlements from Texaco and Coke (or was it Pepsi?) and the $1.35 million payoff, I mean advance, for his “book” that sold 6,000 copies.
All accomplished on merit — wink wink nudge nudge.
You’d think he’d take “diversity” seriously, or at least pretend to be offended when such an obvious fraud as White-Eyes Warren cynically games the system to catapult herself out of the Southwest Conference and into the Ivy League.
But instead, he embraces Sitting Duck’s 1,000 percent, 24-carat phoniness. “Elizabeth,” he said last night in Somerville, “has lived the American Dream.”
Surely Deval meant to say, the Native American Dream.
Actually she has lived the Dream — she invented herself. It was boring being middle class and driving the white MG to high school, so she started claiming to be poor. She didn’t do much in high school so she rewrote her teen years to make herself a “legendary high-school debater,” whatever that is.
She was going nowhere as a white woman, so she started checking the box. She had a BMW 528i — until she decided to run for the Senate. She railed against sweetheart deals on Wall Street, and took a no-interest loan from Harvard.
No wonder Deval loves her. There’s nothing either of them wouldn’t say. Did you know Deval was going to cut everybody’s property taxes? And she was the first woman ever to take the bar exam in New Jersey while nursing. See, she’d just gotten off her Conestoga wagon ...
Marisa DeFranco, it’s been nice knowing you. And as you drive home in defeat Saturday afternoon, you might ponder why Pinocchio-hontas couldn’t get that big federal job in Washington. In a town full of phonies, she was too phony for phonies’ phonies like Tim Geithner and Harry Reid.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061135472
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