Although I have no specific information to connect the two events — and therefore they may in fact be unrelated — my gut told me that Greater Media would take WBT away from original, local programming once long-time BT program maven Bill White exited for WGN.
I also noted that BT has been heading toward a full-on program shift with ever shorter segments and a desire to re-hash whatever the nationally syndicated yappers are yapping about. And again, having a tape-delayed Neal Boortz replace Pete Kaliner come April fits that bill.
Kaliner tweets that he was told Thursday that “budget cuts” at the station necessitated the move. Translated that means Greater Media can fill air with Boortz for next to nothing while paying a local professional costs actual money. And no offense to Pete, not a lot of money in the overall scheme of a multi-million dollar media conglomerate, but some money.
The fact is that the 9pm-12am slot on AM talk radio is not exactly prime time. Maybe Kaliner’s show still managed to run in the black, I do not know. But it seems to me that if you are serious about honoring the conditions of your FCC license, you go ahead and take the loss-leader in that slot and recoup it elsewhere in the goodwill you build up delivering original, quality programming to the community.
Much like the loss of boots on the ground has hurt the UPoR — to the point where I find myself reading it less and less — BT will find that their quality will suffer as it chases the lowest common denominator in a media world filled with low quality outlets.
Bonus Observation: Worst of all possible worlds would be for GM to pipe in Michael Graham — currently at its Boston talk outlet — although any syndicated show is a horrible development.
