Friday, July 27, 2007

Morse gets new radio gig
Chuck Morse, the author, two-time failed congressional candidate [aren't we all?], and self-proclaimed "rightwing extremist," will have a new gig on WBIX 1060 outside of Boston starting in September: ["Morse Code starting September 1"].
With things shaking up in the radio world down there - specifically, Howie Carr jumping to mornings at WTKK and no talent lined up to take the afternoon shift at WRKO - this is a good opportunity for Morse to try and tap into the afternoon drive time AM audience down in Framingham. Morse was last heard doing mornings down on WARL 1320, a 5,000 watt AM station in Attleboro and has a long history of on-again, off-again radio shows.
One of the neat things about Chuck is that while he is bats on some issues, he is dead-on correct on many others. As well, as I've noticed over the years, he likes to debate people from the opposite side of the fence. Folks like Noam Chomsky and his nemesis, Rep. Barney Frank, actually get airtime on his shows and that is a lot more than they ever get on other radio stations. In addition, he often gives dark horses and long-shots the chance to be heard [Disclosure: When he was on 1510 in the late 1990s, I was on his show a couple of times].
Of course, Morse has his work cut out for him. WBIX doesn't even post in the Top 30 of 12-plus numbers in Boston, according to the Arbitron diary: ["Market 11"]. In fact, looking at these numbers, Manch's WGIR-FM and WZID-FM, WUNR-AM's foreign language stew [and other foreign language stations], and Cambridge's tiny beautiful music station, WJIB-AM, chart higher. WBIX does have a trade deal with the Boston Herald, according to gossip I've heard. They get an ad in the Herald and the Herald gets a news sponsorship before and after news updates.
In order to make this work, a lot more promotion is going to be needed for the station. Here's hoping he has a good long run with this one.

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