When I was in grad school, one Christmas break I got a little job (for extra money) for the English department, going through all the faculty applications for the year and counting by white or various minorities, a count demanded by the feds. This would have been late 70s or very early 80s. At the time it was illegal to ask for race, so there was a certain amount of guesswork, but the feds were tracking the numbers for applicants and hires. Maybe someone (the federal agency that requires the count?) should look into how Harvard (not to mention UPenn) tracked these things.
good point maryz!
And now a blog post I did on BostonRadio blog:
Howie Carr’s contract should be up by late Sept. and he keeps hinting he’d like to go elsewhere. He says howiecarr.us will be his way of letting people know where he’s going, if he does.
I don’t know if he’ll stay at RKO (forced to? or will they offer him the best deal, despite his dissatisfaction?) or go to WTKK 96.9 or WXKS 1200, but the recent sale of WFNX 101.7 to Clear Channel was mentioned by him on air...another sign that maybe, maybe he could be going elsewhere. After all, if Clear Channel, owner of WXKS (AM) were to simulcast it on FM, boom, new employer, and FM! (As is WTKK of course)
But it’s not a given. Many think WFNX will become a Spanish language station. It reaches the immediate Boston area (big Latino population) but not so much the suburbs where right-leaning listeners live. Clear Channel hinted at it (but they may be funnin’ us) on the Talk 1200 Facebook: “Like us if you have 101.7 reasons to listen to Talk 1200! Stay tuned!” A clue? Or maybe not. But, intriguing to think about.
Clear Channel used to run liberal talk on 1200 (and 1430) but both went Spanish. Then they did some improvements to the 1200 signal—a long awaited upgrade to 50,000 watts and a move to Newton from Framingham, with 1200 going conservative talk in March of 2010—but the signal is directional especially at night and not everyone can pick it up, even now. Adding 101.7 (or changing to it) might help, but they’d lose quite a few areas, too.
So if 101.7 does become an FM home for Talk 1200, might Howie head there? Could be....or WTKK...or staying at WRKO.
One thing’s for sure: It won’t be CBS. I can’t picture the “illegal horn” on WBZ.
http://raccoonradio.freehostia.com/Air/illegalhorn.mp3
(that link isn’t on the blog)