Posted on 03/02/2010 11:48:14 PM PST by raccoonradio
The new home of Rush Limbaugh: Rush Radio 1200/ WXKS-AM
BOSTON, MA – March 2, 2010 – A Boston radio revolution months in the making will take place on Monday, March 8, 2010 at noon as “Rush Radio 1200/WXKS” becomes the new home of The Rush Limbaugh Show.
The historic launch will be led by radio giant and conservative talk master Rush Limbaugh, weekdays 12pm-3pm, followed by The Sean Hannity Show 3pm-6pm, The Jason Lewis Show 6pm-9pm, The Mark Levin Show 9p-12mid, Coast to Coast AM with George Noory midnight - 6am and The Glenn Beck Program 9am -12noon.
“Boston is the birthplace of the American Revolution,” says Bill George, Program Director of Rush Radio 1200/WXKS. “Rush Radio will lead a new revolution beginning Monday, March 8th at noon. From our months of research and planning to Scott Brown’s recent Senate win, it’s clear that there is a changing tide in Massachusetts. People are ready to embrace the type of conservative ideals that Rush Radio 1200 and its hosts embrace.”
>>Tuesday, March 2, 2010 Rush move : Daytime talk titan to debut on new signal next week
Boston's brand new talk radio station Rush Radio 1200/WXKS AM, in the works for months for April 1st launch, will push up its start time by 3 weeks as it kicks off with a major piece of its new sound starting at Noon next Monday(3/8), BRW has learned. Rush Limbaugh, for 15 years the pivot man of WRKO AM 680's daytime schedule, will now air from 12pm to 3pm on WXKS AM 1200(as of last night, the old WKOX call letters now reside on AM 1430 frequency).
Sean Hannity will follow Limbaugh from 3 to 6pm. Landing Limbaugh makes AM 1200 the Boston outlet for the nation's three most-listened-to syndicated talk hosts, according to the radio trade journal Talkers Magazine, which counts Limbaugh's cumulative weekly national audience at 15 million, Hannity's at 14 million and Glenn Beck at 9 million. WRKO AM 680 will counter deferctor Rush with a new local show hosted by Charley Manning(see story below).
Beyond Limbaugh and Hannity, Rush Radio's new lineup will have Glenn Beck(9am-Noon), Jason Lewish(6pm-9pm), Mark Levin(9pm-Midnight) and Coast to Coast(12am-5am).
The new local morning show is yet to be announced and will debut on April 1st according to sources. WRKO's early Rush pull-out this week caught the new talker off guard as it's rushing(no pun, intended) to air with its new line-up. Rush' reruns will air in the AM drive until local show show is ready to debut in three weeks.
(Note: One rumor has it that "Rumba" on AM 1200 will end at 3 pm on Fri, followed by "stunting" of Best of Rush till Monday at noon)
Didn’t know who Jason Lewis was, so just looked him up. Found this graph on his web site that looks pretty damning of Tim Pawlenty: http://www.jasonlewisshow.com/pages/taxes.html
(Scroll down the page to see how taxes have risen during his term in office.)
He’s from Minneapolis I think and has filled in for Rush.
Morning drive time is a void in the Boston area, hope they come up with something. I heard the station that signed Howie before the court overturned his contract wanted him in the AM. Too bad.
You sound like someone who would know this. Isn’t 680 a stronger signal than 1200?
They are directional to avoid interfering with WOAI in San Antonio, the "grandfather" station on that frequency.
Here's their pattern:
Not on my radio!
both are 50 kW, RKO from Burlington, XKS from Newton but the lower your AM freq, the better signal strength. 1200 should still be good for many by day and for some by night.
At sunset WRKO has to switch to a north-south pattern to protect 680s from Toronto, Baltimore, Binghamton NY and Raleigh. Last night at sunset you could hear WRKO turn off for a couple seconds for the pattern change-and during that time Hannity was heard. Prob WCBM, Baltimore. 1200 has to change pattern too to protect other 1200s including Clear Channel’s flagship WOAI in Texas. At night some may have trouble with 1200 but some should still get it okay.
WRKO has real problems to the west after sunset again due to FCC requirements. Too bad Clear Channel doesn’t have an FM in town with a signal that could cover many and wouldn’t have to change pattern etc after sunset (they do have Jamn 94.5 and Kiss 108 but don’t want to dump their music—get good ratings)
1200 used to be a worse signal when they were broadcasting from Framingham (incl the days 2004-06 as “Boston’s Progressive Talk”) but they got permission to move the tower to Newton and boost up to 50,000 watts. Some in Boston area may find WXKS 1200 to be better than RKO esp. at night. For some.
and by this I mean if Clear Channel were to put talk on WXKS-FM 107.9 (Kiss 108) or WJMN-FM 94.5 it would be even better but they don’t want to lose a fairly highly rated music signal
Thanks—so they’ve improved the signal since I lived there. And you do know your radio!
You’re welcome—I have been on a college station on the North shore for almost 30 years...and am frequently on radio messageboards, etc. I contribute to the Boston Radio blog too
and do the Howie Carr ping list here on FR
Jeez—I hope you’ve got enough credits to graduate soon! ;-)
Oh I graduated in ‘84 :) They let me stay on
I live on the North Shore on the New Hampshire border. In my area 680 is quite a bit stronger than 1200.
See Dude, that could be us. I mentioned doing this to you like 2 years ago remember?
How/why did WRKO let Rush get away? This is going to kill them and WEEI is getting a bite taken out of them by 98.5.
Time to fire the whole Boston Entercom crew is you ask me.
No way they could keep Rush as Clear Channel/Premiere pulled away the rights. Wanted him on their own station
So was the original contract finally up or something?
Supposedly the contract was till 2012 but Clear Channel/Premiere may have had the right to pull it early...
supp. WRKO paid $1 mill. a yr to run Rush and hopefully made some of that back! The same thing has happened elsewhere.
I don’t know all the details, just that premiere/CC
pulled the plug so to speak to take him to 1200.
after 3:15 pm you can hear the loop WXKS is running promoting the new format
http://raccoonradio.freehostia.com/WXKS/RumbaEnds.mp3
after 3:15...i’m still recording it now
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