Free Republic

WRKO-AM (680) has cut loose afternoon radio host Charley Manning because of less than stellar ratings, according to sources. Ex-WTKK-FM (96.9) nighttime host and Herald contributor Michele McPhee will take his place starting Monday. Manning, who replaced Rush Limbaugh on WRKO, has been on the air less than a year in the 1 to 3 p.m. time slot. More to come…. UPDATE: WRKO just sent out this press release: Michele McPhee to Join WRKO Lineup January 13, 2010 (Boston) – Entercom New England announced today that acclaimed media personality and celebrated author Michele McPhee will join the lineup at WRKO...

WRKO radio host Howie Carr has lodged a trio of complaints against the station with the state Attorney General’s office, seeking unpaid bonuses and a pay raise in the three years since his bosses thwarted his attempt to defect to rival WTKK. The Herald received the complaints from the Attorney General’s office under a Freedom of Information Act request. Carr declined comment this week. The WRKO-AM (680) afternoon-drive talker and Herald columnist filed his most recent complaint against the station’s owner, Entercom Communications, over a month ago before he was hit with a weeklong suspension in April for badmouthing the...

Conservative talk radio host Howie Carr of WRKO 680 AM has been suspended for a week, effective Friday, for publicly and repeatedly using his program to bad-mouth the station, a company executive said. Julie Kahn, vice president and marketing manager for Entercom Boston, which owns the station, said Carr’s behavior toward his employer has become increasingly caustic and intolerable. ‘‘His behavior and his anger at the company is unacceptable because he denigrates the company, the medium, the station, the signal, and he’s a highly, highly, highly paid employee,’’ she said.

Clear Channel plans to debut a new conservative AM talk radio station in April and is trying to steal WRKO lynchpin Rush Limbaugh - who has been on ’RKO’s airwaves for 15 years. Spanish music station WXKS-AM (1200) - which recently upgraded to 50,000 watts and is based in Newton - is flipping to a news talk format. Clear Channel is currently in talks with its subsidiary, Premiere Radio Networks, which syndicates Limbaugh’s show. Clear Channel also wants to snag Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, whose show airs on WRKO-AM (680) on Saturday night. “We haven’t signed anything. We’re trying...

A Sacramento jury set an eye-popping standard Thursday on the cost of radio station contests that kill and the resulting loss of a mother's love and a wife's companionship. The tab for Entercom Sacramento LLC came to $16,577,118 in the water-intoxication death of Jennifer Lea Strange in a contest put on by radio station KDND "The End" (107.9 FM). Such was the award rendered by a Sacramento Superior Court jury of seven men and five women in the trial to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of Strange's survivors. The 28-year-old woman died Jan. 12, 2007, after she...

Howie Carr thread for the week. radio doings: a report in yesterday's Boston Globe-Democrat says that ESPN is going off the air (WAMG 890) tomorrow and one thing that may well happen is WRKO's sister station, WEEI...you know, the folks who took over Howie's studio...could move to FM (93.7, based in Peabody, most likely, and perhaps 97.7, with a tower on Great Blue Hill) with ESPN landing on AM 850. Nothing is official but Entercom is "in talks" with ESPN. Meanwhile there is also speculation that Entercom may dump WRKO's 680 signal and send the programming perhaps to 107.3 (currently...