PETITION TO REINSTATE PROGRESSIVE TALK
Clear Channel Inc., owner of roughly 1,500 broadcast towers in America, has followed its recent trend of dropping Progressive Talk radio stations in the U.S. -- this time in Boston, shutting down Boston's Progressive Talk which consisted of two simulcast stations: WKOX - 1200 AM and WXKS - 1430 AM.
Paradoxically, it was Clear Channel who brought Boston's Progressive Talk to the airwaves in late 2004. Since it was the lone voice of Progressive ideology on the AM dial, it quickly became a vital source for news, current events and issues important to Bostonians. Among those featured on the station were shows hosted by Al Franken, Randi Rhodes, Rachel Maddow, Bobby Kennedy Jr., Sam Seder, Laura Flanders and Thom Hartmann, all part of Air America programming; as well as Stephanie Miller and Ed Schultz from the Jones Radio Network.
Unfortunately, both of Clear Channel's towers provided only weak signal strength (down to 1kW at sundown). Clear Channel demonstrated poor management, supplied unprofessional sounding automation, incorporated no local advertising and virtually no local hosts, had a insufficient sales staff and limited publicity. All of this kept Boston's Progressive Talk from succeeding the way it could have had a proper business plan or effort been made.
Finally, in a shocking move, without warning or regard for the Progressive talk audience or giving the community any chance to further promote or preserve the format, Clear Channel dropped the entire talk format as of noon Thursday, December 21, 2006 and changed over to a Spanish language and music format. Ironically, only a few days before, the station had sent out a survey to listeners, asking about future preferences for the Progressive show line-up.
More:
http://www.bostonprogressivetalk.net/boston_progress.php
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