Follow the bouncing sports talkers

So why did the Boston Globe and WEEI Radio (AM 850) reach an agreement that will allow Globe sportswriters to appear on the station for the first time in years, as the Boston Phoenix's Adam Reilly reported yesterday?

According to the Boston Herald's Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa, Globe sportswriter Tony Massarotti is about to jump ship to WBZ-FM (98.5 FM), the CBS-owned all-sports station that will begin competing with WEEI this fall. Massarotti was a constant on 'EEI when he was with the Herald.

Bringing the Globe-'EEI war to a peaceful conclusion would presumably open the way for (a) Massarotti to return to that station or, more likely, (b) beef up 'EEI as it seeks to compete with a new afternoon show on WBZ-FM that would be co-hosted by Massarotti and Mike Felger, though it's not entirely clear what is going on.

Weirdly enough, Globe sports-media columnist Chad Finn tweets that Globe writers will be allowed to phone in, but not be in the studio, for WEEI's highly rated morning and afternoon drive programs, "Dennis & Callahan" and "The Big Show," although an exception will be made if a Globie has a chance to co-host "D&C." (Via Boston Sports Media.)

In looking over this item, it appears I may have only added to the confusion. My work here is done. You're welcome.

A couple of Gates-related odds and ends

I want to make it clear right up front that I know neither of these tidbits speaks directly to the matter of Professor Henry Louis Gates versus Sgt. James Crowley. But I've been thinking about both of them, and have decided they're worth passing on as being indicative of a certain cultural mindset.

First, can we agree that 1999 wasn't that long ago? Good. Because it was during that year that the Cambridge Chronicle discovered the Cambridge Police Department was training its officers to believe Mexicans and members of other ethnic groups who routinely eat spicy foods were immune to pepper spray. Apologies ensued.

Second, why on earth would Crowley give his first major interview to John Dennis and Gerry Callahan on WEEI Radio (AM 850)? The officer was trying to make the case that he's not a racist — and yet he talked with two guys who were once suspended for comparing black kids to "gorillas."

I've seen no evidence to suggest that Crowley is a racist. On the other hand, the evidence that he's "clueless," as Boston Globe columnist Adrian Walker put it yesterday, continues to build.

As for President Obama, his week was like the Red Sox' — really bad, ending on an upbeat note, but leaving you wondering whether he can shore up some fundamental flaws (lack of message discipline, combined with a disconcerting habit of having to revise his remarks) that weren't evident when he was winning.

Tony Mazz jumps to the Globe

Two developments coming out of the Boston Globe sports department, courtesy of Adam Reilly.

In the non-surprise department, Amalie Benjamin succeeds Gordon Edes, now with Yahoo Sports, as the Globe's Red Sox beat reporter. Interesting and good that the Globe would put a woman in that high-profile slot. Even better, it represents a long-overdue generational shift. If this Wikipedia bio is accurate, Benjamin is 26 years old.

In the big-surprise department, the Boston Herald's Tony Massarotti is leaving One Herald Square to join a beefed-up Boston.com sports operation. Massarotti is a leading reason to read the Herald, so this is a huge, huge loss. It also tells me that Globe sports editor Joe Sullivan is at least as concerned about competing with the newly ascendant WEEI.com as he is with the Herald. (Sullivan is also promoting part-time copy editor Chad Finn to a new job as a sports reporter for Boston.com.)

Unless the Globe loosens its WEEI ban [see tweak below] , it also means one of the station's most recognizable voices will no longer be heard. Of course, now Massarotti can appear on New England Sports Network, a corporate cousin to the Globe.

The best news about all of this is that job creation continues at 135 Morrissey Boulevard, shifting from the print edition to the Web site.

Friday tweak: According to the Joan Vennochi column I linked to last night, as well as to a piece I wrote in April 2001, I glossed over the ban just a bit too glibly. Former Globe editor Matt Storin banned his people from appearing on "The Big Show," in the afternoon, and later extended it to "Dennis & Callahan" as well. WEEI retaliated by announcing that Globe writers had been banned from all of its programs. So it's kind of a mutual ban.

Callahan says he had throat cancer

WEEI Radio (AM 850) morning-show co-host Gerry Callahan today confirms longstanding rumors that his months-long absence in 2007 was due to serious illness. In his Boston Herald column, Callahan writes that he was being treated for throat cancer.

Bruce Allen notes that Callahan timed his announcement to coincide with the annual WEEI-NESN telethon for the Jimmy Fund. Good move — it will raise interest and could well result in more money for the Jimmy Fund.

Media Nation is no fan of "Dennis & Callahan," with its snide putdowns of everyone to the left of Dick Cheney. But I wish Callahan well.

Radio's challenge to print

You may have heard that two Boston Herald sportswriters, Rob Bradford and Michael Felger, are leaving the paper to join WEEI.com as full-time sports bloggers. The move hasn't gotten much attention, but I think it may prove to be pretty significant in terms of how the media continue to change.

The buzzword for what this is about is "disaggregation." What it means is that the one-stop package that is the daily newspaper — hard news and automobile ads, obituaries and sports, political analysis and comics — is coming apart, with niche media better able to give people what they're looking for.

You can already see this with television sports journalism. The sports segments on TV newscasts have been shortened because the true fans are watching ESPN. Now it's coming down to the local level, with WEEI (AM 850), a phenomenally successful all-sports radio station, taking the first step toward competing with the sports pages of the Herald and the Boston Globe.

This is going to be a challenge for Bradford and Felger in that there is virtually no adult supervision at WEEI. They're going to have to provide their own journalistic standards, and no doubt there will be occasions when they'll have to stand up to management and say "no." In a larger sense, though, I'm fascinated at the notion that a radio station is going to try to fill at least part of the role traditionally held by newspapers.

In that respect, the WEEI move is more significant than Sacha Pfeiffer's decision to switch from the Globe to WBUR Radio (90.9 FM) earlier this year. Pfeiffer's new job, after all, is to be a radio reporter, not a print reporter who writes for the station's Web site. It has more to do with a first-rate reporter moving to a medium whose non-profit business model, built on a foundation of listener contributions and corporate underwriting, is more solid than the newspaper industry's.

Yet here, too, there are developments that bear watching. Every day I receive an e-mail from WBUR with the latest world, national and local news, complete with photos, AP wire copy and sound clips. It is a reasonably comprehensive wrap-up of the day's news, even if it's not quite as detailed as what I find in the Globe.

Currently the Globe offers a six- or seven-minute podcast that is little more than a teaser for what's in the paper. But if WBUR is going to publish what is, in effect, an online newspaper, why shouldn't the Globe compete with a half-hour podcast consisting of a reasonably complete news report, with paid advertising?

If digital convergence gives radio stations the power to become newspapers, then newspapers ought to consider what it would take to become radio stations. In the current environment, no one can afford not to experiment.

More: Dave Scott has some thoughts on what Felger's move means for the local ESPN Radio outlet at AM 890, where Felger had hosted a show, as well as further background on the Bradford-Herald situation.

Best wishes to Glenn Ordway's family

Bruce Allen has a statement from WEEI Radio (AM 850).

Boston's talk devolution

While the focus on the talk-radio wars here and elsewhere has generally been on the dysfunctional station that is WRKO (AM 680), it seems that the real mess may be at WTKK (96.9 FM). Globe columnist Steve Bailey reports that WRKO is charging — and presumably getting — considerably more money for advertising than its rival during the all-important morning and evening commutes.

In the morning, 'RKO's Tom Finneran show (on which Bailey appears) is charging $400 for a 60-second ad, compared to $250 for the same ad on the syndicated "Imus in the Morning" program on 'TKK. In the afternoon, Howie Carr (WRKO) gets $600, while Jay Severin (WTKK) lags at $350.

I imagine this needs to be taken with at least a grain of salt. In the newspaper business, ad-rate cards tend to feature more creative writing than anything you'll find in the actual paper, and that may be true of radio as well. But Bailey's numbers make a certain amount of sense.

Finneran, the born-again non-lobbyist, hasn't exactly set the world on fire, but the aging Imus' return has essentially been a non-story. I suspect that most of Imus' few remaining listeners found a new morning routine during his richly earned hiatus, and they're not going back.

As for the Carr-Severin war, it's a shame both sides can't lose — but Carr does manage to bring intelligence, wit and an encyclopedic knowledge of Boston to the table, despite his laziness and his occasional indulgences in homophobic snickering. Severin possesses a large vocabulary, but his ranting, his mindless cheerleading on behalf of Mitt Romney and his mundane-yet-offensive insights into politics are tiresome. I'm not sure why, but Severin has become much less listenable since his return from syndication a couple of years ago. I guess listeners agree with me, given that Severin was beating Carr in the ratings before he left.

WTKK could have solved its drive-time shortcomings. Part of it wasn't the station's fault — Howie Carr wanted to switch and become the station's morning host, but his contract didn't allow him to do so. If I were running 'TKK and had somehow found a way to land Carr, I'd have kept him in the afternoon and moved Severin to the less important mid-day slot. Then I'd have moved "Eagan and Braude," the station's best program, to morning drive.

Not that they asked me. But you know what? They'd be better off if they had.

One final note. Bailey also reports that the ad rates charged by the sports-talk programs on WEEI, a sister station to 'RKO, absolutely blow away both 'RKO and 'TKK. To paraphrase Henry Kissinger's famous dictum about academic politics, the infighting between 'RKO and 'TKK is so fierce because the stakes are so small.

Dennis and Callahan return

Not much to say about the return of John Dennis and Gerry Callahan to WEEI Radio (AM 850) except that Entercom executives proved to be not quite as suicidal as they sometimes appear.

Personally, I wouldn't have minded seeing the offensive duo take a permanent vacation. But they're ratings monsters, and it was obvious that Entercom had to do everything it could within reason to bring them back.

Even though I suspect WEEI's morning ratings would be fine without Dennis and Callahan, Jason Wolfe and company would be foolish to take a chance.

The last "D&C" update

Pending any real news (and certainly Entercom's acquistion of half of WCRB (99.5 FM) qualifies as real news), I'll let David Scott round things up one more time. Bottom line: It's now clear that no one — not Scott, not the Herald, not the Globe and certainly not yours truly — had any idea of what was really going on until the agreement was announced yesterday afternoon.

Perhaps Entercom and Nassau can now cut a deal that would allow John Dennis and Gerry Callahan to take over the morning show on WCRB. No disrespect to Laura Carlo, but wouldn't you love to hear Dennis introducing one of the "Brandenburg Concertos" while Callahan wonders out loud if Bach was an illegal immigrant?

"D&C" headed to WCRB?

David Scott reports that "Dennis & Callahan" may be headed for classical station WCRB (99.5 FM), which could become the hub of a regional sports network. He rounds up Globe and Herald coverage as well.

Stunt or not?

Bruce Allen of Boston Sports Media offers five reasons why the "Dennis & Callahan" lockout might be a stunt, but says he really doesn't think that it is. Among other things, he cites Entercom sources who claim John Dennis and Gerry Callahan are looking for as much as $1.5 million apiece annually. Not much laugh potential there.

I doubt it's a stunt, too, but you never know. Allen points to the time that Mike Adams locked himself inside the studio in order to demand a contract, an incident that was later revealed to be a hoax. But that was at least semi-amusing. What's happening now isn't funny or even all that interesting, my own incessant posting on the subject notwithstanding.

"Dennis & Callahan" non-update

There is absolutely nothing new on the "Dennis & Callahan" front this morning, so I'm not going to pretend otherwise. The roundup of coverage begins with David Scott. From there, move on to the Herald (here and here), the Globe and, finally, Save WRKO, which pores over a line supposedly excised from the Herald like a Roman priest examining sheep entrails.

For my money, the most insightful commentary today comes from Media Nation's own Amused but Informed Observer, even though I disagree with him (her?) that this is nothing more than a stunt. For the record — to borrow a wonderful phrase from Curt Schilling — I also disagree with Amused about Scott's inherent toolness. But there you go.

Entercom's latest disaster

It's one thing for Entercom to screw up its fading Boston talk station, WRKO (AM 680). It's quite another for the company to mess with its highly successful sports operation, WEEI (AM 850). But that's exactly what has happened.

Boston Sports Media's David Scott got the scoop late last night, reporting that WEEI's top-rated morning hosts, John Dennis and Gerry Callahan, have been locked out over a contract dispute. The Herald's Jessica Heslam and Laurel Sweet follow today with a story that actually leads the paper. (Callahan is also a Herald columnist.)

Now, consider the ill-fated moves that have brought Entercom to this impasse. The big one took place last fall, when the company negotiated a deal with the Red Sox to move most of their games from the sports station to the talk station. Yes, some games are still on WEEI. The schedule is determined, as best as I can tell, by the phase of the moon. Fortunately, those of us who live in Media Nation are able to hear all the games on a non-Entercom affiliate, WBOQ (104.9 FM).

The residual effects: WEEI now has a talented host, Mike Adams, trying to do a sports show that competes with the Red Sox, an impossible task. WRKO's Howie Carr (like Callahan, a Herald columnist) is said to have been furious over having his show cut short by Sox games, thus helping to precipitate his move — pending the resolution of lawsuits he and Entercom have filed against each other — to rival WTKK (96.9 FM). Finally, both WRKO and WEEI have had their identities fuzzed up (a talk station with the Red Sox? a sports station without the Sox?), which is deadly for marketing.

In the case of "Dennis & Callahan," there is an additional drama. Callahan has been off the air for months, recovering from what Scott describes as "multiple surgeries to his throat." Supposedly Callahan was going to return to the airwaves today and explain, finally, what was at the root of his health problems. Scott also writes that "D&C" may not return to WEEI at all:

The final bit of intrigue in this whole complicated mess is the multiple reports we are receiving that D&C are being coveted by a completely separate broadcasting entity that would use the pair as its cornerstone to build a New England regional sports talk network. While some industry insiders are telling us that is a real, viable possibility others are more skeptical and assume it is a ploy on behalf of D&C's representatives to drive up their clients value on the open market.

Shots can confirm that a regional player fitting the description does have the infrastructure in place to build such a network, but whether or not the group would be able to guarantee the kind of money that Dennis and Callahan are looking for is open to debate.

Personally, I wouldn't miss "Dennis & Callahan," which trucks in low-rent populism, homophobia and — in one notorious incident — out-and-out racism. I think you could move the vastly superior "Dale & Holley" show into the morning drive-time slot without missing a beat or a ratings point.

But "D&C" is the number-one radio show among men between the ages of 25 and 54. I wouldn't think Entercom executives Jason Wolfe and Julie Kahn would want to take the chance of losing them.

Then again, maybe Tom Finneran can do sports.

Virtual Dennis: If you click on the WEEI home page right now, you might see a virtual John Dennis talking up the Jimmy Fund radiothon.