NY Post article 1-28-03

[ResinIII]

WNEW PLAYING NAME THAT TUNE

By DON KAPLAN
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January 28, 2003 --
WNEW-FM suddenly dropped its crippled talk format yesterday and brought back music. But it's not known what kind of music the former home of Opie & Anthony will ultimately settle on.

Yesterday, the station began playing everything from Top 40 to rock to rap starting at 1 a.m., while promising listeners "a new station coming soon."

WNEW is doing what the radio biz calls "stunting" - airing a bizarre interim format to distance the station from the previous one while creating buzz and suspense prior to the launch of the new format.

"We will be announcing a new format in the near future," said an Infinity spokesman, adding that WNEW's only remaining talk stars, Ron & Fez, will now be heard exclusively on their Washington, DC, affiliate.

The industry website All Access.com says "the smart money" is on a music format that will straddle a line between Lite FM/106.7 and WPLJ/95.5 FM.

WNEW's sudden flip from talk back to music surprised even station staffers, including weekend host Eddie Trunk.

"Airstaff are the last to know when change is happening at your radio station! " Trunk wrote on his website.

"I went to set my alarm clock and was made aware of the change to 'NEW . . . I still know NOTHING and was as surprised as anybody."

With one big exception, WNEW never made a splash as a talk station, seldom rising above 20th place since its legendary album rock format was shut down in September of 1999.

The exception was Opie & Anthony, the radio bad boys who dominated male listening in afternoon drive until their show ended in a blaze of bad publicity last August after contestants in their sex-in-public-places contest allegedly tried to score points inside St. Patrick's Cathedral.

The station has been limping along since the summer scandal with a mixture of reruns and imported network shows.

It is currently ranked 29th out of 40 rated stations.

NYPOST ARTICLE

[drunkturkey]

Finally, a decent article with a correct spin on what happened to the bbbbboys.

Too bad they didn't mention that they were one of those papers that started the bad publicity, and followed it up with bad, inaccurate reporting for the last six months. Oops! :eek:

[av8rOC]

The exception was Opie & Anthony, the radio bad boys who dominated male listening in afternoon drive until their show ended in a blaze of bad publicity last August after contestants in their sex-in-public-places contest allegedly tried to score points inside St. Patrick's Cathedral.

A-LLEG_ED_LY

[BigBuffaloFan]

Facts? what are those?

[bluecell]

Wow! Someone actually used the word 'allegedly' in an article.

[J_Oats]

I have noticed that most of the articles in the last month or so have softened as far as what happened.

It used to be "Opie and Anthony forced two people to have sex in front of old ladies and priests on a pew at saint patricks cathedral, in a contest designed to be anti-catholic."

It has recently been "Opie and Anthony were cancelled after two listeners participating in a sex-in-public contest tried to score points by doing the deed in st. pats."

This is a good sign, because if these scumbags in the media are softening their views, than O&A's opportunity to come back without too much shit is increasing.

"Look, it's Enrico Palatzo."

[BOUGHTONII]

it must be pretty hard to dog on o & a when there are still
kid touching and cover up incedents going on in the church.

[diana]

Yo Stephen, Play "PRIEST" for me!