The following review of the Elliott In The Morning Show on WOR 710 AM is written by an on-air professional broadcaster. He has been a long time observer of the NYC market going back to the 60s. (Full Disclosure: the author has never been employed by Clear Channel.)
EITM STARTS ON WOR 710 AM: Click Here For Original Post.
"Elliot in the Morning" debuted today on WOR. Possibly the worst choice for a morning program on an established AM station that has been doing conservative talk for quite some time. The show is simulcast on WWDC-FM in Washington, an active rocker and a rock station out of Richmond. I set my alarm to 5:30 to hear the first show. Being on a New York station, AM or FM is a big deal. I thought they would play that up. Only reference to New York was a reference to Times Square.
Out of the gate at 5:45 the conversation with his co hosts, who weren't even introduced to a new audience,was a conversation about last night's Golden Globes. Timely, yes, but the whole bit and all the segments afterwards sounded very young skewing. Elliot says "hey dude", "hey man" and the whole show sounds like a "morning zoo" that's about as far from John Gambling as you can get.
Newsman Joe Bartlett, who was such an integral part of Gambling's show, sounds out of place on the show. He does a 45 minute news block from 5 to 5:45 and the show that follows it sounds like a totally different radio station. WOR and Clear Channel wanted something totally different from Gambling.
They have achieved it.
Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Dave Ramsey follow Elliot. Hardly compatible.
This show sounds like it is aiming 18-34. Problem is nobody in that age group even listens to AM radio, and Elliot's show is similar to his former partner, Elvis Duran,who airs on WHTZ(Z100) and IS compatible with the programming on that station. DC101 will follow Elliot's program with hard edged rock.
WOR will follow with conservative talk, even though Mark Simone,who works 10 to 12 preceding Rush and Sean will fit a little more into the demo.
WOR has retained Joan Hamburg for two weekend shifts. She has been at WOR for over forty years and sounds like the old WOR. She is 78 and does cooking and health segments in her show. This is the ultimate contrast on the same station. Elliot Seigal and Joan Hamburg. Another example is on the 96.3 frequency in New York on the day they switched from Classical music to uptempo Spanish music when WXNY took over the frequency.
However, that was a one time thing. Elliot in the Morning into the rest of the WOR schedule will be on a daily basis. I understand Clear Channel wanting to use one of their own talents on WOR. A better choice would have been Jim Kerr on WAXQ, but he is doing well over there.
Listening to this mornings show, I tuned out by 8AM, all the callers were from DC and Virginia. Not one mention of being on WOR. He was giving away tickets in that first break to a rock band I never heard of, probably most of WOR's audience never heard of either, and after long stop sets they resumed the program a few seconds after the break started.
I give the program three months. If there ever was a train wreck, this is it.
Rick Kaplan