Thursday, February 16, 2006

Where's Waldo (Cramer)?


Many of you have written in to ask what happened to Jim Cramer. Some of you have been very understanding…others’ language has been somewhat more...colorful. It’s always fun to see what new anatomical description can be attributed to our character by some members of our audience.

Here’s the skinny on Cramer. The WOR Radio Network, which provided his show to us, came out on the short end of the stick with Mr. Cramer in negotiations to carry his show. Another network, Westwood One, picked up the show for distribution to it’s affiliates.

The BizRadioNetwork is an affiliate of Westwood One; they’re the ones who provide us with our feeds of CNN News and The Down Jones Money Reports each hour. Westwood One, however, is a division of CBS Radio, which gets first-dibs on Westwood’s programming, especially when there’s a competitive aspect to be considered in a particular market.

So Cramer was taken away from us, and given to a competitor. We did what any business would do—looked for something better.

Enter Del Walmsley, who is every bit as compelling and evangelical in his delivery…and is now a card-carrying, paying client of The BizRadioNetwork. And he’s getting his money’s worth being on the station—on his first day, Del tells me he received 82-responses from his show.

Some of our potential advertisers question the credibility of a station that does not subscribe to a ratings service, and cannot provide any listenership metrics. My response is in the results of shows like Del’s, where the numbers are not arbitrarily assigned by some dark, secret algorithm. Our proof is in your response to the programming we choose to air based on quality content, entertaining hosts, and information you can literally hear in the morning and put to use in the afternoon.

You miss Cramer?

Archives of his stuff are still available on his website.

Meanwhile, we recommend the real-world alternative now available each afternoon from 2-3pm…and I’ll see you in the morning on the Radio.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the update Brent. I had no idea, like many listeners I am sure, of what is going on. Thank you for posting daily Blog's. It's another way for us to get to know you a little better in this and age. Thanks for all that you contribute and all the hard work you guys at BizRadio had to go through to bring us back an even better quality radio station. Like Dan says in the afternoon, Thank you Howard Stern for this awesome radio format and business opportunity for BizRadio!