After 20 years John Batchelor has retired from WABC radio in New York City. John's next move is to the media giant CBS. An anonymous source told me that with the exception of WABC the same radio stations around the U.S. that had syndicated Batchelor's show while at WABC will carry the CBS one. See John's Wikipedia page for a partial listing of the affiliate stations.
We'll learn more in the coming days about the transition; for now, the podcasts from John's new show are posted at the Audioboom page and can be accessed for free.
Onward!
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We'll see how much restraint CBS exercises over John's program.
ReplyDeleteThat was my first thought, too, or should I say my worry. But from the show lineups since the new show started, it doesn't look as if CBS has interfered with John's decisions about which guests and topics he features. CBS surely knows he is a unique broadcaster. However, this doesn't speak to the future. The radio biz being what it is, I could imagine they might try to kill the Golden Goose/. But I think that would fall back on them. Their 'internal polling' surely tells them that there is a big audience for real news analysis. But as you noted, we'll see.
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