Thursday, June 28, 2007

WTAX is Now Officailly Useless

Man, it's hard to believe what was once Springfield's premiere news and information radio station is now such a shell of its former self.

WTAX recently announced it was no longer covering local high school sporting events and today, according to the SJ-R, let go sports director Adam Stark. (And my mighty radio career-killing blog really, really had nothing to do with it.)

WTAX has a really poor news operation, one pathetic local talk show (unless you like large, puking ass-kissers like Crazy Bob) and a whole load of syndicated wingnut blowhards. Wow, what great programming!

I remember in days gone by, WTAX being the information powerhouse rivaled by no other station in town. It's live coverage of high school sports had been it's only redeeming value in recent years. Well, now that's gone too. What a waste of airwaves.

You know, I always do a double take when I go by the old location of the WTAX studios on Dirksen. It seems strange to see the empty field where the station one stood next to it's signature tower. I find that empty field somewhat symbolic these days.

WMAY now clearly reigns supreme. They don't do local sports, but they are largely local in programming and have a far superior news team.

I'm sure the short-sighted lure of easy money led to many of the bad programming decisions at WTAX, but those decisions are killing them in the long run.

2 comments:

JeromeProphet said...

Sad but true.

Just once I'd like to see some flakey millionaire buy a radio station, disconnect it from it's corporate network, and create a local ruckus.

You'd think someone somewhere would get bored, and want to have a little fun?

Oh well.

Anonymous said...

The running joke is getting old. Why is so hard for yourself and others to understand that what you and those others do does have influence? No matter what the old media types may say.