It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town

In his column today, Boston Herald music scribe Jed Gottlieb laments the loss of local radio talent on Boston’s airwaves.

The Last DJs

Hub radio lacks character after purge

Boston’s airwaves have been stripped of personality.

Last month, the signal for alternative flagship WFNX (101.7 FM) was sold to Clear Channel, which turned the station into generic hits station The Harbor. In June, CBS Radio laid off staff and turned WODS (103.3 FM) classic hits into the jock-less Top 40 Amp Radio.

“I still feel like we just lost ’BCN (which went off the air in 2009) and ’FNX was the last man standing against all the robot radio,” said Parlour Bells frontman Glenn di Benedetto, who wrote the Hub rock anthem “Airwaves” in tribute to WFNX. “(Former-WFNX DJ) Julie Kramer said, ‘Your local DJ knows when it’s raining outside,’ and I put that in my song because I liked what it meant. With DJ-free radio, there’s no personality, no sense of community.”

That’s all true, if incomplete. Gotlieb fails to mention that ‘FNX has migrated wholesale to the Boston Globe’s RadioBDC, which describes itself this way:

RadioBDC is Boston’s only live hosted, streaming alternative station. We feature music, news, contests and the best breaking bands in the alternative format. Listen each weekday to hear Henry Santoro, Julie Kramer, Adam 12 & Paul Driscoll.

Is that essential to Gotlieb’s column? No.

Is it relevant? Yes.

Is omitting it petty? The hardreading staff says, definitely.