I’m wondering why Josh Binswanger has been anchoring the afternoon-early evening shift at WBZ lately rather than his usual morning shift, and why I very seldom hear Carl Stevens anymore. Does anybody have any info.?
From the other message board, it was announced that WBZ would be making changes to its drivetime newscasts in January 2019.
One of the changes was the swap of the drive-time male anchors; to wit, Jeff Brown to AM drive, Josh to PM drive. Another change was that the drive-time anchors would now anchor for a full half-hour, instead of the traditional 18/12 split between the two anchors.
Of course, you probably have also noticed that AccuWeather reports are now heard only TWICE an hour, rather than six. The traffic reporters are now permitted to sign off each report with their names (the only good change in all of these, BTW). And, of course, it’s no longer “WBZ Newsradio 1030”, but “Boston’s News Station”.
I, too, had observed that Carl Stevens does not get the air time he once got. He seems to be doing less on-the-scene live reporting. Adam Kaufman no longer does live sports reports twice each hour; they appear to be pre-recorded. There’s no “AceTicket.com sports studio” at the new location, so, sure, why not? There is now zero interaction between the news anchor and the sports anchor. (I wonder how Gary Lapierre and Gil Santos would’ve liked this arrangement?) FWIW, none of the PM drive anchors EVER has any interaction with Tom Cuddy.
Other changes: the mid-day anchors are now Ben Parker and Nicole Davis. Ben is an excellent reporter, as is Carl Stevens. I’d rather hear Ben “reporting live from the scene”.
And many times you are likely to hear the sports reports given by either Doug Cope (a very good news anchor and reporter) and Charlie Sherman (who is better at sports than he is anchoring news; sorry, Charlie).
The “suits” will tell you that this is what must be done to survive and to reach a younger demographic. If you are thinking, as am I, that there are more “surprises” to come, you’d be correct. If you are thinking, as am I, that you may not like them, you’d also be correct.
