Shots Banned in Boston on Black Friday by Entercom

By David Scott
Boston Sports Media Watch

In an incredibly predictable and incredibly petty move, the planned Friday morning Shots appearance on WRKO 680 AM with Tom Finneran fill-in, Bob Hedlund, was squashed by the Entercom higher-ups.

Details are sketchy of why the invitation from true gentleman, Senator Hedlund, had to be rescinded, but it doesn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to figure out that Entercom officials were non-too-pleased at the thought of Shots infiltrating their airwaves and spreading - GASP! - all of that awful Shots propaganda. Heaven forbid a new voice with divergent opinions appear on the Entercom airwaves! The recycled, mainstream voices are good enough for the Entercommies.

Just to refresh what went down: On Tuesday night, Hedlund and confidant/spokesman Rick Collins were kind enough to extend an invitation to Shots to share studio time (from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. on Friday) as Hedlund sat in for Tom Finneran at ‘RKO. Hedlund had been following a Shots’ loyalist for some time and was evidently a fan of the work we have done in being one of the city’s lone critical voices of the sports media scene.

After a phone conversation with Hedlund in which we immediately hit it off and discussed some of the topics we could touch on, I agreed to the un-paid, two hour stint beginning at 8 a.m. on Friday. In the interest of full disclosure, I also posted the pending appearance in my Tuesday night post.

By Wednesday afternoon, after that Shots post had been widely read, Hedlund called and apologetically rescinded the invitation. Too classy to get involved in the petty politics of Entercom, Hedlund would not divulge any of the behind-the-scenes details of what led to the cancellation of Shots’ appearance, but he did invite us on to his regular Monday night show at WATD 95.9 FM for December 3 (an offer we gladly accepted).

A few things to point out here:

1. Hedlund was simply trying to add some fresh talent to the Entercom airwaves and had nothing to do with the decision. He was as apologetic as any politician has ever been (non-Bill Clinton category). As a part-time fill-in at the station, he had no leverage and when the Suits instructed him to dump Shots, he could do nothing but oblige. It certainly wasn’t worth making a big to-do and hopefully it gives Hedlund and others a glimpse into what type of executives are running things at ‘RKO and WEEI 850 AM.

2. Can Entercom VP of programming and Operations Jason Wolfe - or his minions - who instructed Hedlund to dump Shots really be so thin-skinned? Are they so insecure, so incredibly incapable of taking criticism that they decided to ban a lowly blogger - who has been critical of Entercom from time to time - from two hours of unpaid air-time on a holiday Friday morning?

Makes you wonder about this quote from a 2006 Globe story on the little “rascal” as his boss, Julie Kahn calls him:

”If you can’t laugh at yourself, you’re going to have issues,” Wolfe says.

Yep. Issues that make you wonder just what else gets banned from the Entercom airwaves.

SOMEONE at Entercom didn’t want Shots polluting the already smog-filled airwaves emanating from the New Balance Building.

3. This is not the first time that our outspokenness has affected job opportunities in this city and we’re guessing it won’t be the last. It’s part of being a media watchdog and we accept as part and parcel of what we do. These businesses have every right to preclude whomever they feel they threatened by from their airwaves or printed pages or websites.

But it sure does provide an important glimpse into the inner-workings of the media corporations that rule this city and the lengths they will go to in trying to silence their critics. Just be sure to remember incidents like this when you are consuming your local media.

• UPDATED, SATURDAY MORNING: The Herald’s Jessica Heslam has picked up on the story at her blog. Also, the Radio-Info message board has a thread going on the matter and Universal Hub also had a brief post, as did my guy, Fang at Fang’s Bites.