Montheith and Laurenti Out at WUMB

Going back a week and a half or so, talk on the street that Pat Monteith was out as general manager of "Boston's NPR Music Station'" reached the internet last Thursday, first in "A new era?" in Fans of Former Folk Radio WUMB (Thursday, May 3, 2012 at 2:24pm). The rumor was substantiated in Steve Ide's blog entry titled "WUMB assures listeners that there are no plans to change its folk music format".


In a related development, two sources on the same day reported John Laurenti had moved from WUMB to WODS.


John Laurenti Joins Karen Blake For Mornings On WODS
May 3, 2012 at 7:55 AM (PT)
and
CBS ADDS JOHN LAURENTI TO MORNINGS IN BOSTON
5-3-2012

Due to his AAA pop background, Monteith brough Laurenti to WUMB as music director to manage the transition from "Folk Radio WUMB" to the "music mix" format it adopted when it became Boston's third NPR affiliate.


WUMB operates as a professionally managed and operated station under a broadcast licence granted to UMass Boston.


Conspicuously missing. In Sue Scheible's blog article "

Missing Pat Monteith at WUMB (Quincy Ma Patriot-Ledger, May 4, 2012) we read 

But as a folk music friend from Cambridge noted: "By coincidence, I received my printed Member Newsletter today. Previously, there has always been a message from General Manager Pat Montieth on the front page, with news and updates.  This time, the message was "from the staff."  No mention of Pat anywhere. It seems to me that if she were really retiring, there would be tributes and farewells --  not silence."

Indeed, when WUMB produced a tribute to Dick Pleasants at Sanders Theater, there was much hoopla. If Ms. Monteith's career was esteemed by the UMass administration, why was her departure veiled in secrecy and silence?


The following images of wumb.org were made Monday, May 7.


WUMB HAPPENINGS

Farewell, Levon…
Fri Apr 27, 2012

April Centenaries, 2012
Sat Apr 14, 2012

A Tribute to Lowell George
Fri Apr 13, 2012

It's baseball time!
Thu Apr 5, 2012

Earl Scruggs - The Father of Bluegrass Music
Thu Mar 29, 2012

She Exemplifies International Women’s Month!
Sat Mar 17, 2012

Stuck in Traffic
Thu Mar 15, 2012

SOMETHING FRESH FOR TUESDAY MORNING!
Join Perry Persoff for The Tuesday Morning New Music Test at 7:30 a.m. He’ll play three new songs back to back and you’ll have the chance to vote online for which one you like best! This week he’s got new music from The Nields (in photo), Darrell Scott and more! Click here for more details about these and other WUMB specials this week.

posted 5.7.12

WE'RE OFF AND RUNNING!
Tickets are now on sale for the WUMB Concert Marathon happening Sunday June 3rd at UMASS Boston. Guy Davis, Tracy Grammer, and Tish Hinojosa will each be performing, and all you need is one ticket! The good news is that WUMB members can get discounted tickets. The bad news is that seats are limited. Click here right now to get yours online, or just call 617-287-6900.

posted 5.7.12

KATE CAMPBELL MEMBER CONCERT PREMIERE!
We were lucky to have Kate Campbell as our special guest for our most recent WUMB Member Concert, and it was an amazing night of music and stories. If you were there and want to relive it, or if you missed it and want to pretend like you were there, just make sure to join us tomorrow night at 6:30! Click here to take a look at all the musical stuff this week.

posted 5.7.12

WHAT DOES MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL REALLY MEAN?
When you can get amazing deals and find things you just can't get anywhere else, PLUS it helps keep great music coming out of your radio... THAT'S mutually beneficial. And that's exactly what the WUMB Online Auction is all about! make sure to KEEP checking the auction, because we keep adding to it, 100% of the proceeds go to help us keep on keeping on. Click here to bid!

posted 4.23.12

WUMB AND PUBLIC RADIO MUSIC MONTH
WUMB and other public radio music stations nationwide are celebrating the role we play in preserving, cultivating and promoting music. You can find out more about Public Radio Music Month and the rich history WUMB has had with music discovery and preservation over the past 30 years here - including the first-ever radio interview that Tracy Chapman ever did.

posted 4.22.12

WHAT WAS THE NAME OF THAT SONG???
Have you ever heard a song on WUMB and didn't have time to write down the name of the artist or CD title? This information is now available for all locally-produced shows on our new Playlist Archives page - just minutes, or weeks after a song is played. Check out the Web page here.

posted 2.10.12

Psssssssssssttt…WUMB-fm hired a local program manager in November

Dr. Strangelove: Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, EH? 

Ambassador de Sadesky: It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises. 

No inference intended that "public" WUMB-fm is run as a Kubrickian war room, but why the need for secrecy?

According to his own Linked-In profile, Kim Grehn has been serving as the WUMB-fm “Local Program Manager” since November. 

Kim Grehn’s Experience

·         Local Program Manager

WUMB Radio

(Broadcast Media industry)

November 2010 — Present (2 months)

Responsible for managing and maintaining quality control of all aspects of the broadcast of local on-air programming and related material including staff, production and on-air promotions for WUMB Radio.

Visit My Blog:
http://ctmediamagr.blogspot.com/

NPR affiliate WUMB-fm, licensed to the the University of Massachusetts, Boston, has been operating without a program manager for over a year, since the departure of Brian Quinn, who had served in that capacity for over twenty years.   See Brian Quinn, WUMB program director, "laid off", dated November 9, 2009.


Mr. Grehn’s hiring was made public yesterday through the weekly online radio trade journal website "NorthEast Radio Watch".

*There's a new general manager at Boston's WBUR-FM (90.9), but Charlie Kravets is a familiar name in eastern MASSACHUSETTS broadcasting, where he spent the last two decades building New England Cable News from the ground up. Kravets was NECN's founding news director back in 1992, becoming the channel's president and general manager in 2008 before departing when Hearst sold its interest in NECN to Comcast. And he has deep ties to his WBUR predecessor: like Paul La Camera, Kravets has roots at WCVB (Channel 5), where he was the original producer of "Chronicle" and later assistant news director.

Kravets takes over the helm of WBUR on New Year's Day; La Camera will stick around as an ambassador for the station and as BU's administrator of public radio.

Meanwhile, WBUR has launched a new promotional campaign for the station; you can see one of the "UR BUR" TV spotshere, and you can read some pithy quotes from your friendly editor in a story about the ad campaign from Saturday's Boston Globe.

*Across town at WGBH (89.7), there's a new TV spinoff coming to radio. The Herald reports that January 8 will be the start date for a radio version of "America's Test Kitchen," which will air at 2 PM on Saturdays.

And completing the Boston public radio trifecta, there's a new program manager at WUMB-FM (91.9 Boston): Kim Grehn was VP of programming at Connecticut Public Radio until budget cuts eliminated that job last year.

Yet there has been absolutely no mention of this WUMB-fm management change in its own website, nor “Ripples” (formerly “Folk Ripples”, its monthly e-newsletter, nor has there been a posting for this position since Mr. Quinn’s departure two years ago.  WUMB’s jobs posting page reads

JOB OPPORTUNITIES

Below are a listing of current employment opportunities with WUMB radio:

Sorry - there are no jobs currently available

Neither is there any mention in WUMB-fm’s secretive friends-only Facebook friend page or its public fan page (which is rather inactive, the last post being 11/24/10) nor in the WUMB-fm watchdog page “Fans of Folk Radio WUMB”, whose motto is “we listen to WUMB so you don’t have to.”

Nor in the form of a press release.  And speaking of the press, where is the Boston media?  Is this posting a Boston-area exclusive?

Filling a senior management position at a public entity should be public news, so why the secrecy?

Stay tuned for developments.