WEEI sports powerhouse has axed “Big Show” bigwig Pete Sheppard, another casualty of an economic climate that has decimated the media industry.
“Anybody who’s ever seen ‘Broadcast News’ knows the nature of this business,” Sheppard told MediaBiz yesterday.
“It was great being the No. 2 guy on the No. 1 show,” added Sheppard, who had been on Glenn Ordway’s afternoon-drive show for over a decade. “Glenn has been terrific.”
An unabashed sports fan, Sheppard had a four-year contract that wasn’t up until February 2011, but it allowed the station to terminate the agreement and cut him loose a year early. Sheppard, 42, who was pulling in a six figure salary, was given a severance package.
“We knew that in negotiating the agreement several years ago there were pros and cons, and you fight for things that are more important at the time,” said Sheppard’s agent, Kim Zayotti.
After Tuesday’s show, Sheppard said WEEI-AM (850) programming director Jason Wolfe called him into the conference room, and he figured “something was up” when Entercom VP Julie Kahn walked in.
“It was a little emotional. It was pretty teary. They told me it was the hardest decision they ever had to make for any employee,” said Sheppard.
In a statement, Kahn and Wolfe said Sheppard’s sports anchor position was eliminated “as we continue to operate in challenging economic times.”
“We’d like to thank Pete for his outstanding work with WEEI over the last ten years. He played a major role in our growth, and helped ‘The Big Show’ become one of the top radio shows in the country,” the station said.
Ordway, who found out Tuesday night that Sheppard had been axed, called him a “talented guy” who will be missed. “He is emotional. He’s a voice of the fan, and I think that voice was important for our show,” Ordway said.
“Obviously, you can’t be pleased when you lose an element to your show,” Ordway said. “I certainly understand we’re going through very difficult times now.”
Sheppard said he landed his “dream job” in 1995 when he went to work for WEEI as a part-time “sports flash” guy on weekends. He joined the “Big Show” in 1999 and his role grew over the years.
“I always looked at it like it was a ‘Seinfeld’ episode every day,” Sheppard said. “We had great chemistry.”
So will Sheppard jump over to the new 98.5 The Sports Hub? “I know there will be opportunities out there so we’re just going to explore every one,” he said.
Fox 25 political ace Joe Battenfeld can now be heard on Tom Finneran and Todd Feinburg’s morning-drive show on WRKO-AM (680). Listeners can tune into Battenfeld every Tuesday.
The New York Times plans to start charging readers to view its Web site in 2011. Could the Times-owned Boston Globe be next? “We currently do not have any plans to charge for content on Boston.com,” said Globe spokesman Bob Powers.
WCVB-TV (Ch. 5) – home to Republican Scott Brown’s wife, Gail Huff – had the most total viewers at 11 p.m. on election night. Channel 5 went with wall-to-wall election coverage at 8 p.m. and had 182,000 total viewers at 11 p.m. WBZ-TV (Ch. 4) followed with 180,500, WHDH-TV (Ch. 7) had 160,000 while WFXT-TV (Ch. 25) trailed with 55,000.
Among the key 25 to 54-year-old viewers at 11 p.m, WHDH had 87,000; WCVB had 63,000; WFXT had 41,000 and WBZ had 32,000.