Cape Fear

Part 5

by Dan Kennedy

Gino Montesi is all worked up. The microphone having been taken away from him, he now plays to his audience of one, at the Donut Maker across from the Hyannis Airport, gesturing with his hands, tilting his head, leaning forward as he hammers away at what he considers the inequities of the state's formula for funding public schools. "The cities that get all the money do the worst in the statewide test!" he asserts, and he proudly relates his on-the-air nickname for State Senate president Tom Birmingham, whose hometown of Chelsea does particularly well in garnering state funds: "the Big Pig."

Ask around, and you'll get varying reviews of Montesi's work. Gary Lopez is effusive in his praise. "I can't tell you the number of people who miss this guy," says Lopez. Yet Richard Bigos, a human-services worker and Democratic activist, calls Montesi "the most uninformed person in the world," and "paranoid" to boot. Indeed, Montesi flashes some of that paranoia when he leans over and says in a conspiratorial stage whisper, "Did you know that the plane Ron Brown was in was the only crash in the history of the Air Force not investigated by the Air Force?"

What's beyond dispute is that Montesi's show was the only program left on WXTK that focused exclusively on public affairs, most of them local -- and that Montesi was summarily fired 10 minutes before airtime on a Monday evening two months ago. The execution took place a few months after Montesi moved from Martha's Vineyard to Mashpee, with the encouragement of station officials, so that he'd no longer have to sleep in the station before catching the first morning ferry back to the Vineyard. Cary Pahigian wouldn't even come down to deliver the news himself, Montesi says incredulously. (True, responds Pahigian: that's what program directors are for.)

Bizarre as some may have found Montesi on the air, in person he offers an intelligent critique of radio that applies not just to WXTK, but to trends that are affecting the industry nationwide. As he sees it, the beginning of the end came in 1996, when he was removed from his afternoon shift and given the 7-to-9 p.m. slot in order to make way for Howie Carr. At first, he says, his evening ratings were good; but Carr attracted a more transient, entertainment-oriented audience that didn't want to stick around for a serious discussion of issues. "It's just an effort to dumb down the audience," he says. Bad radio drives out good, in other words. Indeed, Montesi was replaced by the syndicated John and Ken Show, a gossipy snickerfest.

WXTK is hardly the first station to follow that formula. Look at WRKO, which broadcast local public-affairs shows from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and beyond as recently as a half-dozen years ago, and now offers little other than celebrity gossip, gross-out humor, and nationally syndicated fare. And apparently it works. WRKO, after all, is the flagship station of American Radio Systems, and last month Westinghouse shelled out $1.6 billion for American's 98 radio stations. ('RKO does deserve credit for offering a forum to former Boston mayor Ray Flynn last week so he could respond to a Boston Globe report on his purported poor performance as ambassador to the Vatican and his alleged drinking problem.)

Yet Ernie Boch didn't have to do it that way. He's wealthy enough, and old enough, that he could have eased off a bit, running his stations to provide a real community service while perhaps making a little less money than he otherwise might.

Montesi shakes his head at that notion. He, more than most, is familiar with Boch's personal generosity: Boch's finances helped him when his own have gotten tight. When it comes to business, though, Montesi says Boch is all business, all the time.

"Ernie Boch is a businessman. He is a business warrior," Montesi says. "Would I want to live like Ernie Boch? No. But I can't make judgments on Ernie's style of living.

"I've made a lot of money and I've declared bankruptcy. I've seen both sides. There are things to me that are more important than money and more important than business. But then again, if I owned the radio station I might be out of business today."

On a Sunday afternoon, Tommy Thatcher -- a smiling little boy with a runny nose and a gold-colored stud in his left ear -- is surrounded by three generations of Thatcher women: Mariah; her mother, Heidi, who's single and works two jobs; and Heidi's mother, Florabelle Thatcher, the only member of the family who actually heard part of the broadcasts. "To crucify a teenager like that -- I was shaking from head to toe," she says.

Driving north from the Thatchers' home, the airwaves are filled with the primal whine of Tom Leykis. His topic: quickies. Leykis is for them.

"When a man comes up to you from behind and cups your breasts, he's telling you that he wants you!" screams Leykis. "What is wrong with that?"

The Bourne Bridge looms ahead. Soon, the signal will fade to static. What persists is the answer Ernie Boch gives when you ask him if he plans to buy more radio stations. "Depending on the circumstances," he says. "If I thought it was worth it, I might be interested."

After all, he's only giving the customers what they want. Come on down.

Back to part 4

Dan Kennedy can be reached at dkennedy[a]phx.com.