Bloomberg Radio celebrated its entrance into Boston with a day-long live broadcast from South Station Wednesday. The financial news network, which broadcasts at 1200 on the AM dial, had some of its normally New York-based hosts on hand, and they were joined by a variety of Boston business luminaries including Legal Sea Foods chief executive Roger Berkowitz, Cumberland Farms President Ari Haseotes, and others.
The station handed out Starbucks coffee and Bloomberg T-shirts, mugs, and hats to commuters. The station began broadcasting in Boston on 3/1 mixing local traffic, weather, news, and sports into Bloomberg’s financial news programming. The company, Bloomberg Radio head Al Mayers said, also plans to create weekend and special programming originating from its Boston studio.
“The programming originates from New York for WBBR, but, in Boston it works like it does for our Sirius/XM channel where we strip out all the local New York content and add national content in,” said Mayer. “In this case, we will add Boston content.”
Mayer added that local content will be incorporated during radio’s traditional busy times of morning and afternoon drive. During those day parts there will be a Boston anchor weaving in and out of the national broadcast offering local stock updates and traditional news elements like sports scores and weather.
Bloomberg has 26 journalists in its Boston bureau led by Tom Moroney, a veteran Boston journalist who worked at The Boston Globe as well as for several other papers in Massachusetts. The bureau existed before the radio station was launched, and it feeds the company’s content delivery channels including its signature terminal, Bloomberg.com, and Bloomberg’s cable television channel.
As part of the launch, Bloomberg Radio has formed a strategic partnership with Boston-area Bentley University, in which it will provide primary access to its leading faculty and staff, adding insight and perspective to listeners.
Bloomberg Radio and Bentley will also co-produce content, drawing on Bentley’s academic resources, and Bloomberg Radio will present programming incorporating students, including the award-winning Fed Challenge team and student-run Bentley Investment Group.
Bloomberg’s Boston radio station is its first local expansion beyond its home in New York and Moroney said it will serve as the template for future growth.
