#captain herb

I'd like to piggy-back off of my last post about the late traffic reporter Captain Herb Emory by profiling his long-time employer.

WSB Radio out of Atlanta is one of the top-rated news/talk stations in the country. WSB Radio, owned by and the flagship radio station of Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises, is a news/talk station consisting of news, traffic, weather, and talk shows (many of them nationally-syndicated, but flagshipped at WSB). WSB is one of the oldest radio stations, having been in consistent operation since 1922. The station's talk shows are mostly politically conservative-based shows. 

WSB airs a considerable amount of news along with its talk shows. It is an affiliate of the CBS Radio News Network, but it rarely airs any of their top of the hour news updates. Many of its reporters, however, are also Atlanta-based correspondents for the CBS Radio News Network. I have heard these familiar voices reporting Atlanta-based stories on stations like WCBS 880 here in New York.

As for WSB as a whole, it airs two news programs, "Atlanta's Morning News with Scott Slade" and "Atlanta's Evening News with Erick Erickson", which are formatted in a similar fashion as an all-news station. The way I see it is that the morning show is based more on a 1010 WINS-like format, while the evening show is based more on a WCBS 880-like format. 

As mentioned in an earlier post, WCBS 880 makes room for discussion, while 1010 WINS is straight news with little to no room for discussion of the news. What I find very unique about WSB is that it uses more of its own reporters and less contracted services. For example, it uses its own weather team, rather than contracting out to services such as "Accuweather" and "The Weather Channel". The latter would be very convenient, since it is also based in Atlanta. Also, it has its own traffic team. Granted, WSB does use some of the resources from Total Traffic (Clear Channel) to do its reports, but its reporters are all either in-house or, if they are contracted, their traffic reports go to WSB first and foremost before any other station gets them.

It also makes great use of its own resources as part of the Cox Media Group Atlanta cluster, which happen to be in the same building as WSB. Channel 2, WSB TV, is in the same building, which makes it easy for WSB Radio to utilize reporters from the TV side and vice versa. Many of WSB Radio's reporters also provide reports for its sister music stations in Atlanta and even for the Cox Media Group-owned Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper, in the case of WSB-TV and Radio weather anchor Glenn Burns. 

Below, you will find the program schedule for WSB Radio.

Having been to the studios of WSB Radio, I can truly say that it feels like a family. It is one of the least-corporate radio stations in the country. Even though it is owned by a huge conglomerate (Cox Enterprises), it feels like a small family hometown station. Part of this feeling probably stems from the fact the Cox Enterprises is a family-owned company. 

This is not the only news station in Atlanta. Another station popped up about a year ago called All-News 106.7. Keep your eye out for my next post profiling All-News 106.7!

Among the most important elements of a news radio broadcast is the traffic report. Studies show that this is one of the main reasons people tune in to a news station. It is also one of the reasons why people tune in to news radio in short bursts rather than listen for a long period of time all at once.

I bring this up because the world of traffic reporting lost one of its own last Saturday afternoon. Longtime radio/television airborne traffic reporter Captain Herb Emory was 61 years old and was in his 23rd year with WSB Radio/TV (Cox Radio) in Atlanta and his 43rd year as a traffic reporter when he died suddenly after suffering a massive heart attack doing what he loved, offering assistance to people in need (in this case, it was at a car wreck near his home). 

Captain Herb was born in North Carolina and moved to Atlanta in 1971. He attended the Atlanta School of Broadcasting and then proceeded with his career reporting traffic in 1978. By the time he arrived at News/Talk 750 WSB Radio and WSB-TV (Channel 2) in 1991, he had been employed at 7 different stations as a traffic reporter.

Traffic was his passion. He loved doing what he did and it showed! He even had a traffic scanner in his home and his car (which is how he found out about the aforementioned wreck). 

Traffic was not the only thing this one-of-a-kind man had a passion for. He loved NASCAR!. He and his wife, Karen, even hosted a weekend radio show all about racing and NASCAR. When there was a race in town, he would host his show from the Atlanta Motor Speedway!

I know this is not exactly related to my previous posts, but I felt the need and desire to write a post such as this one because I feel a connection to this man. I have lived in Atlanta for about 11 years now and News/Talk 750 WSB has been the station my family and I tune in to for news, traffic, and weather during our time in Atlanta. Whenever I would tune my dial to 750 and I heard Captain Herb's voice reporting the traffic, I knew I was tuned to the right station.

I have included Captain Herb's final traffic report on the top of this post.