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980 AM when will the Beast Die?

3

34james

Banned
Just looked at the beast and the schedule goes until the end of the month for live games. Do the owners have to post the schedule even if they might be sold middle of February and the format change is imminent?

Also to note, clippers, galaxy, and NFL are not the only ones losing their home in LA on 980.
So are the Saturday college games. If i was KABC AM i would be extremely tempted to change to Sports once the Beast goes away. Thats alot of money Cumulus would make.
 
Here is an idea
Why not have Iheart radio buy the live weekend games like NFL and College basketball, that 980 airs?, at least they would make more money on live games than paid ads on KFI. That would increase the value of KFI. Conservative talk weekdays, live games on the weekends, and if they get the super bowl on radio that would be huge as well. Just alot of opportunities i see here with KFI.
 
That's more up to the rights holders for the games than it is KFI. And it would probably require KFWB's new owners to consent to breaking the contract (unless there is a clause allowing same in the event of ownership change).

If you were the new owner, and there was nothing forcing you to drop the games and the revenue that comes with it, would you say "that's okay, I'll let great big iHeart take all that money away from me"? I certainly wouldn't.

James, you're not looking at the whole picture. It's not about whether the live sports fits the new station's direction or even if iHeart wanted to put those games on KFI. KFWB will be rid of it all sooner or later as contracts expire. Meanwhile, they have money going into the bank account. That is much more important to them ... I guarantee it.
 
34james said:
Here is an idea
Why not have Iheart radio buy the live weekend games like NFL and College basketball, that 980 airs?, at least they would make more money on live games than paid ads on KFI. That would increase the value of KFI. Conservative talk weekdays, live games on the weekends, and if they get the super bowl on radio that would be huge as well. Just alot of opportunities i see here with KFI.
Click to expand...

KFI has not been conservative talk for some years now.

But the idea isn't half bad. They could say "Less stimulating talk all week, more stimulating sports all weekend".
 
Somehow, I think the live sports on 980 will disappear as quickly as possible once the new format is in place. Universal Media is in the process of building a "Desi" brand, and a network of west coast stations. Having to stop the music three days a week in the fall might mess things up in terms of the new target audience they want for So Cal.
 
Well, the real difficulty we're going to have trying to second guess this situation is that no one knows precisely what the terms are of the contracts with KFWB for live sports.

Clippers? There's enough time for them to find a new home after this season ends (April isn't that far off), but if the current contract was multi-season and has time to go on it, that would have to be dealt with before they take to the air at a different station. Probably little doubt that the remaining games for this season will be on 980. (Sidebar: Did anyone bother to tell the Clippers it isn't "KFWB News-Talk 980" anymore? They still have the old logo on their website on the page listing all their radio affiliates.)

College basketball? Again, those are contracted as a package (Westwood One?) and will play out the season on 980. Less likely to have been multi-season, so they just need to find a station that's interested.

NFL is still a few months away. Right now the big deal is who gets the Rams ... the syndicated package will be likely decided with only a few weeks to go before the first kickoff.

Galaxy soccer is pretty much going to interrupt whatever plans UM has for 980 several times between now and October. 27 times, to be exact. That's probably not breakable until the end of the season, given that the first game is literally only two weeks away. The only hope the new owners might have is if whatever clause in the contract allows for online carriage only when there are schedule conflicts can be leveraged into putting most or all of the games online.

I don't doubt for a second that the sports will be gone ASAP ... the question is when the "AP" is.
 
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