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MLB in Houston

T

ThatVoice22

Banned
Great, the Baseball Playoffs are here! The NY Yankees are hosting the Twins in a one-game playoff! Gow Media decided to air this exciting game on a brand-new, listener-unfamiliar, non-penetrating 99 watt FM signal, as opposed stepping up to the plate with their 100,000 watt FM 97.5 ESPN. Gow Media is honoring America's 4th largest city by serving MLB fans to radio service via a 99 watt signal and playing dopey ESPN Radio stuff on a Flame-Thrower. Sad.
 
ThatVoice22 said:
Great, the Baseball Playoffs are here! The NY Yankees are hosting the Twins in a one-game playoff! Gow Media decided to air this exciting game on a brand-new, listener-unfamiliar, non-penetrating 99 watt FM signal, as opposed stepping up to the plate with their 100,000 watt FM 97.5 ESPN. Gow Media is honoring America's 4th largest city by serving MLB fans to radio service via a 99 watt signal and playing dopey ESPN Radio stuff on a Flame-Thrower. Sad.
Click to expand...

I wonder if the decision had anything to do with the fact that the winner of tonight's game plays Cleveland next, not the Astros.
 
Live content over the radio is becoming more and more redundant with smartphones. If anyone really wanted to listen to that game in the Houston area, I'm sure they found a way via the web.
 
BamaTX said:
Live content over the radio is becoming more and more redundant with smartphones. If anyone really wanted to listen to that game in the Houston area, I'm sure they found a way via the web.
Click to expand...

Can ESPN Radio stream MLB play-by-play? Individual teams' network affiliates aren't allowed to do so, to protect MLB's pay-to-listen subscription operation. I always assumed the same rules applied to national network radio. If they do, then people wanting to listen on the web would have to look for pirate streamers. I don't think that's something most smartphone users are likely to do.
 
I downloaded several apps to my phone recently which let me listen to play-by-play audio streams from all NFL/NBA games. They had baseball and hockey versions too.
 
ThatVoice22 said:
Great, the Baseball Playoffs are here! The NY Yankees are hosting the Twins in a one-game playoff! Gow Media decided to air this exciting game on a brand-new, listener-unfamiliar, non-penetrating 99 watt FM signal, as opposed stepping up to the plate with their 100,000 watt FM 97.5 ESPN. Gow Media is honoring America's 4th largest city by serving MLB fans to radio service via a 99 watt signal and playing dopey ESPN Radio stuff on a Flame-Thrower. Sad.
Click to expand...

None penetrating? I think I have the wrong definition of Penetrating!! (Sarcasm)

94.1 picks up better on my job than 97.5 here until the Heights.
 
ThatVoice22 said:
Gow Media is honoring America's 4th largest city by serving MLB fans to radio service via a 99 watt signal and playing dopey ESPN Radio stuff on a Flame-Thrower. Sad.
Click to expand...

This is a pet peeve of mine, but the "4th largest city" boast that I hear all the time around Houston is totally irrelevant. Even more so for this discussion.

The metric that matters here, about Houston radio, is the Nielsen Audio market ranking, which places Houston is #6. Nothing to sneeze at.

City limit population has very little significance outside of city government. For example, San Antonio is the "7th largest city in the country", but in terms of a radio market, doesn't even crack the top 25, it's 26 as of fall 2017. As a TV market, it falls even further to 31.
 
Gow also owns a sports talk radio network, and it's on the 99 watt wonder instead of KFNC.

What does that tell you about how much Gow believes in their own programming?

Putting baseball on the peanut whistle says one of two things. Either they really believe in it and think it might draw enough attention to the frequency that they're preempting their own programming that they have to be hoping people are sampling, or they have a contract to clear the games that is attached to some jucier programming and they're putting it where they think it will do the least damage.
 
BamaTX said:
Live content over the radio is becoming more and more redundant with smartphones. If anyone really wanted to listen to that game in the Houston area, I'm sure they found a way via the web.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm in Pittsburgh where the local ESPN affiliate would rather run a local talk show discussing the 15th.
rehash of the Steelers offensive line woes than air a live baseball playoff game.

In past years they used to farm the game out to some other AM in the market, but have given up doing so
in the past few years. I listen on my phone on the MLB At Bat app.
 
Maybe it's just a first-round, Division Series thing, with more stations jumping on board for the League Championship Series and just about all markets clearing the World Series.
 
FreddyE1977 said:
Yeah, I'm in Pittsburgh where the local ESPN affiliate would rather run a local talk show discussing the 15th.
rehash of the Steelers offensive line woes than air a live baseball playoff game.

In past years they used to farm the game out to some other AM in the market, but have given up doing so
in the past few years. I listen on my phone on the MLB At Bat app.
Click to expand...

Same here in Columbus, with some of the LCS games being picked up on the AM ESPN affiliate (the FM affiliate carries the local talk and the formerly prestigious AM is basically a dumping ground for the stuff the FM doesn't want to or cannot carry).
That said, a few years ago when I tried to listen to the Wild Card games involving both the Reds and Indians (my local teams), the stream was blacked out on my laptop because of my location, so that might happen in Houston with the Astros. I got around it by hearing those broadcasts on ESPN 1000 out of Chicago.
 
Keep in mind a radio company that has more than one station cannot just choose to switch stations to carry a game. When you work a contract it is station specific. You do not have the option to move it to another station unless you get prior approval of both parties. Even so, I would have been talking to them. With that said, the next question is if 97.5 had an agreement with ESPN that would have required clearing programs in certain hours, preventing that option. It's not always easy to work all of these things out. For those that say Gow has no faith in the station, you haven't a clue. If Gow's programming was pulling in dollars to cover costs we wouldn't be talking 99 watts. As for that HD channel, I suspect the grand plan was flawed as more issues arose and still are not resolved. Nobody says it will happen this date and then doesn't do it unless the technical issues prevent it from happening. I suspect that is the case here. As a guy in radio I am well aware that what seemed like an easy fix to an issue seems to go on what seems like forever extending weeks and weeks. They might have ordered equipment and are still waiting. All sorts of things can delay the planned start. And it couldn't happen at a worse time for Gow!
 
Maybe someone can clear up the legal issue of operating a translator, like 94.1 FM, when the parent station at 97.5 FM HD2 does not exist.
 
ThatVoice22 said:
Maybe someone can clear up the legal issue of operating a translator, like 94.1 FM, when the parent station at 97.5 FM HD2 does not exist.
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It wouldn't matter if it did exist. Using KFNC-HD2 to feed this translator would still be illegal.

This translator is located outside the 60 dBu contour of KFNC, so it is not a fill-in translator at all. It extends KFNC's coverage, which is a huge no-no.

The only way it would not be illegal is if the translator owner, which isn't Gow, picked KFNC-HD2 up over the air and received no money whatsoever from Gow for rebroadcasting KFNC-HD2.

Centro seems like they're in this for the profit, so it seems incredibly unlikely that this would be their arrangement.

The only way Gow could make it legal is by renting an HD channel from one of the full market signals.
 
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stevenNOLA said:
Wouldn't using 1560 to feed the translator also make it legal?
Click to expand...

Only if the translator is not used to increase the daytime coverage area of the station.
 
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