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WTIC and The UCONN Huskies getting divorced

MarcB

MarcB

After 26 years of broadcasting The UCONN Huskies, WTIC AM 1080 will no longer be carrying the games after the conclusion of this season.

http://www.courant.com/sports/uconn-huskies/hc-sp-uconn-wtic-20180216-story.html

Who will pick up the games? WUCS 97.9 has a horrible signal and doesn't cover the market. Even with the 3 FM Translator's Full Power Radio's "The Talk of Connecticut" will not reach the entire market.
 
Prior to going to WTIC in 1993, UCONN games were on the Connecticut Radio Network, with affiliates that included WPOP and WWCO (after affiliate WQQW went dark). CRN used Channel 8's SAP channel so CRN affiliates could connect to the SAP channel for high quality audio of the games, instead of using phone lines.

This quote from Entercom market manager Phil Zachary shows how UCONN's exit from the Big East continues to hurt the teams: “...I couldn’t justify what they were seeking when compared to more successful partnerships Entercom enjoys with elite Power 5 institutions.”
 
MarcB said:
After 26 years of broadcasting The UCONN Huskies, WTIC AM 1080 will no longer be carrying the games after the conclusion of this season.

http://www.courant.com/sports/uconn-huskies/hc-sp-uconn-wtic-20180216-story.html

Who will pick up the games? WUCS 97.9 has a horrible signal and doesn't cover the market. Even with the 3 FM Translator's Full Power Radio's "The Talk of Connecticut" will not reach the entire market.
Click to expand...

Hard to see iHeart coming up with a dollar figure that would appeal to UConn, especially since so many games would conflict with Yankees games, which might be the games iHeart would want to run on WUCS in the event of a conflict. Full Power Radio? UConn may have to pay its way on to those signals.

The AAC is a conference nobody wants to be in. Half the schools are openly looking to leave if they can get a power conference interested. With no recruiting clout, men's basketball is now mediocrity incarnate. Women's basketball is followed mainly by grandmothers rather than the bored-to-tears-with-their-success students or even the alumni. Football will never be anything.

The radio future of UConn? Can you say "HD2" or even "online only"? Oh, I forgot about on-campus WHUS 91.7, but there'd be no rights fee to get, and the signal would be even more limited than 97.9's.
 
Maybe the new DCR will pick it up once the sale is complete.
 
UCONN has signed a 10-year deal with iHeart for the games to be on WUCS.
http://www.courant.com/sports/uconn-huskies/hc-sp-uconn-wtic-20180216-story.html

I am guessing they are going need to replace WTIC's signal with a lot of affiliates, just like when the Connecticut Radio Network had the rights for WPOP and other small stations.

I know this is a radio board and not a sports blog, but UCONN is not the product it was when the school was in the Big East and Lew Perkins was athletic director, and therefore UCONN now lacks value for WTIC.

In basketball the men can't win and the women play blowout games that are too boring to get a significant radio audience. Football...well that is another losing story. For men's basketball, Big East games with Syracuse, Seaton Hall, St. Johns, Boston College and Georgetown were good for attracting an audience for WTIC, especially for games at Madison Square Garden. That's all gone now, and UCONN does not have anywhere near the value for WTIC that it once had.
 
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The Hartford Courant and WFSB this afternoon are running misleading headlines, implying that ESPN Radio will air the games instead of affiliate 97-9 ESPN (WUCS).

Hartford Courant's Headline:
ESPN Radio To Broadcast UConn Athletic Events After University, WTIC End Partnership

WFSB's Headline:
AM station to stop broadcasting UConn games, ESPN radio takes on job
 
Bill1820 said:
The Hartford Courant and WFSB this afternoon are running misleading headlines, implying that ESPN Radio will air the games instead of affiliate 97-9 ESPN (WUCS).

Hartford Courant's Headline:
ESPN Radio To Broadcast UConn Athletic Events After University, WTIC End Partnership

WFSB's Headline:
AM station to stop broadcasting UConn games, ESPN radio takes on job
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, newspapers are in such rough shape that general assignment reporters now do stories that specialized reporters used to do. Obviously, the Courant's reporter only knows WUCS as "ESPN Radio," since that's what comes out of the speaker at all times but the top of the hour, when the station must say the call letters. A copy editor might have caught that error in better times for newspapers, but the Courant no longer has copy editors.

TV news has never cared about details like this, even in the best of times, so WFSB's reference to "ESPN radio" (with a lowercase "r," no less) is to be expected.
 
UConn is a joke. I stopped following UConn sports a number of years ago because of a personal issue involving the university which I don't want to or it is even appropriate to discuss here. And it isn't like I am missing anything. I think they are going to be buried in mediocrity for a long time if not forever. UConn basketball I think is back to where they were when they were in the old Yankee Conference prior to the original Big East. Pretty much a non entity nationally. You are right. A lot of the teams in the AAC don't want to be there. UConn I believe tried to get into either the ACC or Big 12 and were rejected possibly in part because they never had a big time football program. And now with the school being investigated for possible recruiting violations in men's basketball is another thing that will hurt them at least in the near future.

And people I think are getting sick of the UConn women. Winning all their games most of them by big scores is wearing thin. It isn't their fault there is a severe lack of competition in women's college basketball It is the way it is but not a lot of people want to watch it except elderly citizens some who may be homebound and don't have anything else better to do. And UConn a number of years may have shot themselves in the foot when they went for the money and took the games off CPTV and went to SNY instead. I think a lot of the people who follow the UConn women are low income elderly people who might not be able to afford cable TV. And the new radio deal may make it more difficult to listen to the games too. I can get 97.9 here in New Britain but it does not have a strong signal. They may have to form some sort of a radio network to cover the state similar to what they did when they had the Connecticut Radio Network.

I also wonder what will happen when a UConn football game conflicts with a Yankees broadcast. We all know which one will generate higher ratings especially since we all think the Yankees will have a great season in 2018. But maybe it was written into the contract that UConn sports gets priority over the Yankees. But it would be nuts if it is the Yankees game that has to get moved probably to WPOP when there is a conflict. And could you imagine a Yankees playoff game getting moved to accommodate UConn football? Honestly I don't know how they could do that.

Yes people could listen to the games online but a lot of the people who would be most interested in the games especially UConn women's basketball may not have computers and even if they did might not know how to do it.
 
I pretty much gave up watching TV news a long time ago because a lot of it is sensationalism. Often every winter storm is going to be the worst one ever. They care much more about getting ratings than giving you news and information. And many of the people that work in TV news either on the air or off the air positions don't know much about sports. We all know that ESPN Radio is a national sports network but they may not. But by saying UConn will be on ESPN Radio is implying that the games will be broadcast nationally. They should have said the games are moving to WUCS or 97.9. Another example of giving misleading information. And newspapers are almost as bad.
 
CTListener said:
Unfortunately, newspapers are in such rough shape that general assignment reporters now do stories that specialized reporters used to do. Obviously, the Courant's reporter only knows WUCS as "ESPN Radio," since that's what comes out of the speaker at all times but the top of the hour, when the station must say the call letters. A copy editor might have caught that error in better times for newspapers, but the Courant no longer has copy editors.
Click to expand...

I know the Courant isn't a Gannett paper, but they no longer have editors at all at Gannett. People previously known as editors are now called "content coaches", whose main job is to help optimize stories for time spent reading on the web.
 
MarcB said:
My Mom subscribes to the print edition of The Courant. While the headline on Page One of the sports section certainly says ESPN Radio in the article itself, it says 97.9 ESPN. And at the end of the article a big-wheel at i-Heart says 98% of the games will be on 97.9 FM and conflicts will be on WPOP 1410-AM.
Click to expand...

I also get the print edition of the Courant here in New Britain so I checked out the article. It appears that most of the conflicts will involve late season Yankees games and early season UConn football games. So it appears it will be the UConn football games that will move to WPOP when that happens. Although at WTIC UConn sports I believe always aired over the other sports teams they carry namely the Red Sox, Giants and Patriots whenever there was a conflict.
 
MarcB said:
My Mom subscribes to the print edition of The Courant. While the headline on Page One of the sports section certainly says ESPN Radio in the article itself, it says 97.9 ESPN. And at the end of the article a big-wheel at i-Heart says 98% of the games will be on 97.9 FM and conflicts will be on WPOP 1410-AM.
Click to expand...

Do the call letters of WUCS appear anywhere in the article. Does the iHeart executive use call letters for WPOP or just call it 1410-AM?

Call letters have become so irrelevant that most reports in papers and on TV don't even mention them. I see stories everywhere about KC101, KISS-FM, Radio 104 and Hot 93.7, not a call sign in sight.
 
CTListener said:
Do the call letters of WUCS appear anywhere in the article. Does the iHeart executive use call letters for WPOP or just call it 1410-AM?

Call letters have become so irrelevant that most reports in papers and on TV don't even mention them. I see stories everywhere about KC101, KISS-FM, Radio 104 and Hot 93.7, not a call sign in sight.
Click to expand...

It's mentioned as WPOP 1410-AM not "NewsRadio 1410", which is WPOP's current banding. I didn't see WUCS mentioned.

As for call letters even Radio 104.1 is downplaying the WMRQ call letters. I've listened to them on and off since Full Power Radio launched the station in 2009 and they often referred to the stations as "Radio 104.1 WMRQ". Now for the most part they just refer to it a "Radio 104.1"
 
Makes sense to me, although I would bet money was a concern more than the dayside programming of WTIC.
 
Meh. They should flip WTIC to all-sports. It would definitly blow WUCS out of the water with WTIC's much superior signal.

Also for the past 2 seasons WTIC has carried both The Giants and The Patriots and when there was a conflict The Patriots were shipped out to The Talk of Connecitcut. I wonder if this arrangement will continue now that The Talk of Connecticut has been bought by Full Power Radio.
 
MarcB said:
Meh. They should flip WTIC to all-sports. It would definitly blow WUCS out of the water with WTIC's much superior signal.

Also for the past 2 seasons WTIC has carried both The Giants and The Patriots and when there was a conflict The Patriots were shipped out to The Talk of Connecitcut. I wonder if this arrangement will continue now that The Talk of Connecticut has been bought by Full Power Radio.
Click to expand...

Doesn't matter where the Pats are shipped during conflicts since WAQY Springfield booms into most of the Hartford metro and actually performs better than WUCS in some areas south of the city.
 
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