No I was talking about news reports, I don’t think anyone reported at least from what I saw that the Mets/Audacy broadcast deal ends after the 2025 season, many of these deals can be in the 4-8+ year range.
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Good Karma To Lease 880; WCBS News Programming To End
- Thread starter lanceventa
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What this does it is puts the Mets on an all sports station, which is a better environment for Mets advertising. That's good for both companies
Cumulus operates two successful country stations in Dallas-Fort Worth. KPLX leans gold, while KSCS is mostly current/recurrent, but there is playlist overlap.
However both stations do well in 25-54. That is not the case for either WINS or WCBS.
There was a time when all-news did well with 25-54. Not anymore. It's now 65+
Only for listeners in the dominant RadioDiscussions demographic, which is underserved by NYC radio for a very good reason -- it doesn't reflect the prevailing demographics of NYC.
Not necessarily. WCBS had a good size audience who could end up catching a game by chance, just by punching up their favorite preset. Something tells me ESPN will have a much smaller audience punching up 880 on a regular basis. The Mets may not catch as much casual tuning to the games as they did on a flagship news station.
That's not what he said. Maybe you shouldn't put words in his mouth.
Stop calling it ESPN. It's been noted over and over that 880 has its own air talent, talking about New York sports. It's not your typical ESPN operation in medium markets, carrying whatever canned programming the mother ship sends down the line from Bristol.
They most likely got some kind of Court OK. This is not a business as usual transaction. The fact they are in bankruptcy can give them leverage with the Union.
I am sure the lenders / bond holders are watching every move. If this was not a cash positive deal (at least on paper) the debt holders would be filing claiming the "unnecessary destruction" of an asset, the "WCBS 880 brand". Asset protection for the lenders is a duty of the court.
It's still branded ESPN and considering its FM ratings were so bad it dropped its Nielsen subscription I highly doubt it will be drawing much tuning to 880 at all.
If I was betting Air 1( I believe EMF has the cash) or some other religious operator.
Unless they hate sports, and considered Mets baseball an interruption to their enjoyment of the news format. Which is what a lot of posters said.
When did that change? I remember a few years ago The Mets were on WAVZ then known as ESPN 1300 in New Haven, while their sister station WELI 96.9/960 carried the Yankees.
I always wonder what happens after WCBS radio signed off for the final time on August 26th & is handed over to ESPN (or 98.7). does anyone know what will happen to listeners, will they move to 1010 WINS or 770 WABC AM?
Five seasons ago, 2019. The elimination of the network meant that the Mets, who had just bought their Class AAA affiliate in Syracuse,Syracuse lost its National League Mets right affiliate right after the Mets had bought their Syracuse Class AAA affiliate, the Chiefs, and rebranded them as the Syracuse Mets. Apparently, the Mets' thinking is that a network of local stations is no longer required as fans who want to listen to NY Mets games and are out of the primary coverage area of WCBS can always stream them.
I would guess those who want news will switch to WINS and those who want right-wing opinions and miscellaneous specialty talk shows will migrate to WABC. But I can't see WCBS and WABC having much current audience in common. WABC and WOR probably have much more overlap.
Keep in mind, WABC also has those weekend music, but when it comes on Saturday, WLIW also has those great music, don't know If Sock Hop Saturday Night always compete with WABC music radio, but all I know is that the podcasts will upload just after 12 hours of original new airing..
The owner usually does not buy ratings anywhere, because a majority of sports buys are format-based and not ratings driven. In any case, the ad agencies get the full data if they need it, but Good Karma sells the format, not the numbers.
I think what would be more accurate is that WCBS has a news format thats very costly and a aging listenership + a company that has multiple sports contracts in NYC that’s also very costly and the Mets contract most likely isn’t realizing it’s full potential because said news format and it’s a AM only signal. The current format billing is just going to decrease over time and any format change is a money loser. Long term selling the signal or getting monthly payments from GKB are the best options for Audacy.
Is it really aging? Or has news always attracted an older audience?
I don't think young people ever listened to news radio much, whether it was in the 80s, 90s or today. People get more interested in news the older they get, so it stands to reason the format attracts 50 year-olds and then as they get older they are replaced by more 50 year-olds, and that's always been the case. The demographics would remain constant if that's true. If you can show evidence to the contrary though, I'd love to see it.
I believe this was an opportunistic move by bankrupt Audacy to lease the signal to a tenant and put less effort into doing the work themselves. I also think it may end up being a short-term tenant if the business model doesn't work out the way GKB thinks it will. But does bankrupt Audacy care what happens 3 years down the road? Will anyone currently at the company even still be around by then? Given their situation why should any of them care the slightest bit about the quality or heritage of the portfolio they oversee?
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