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More Springfield News

K

Kent

And, now, there's this development. I was always surprised 92.9 The Beat lasted as long as it did, which was more than a dozen years. It never seemed to have much in way of numbers. Even though it's not signally challenged, 92.9 only pulled good ratings when it was "92.9 Bass Country."

I also always thought Q102.1 had the perfect signal for its format. Its tower is off of Schoolcraft Freeway and Chestnut Expressway next to the office building that's across the street from the Greenstay and Beef-A-Roo. It covers Springfield and most of Greene County perfectly, and the area outside of Springfield has never struck me as having very many rock listeners.

radioinsight.com

Q102 Springfield MO Moves To 92.9

Format wheels are spinning in Springfield MO as Mid-West Family Broadcasting is beginning changes at two of its stations. Rock
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com
 
Kent said:
And, now, there's this development. I was always surprised 92.9 The Beat lasted as long as it did, which was more than a dozen years. It never seemed to have much in way of numbers. Even though it's not signally challenged, 92.9 only pulled good ratings when it was "92.9 Bass Country."

I also always thought Q102.1 had the perfect signal for its format. Its tower is off of Schoolcraft Freeway and Chestnut Expressway next to the office building that's across the street from the Greenstay and Beef-A-Roo. It covers Springfield and most of Greene County perfectly, and the area outside of Springfield has never struck me as having very many rock listeners.

radioinsight.com

Q102 Springfield MO Moves To 92.9

Format wheels are spinning in Springfield MO as Mid-West Family Broadcasting is beginning changes at two of its stations. Rock
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com
Click to expand...
What will go on 102.1?
 
Midwest Family already has a country station in 105.1. Having said that, it could always emulate Zimmer and launch a current-based country format on 102.1!
 
ksradiogeek said:
You don’t know the Springfield market then…
Click to expand...

You ride in the direction the horse is going, but I don't think anyone really expects more country in Springfield. It still loves its country, but not as much as it did 20-30 years ago.

Whatever happens at 102.1 will be interesting, at least to us geeks. Springfield has always been a tough place to make money. At least since 1979, the lion's share of the market revenue used to go to KTTS with everybody else fighting for the crumbs. That might've changed recently because there's more parity among both stations and clusters, but the total market revenue after inflation isn't what it used to be either.
 
And, here it is: MWFB Bets On Sports Betting In Springfield.

The new format seems like, I guess you could say, a gamble to me. Guessing MWF is thinking Zimmer left some money on the table moving the Jock to an AM/translator combo. Jock 98.7 was the highest billing station in Meyer's empire despite no real numbers. I would guess the star of the new station will be the play-by-play and the local sports. Springfield and the Ozarks have always loved their area sports.

Reading that article makes me realize how little time I spend in Springfield these days. I didn't realize the Cardinals had left 101.3.
 
It should be noted sports betting in Missouri begins December 1. I would, no pun intended, bet after a year they reduce the gambling talk in favor of more traditional sports talk.
 
TheRob said:
It should be noted sports betting in Missouri begins December 1. I would, no pun intended, bet after a year they reduce the gambling talk in favor of more traditional sports talk.
Click to expand...

I can see what MWF is trying to do. Something like 70% of Missouri Lottery sales are in three counties (Boone, Cole, and Greene with Greene making up the majority of that), and, even though sports betting has been legal in Arkansas and Kansas for awhile, Springfield area residents tend not to cross state lines to gamble. Kansas Citians and St. Louisans don’t have as much of a problem with that. Maybe they cross more than they used to with Downstream Casino, which is in Oklahoma while the parking lot is in Kansas, and Pittsburg having a casino now, but that didn’t used to be the case. I suspect MWF thinks sports gambling is an untapped market that will be popular out of the gate.

I wouldn’t be surprised either if the gambling talk gets reduced pretty quickly unless the contract doesn’t allow it. I know Meyer didn’t sell the numbers and had no trouble selling sports. Running off of satellite will mean the only staff the station will need will be the board-ops to run the local games and the announcers who call them. Those people usually work cheap. I can see The Won making money off of local sports alone.

By the way, the building that's home to the 102.1 tower is the Frisco Building. That name was escaping me the other day, but it's in the back of the building on the west side.
 
Kent said:
I can see what MWF is trying to do. Something like 70% of Missouri Lottery sales are in three counties (Boone, Cole, and Greene with Greene making up the majority of that), and, even though sports betting has been legal in Arkansas and Kansas for awhile, Springfield area residents tend not to cross state lines to gamble. Kansas Citians and St. Louisans don’t have as much of a problem with that. Maybe they cross more than they used to with Downstream Casino, which is in Oklahoma while the parking lot is in Kansas, and Pittsburg having a casino now, but that didn’t used to be the case. I suspect MWF thinks sports gambling is an untapped market that will be popular out of the gate.

I wouldn’t be surprised either if the gambling talk gets reduced pretty quickly unless the contract doesn’t allow it. I know Meyer didn’t sell the numbers and had no trouble selling sports. Running off of satellite will mean the only staff the station will need will be the board-ops to run the local games and the announcers who call them. Those people usually work cheap. I can see The Won making money off of local sports alone.

By the way, the building that's home to the 102.1 tower is the Frisco Building. That name was escaping me the other day, but it's in the back of the building on the west side.
Click to expand...

Now please remind me again why KWTO-FM (98.7 mHz) dropped both its ESPN affiliation and its all-sports programming a few years back?...
 
ted chittenden said:
Now please remind me again why KWTO-FM (98.7 mHz) dropped both its ESPN affiliation and its all-sports programming a few years back?...
Click to expand...

The main reason was an ownership change. Meyer was in his 90's, and Zimmer had worked out a deal to acquire the cluster.

Jock 98.7 was the highest biller in the Meyer cluster, but that didn't necessarily mean much. Meyer had little to no debt on the stations, and it was routinely the lowest rated and lowest billing cluster in the market. The Jock is still around at 1060 and 96.9, and I believe it's still running ESPN. I know Zimmer has no problem running ESPN in Mid-MO and Joplin.
 
Kent said:
.......will need will be the board-ops to run the local games and the announcers who call them. Those people usually work cheap. I can see The Won making money off of local sports alone.
Click to expand...

And now a days if youve got some good tech and a competent color and pbp guy, you dont even need a board op. i know several stations who run without one if youve got a laptop, 4g cell broadband card with remote access and an auto connect phone line or auto connect IP hardware
 
The idea of needing a board op back at the studio is only a function of not having truly modern automation.

The "radio station" doesn't have to be a fixed console in one place these days. As long as the playout system can get audio to your transmitters and streams, it can be controlled from anywhere.

I'm happy to provide demos for anyone of what we can do with Myriad automation and our Myriad Anywhere - you simply take full control of your station's playout from wherever you have a data connection. No need for separate IP codecs or any hardware beyond a USB mic or maybe a Rodecaster. The "Anywhere" piece of it creates its own tunneled WebRTC audio connection back to the station and gives you off-air talkback, too.

No reason to still be living in the 90s or 2000s when we have the technology to let people create radio from so many places, so easily now.
 


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