For any Steve Czaban fans out there, he still has his daily podcast, which is free M-Th and it has a premium offering on Friday where he does the "You are looking live" predictions for each week of the NFL season. I found out this morning that Czabe is now doing a Noon-3p.m. shift every Saturday on 106.7 The Fan in D.C.., which is preserved on podcast on the Audacy website or app. He stated that he will also be filling in on the daily shows as the hosts take vacation time or as their days off come up around the Holidays.
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97.3 The Game hit with layoffs, possible format change coming
- Thread starter Prosidius
- Start date
Packers game broadcasts were supposed to move to WRIT 95.7. But yesterday, the entire pregame show (and apparently the game itself) was running on BOTH 95.7 and 97.3.
At least B97.3 fans still have the old B93.3 around (for now) for their Adele and Taylor Swift fix. And, if the FCC shutdown continues, B97.3 can flip to Christmas music and there will still be an AC station (B93.3) available on the dial.
Finally, the new B97.3 does have a full air staff, but I highly doubt any of them are local, or even live. No social media presence as of yet, but it's not like they do anything with it anyways.
At least B97.3 fans still have the old B93.3 around (for now) for their Adele and Taylor Swift fix. And, if the FCC shutdown continues, B97.3 can flip to Christmas music and there will still be an AC station (B93.3) available on the dial.
Finally, the new B97.3 does have a full air staff, but I highly doubt any of them are local, or even live. No social media presence as of yet, but it's not like they do anything with it anyways.
Bob Hauer & Kristina are also on Mix 100.7 in Tampa, and Theresa Lucas is also on Lite FM in Chicago with Robin Rock. So, no they are most likely not local or live. I am sure if you look further you will find them on several more stations.
iHeart purposefully planned two weeks of simulcasts on both stations to get folks used to the move.
Not sure how well that'll work unless the move is mentioned multiple times in-broadcast (was it?).
Lucas is based at WNIC in Detroit.
Yes, I heard the announcement a couple times when I was listening to the game.
can anyone help me understand how an NFL flagship station, the packers at that, had to change their format away from sports, in a market where people actually like sports? My head is spinning on this one
Between 94.5, 97.3 and the AM/TX combo at 1250/105.7, not to mention a long-established news/talk station that held some of the most desirable local team PBP contracts in the market (WTMJ 620, with 103.3 translator), there was a serious glut of sports talk in the market. And they were all killing each other. It was obvious that Good Karma wasn't going anywhere with WTMJ or WKTI (94.5), since sports is mostly what this company does. And Audacy dug in their heels on WSSP and expanded their lineup. That left IHM with 97.3.
Obviously, they were trying to emulate their phenomenally successful sports talk station one state over in the Twin Cities, which also had a statewide affiliate network. But KFAN/KFXN had a 25 year head start, and spent many years evolving to where they are today. They gradually built a dedicated audience. The Game did not have that, and it was tough breaking away from its two competitors, which both had a 15-20 year head start. So, when MRA, which just so happened to own a Top 5 AC station, announced the sale to K-Love, making a deal for the intellectual property of B93.3, and drawing their audience over a month before Christmas music starts, was a pretty stupid-proof idea. Plus, in the long run, it'll be cheaper than running twelve hours of live and local sports talk shows daily.
You can argue too that I don't think iHeart really had their full heart set into the sports talk format since they never changed the call letters from WRNW to something more specific like KGMZ did in San Francisco, and it just never really had listener buy-in thanks to layoffs taking out good hosts before they could establish themselves. The format just had the feel of something they'd try for a few months and if it worked, good for them because they wanted to do something around the Badgers rights, and they just happened to luck into the Packers rights on top of that.
Even GKB had been shifting around for years with 1510, 540 and 1290 over the years until Scripps finally put the for-sale sign out for the Radio City stations. The format in Milwaukee just has never felt like it had a solid home at all unlike Madison and Green Bay, where WTSO and WDUZ/WNFL found their sports niche decades ago. WTMJ probably should have shifted to all-sports around the time Brian Manthey was holding forth on Sports Central a la WIP's transition, but Sykes, Wagner and Green doing fine made that a non-starter.
Even GKB had been shifting around for years with 1510, 540 and 1290 over the years until Scripps finally put the for-sale sign out for the Radio City stations. The format in Milwaukee just has never felt like it had a solid home at all unlike Madison and Green Bay, where WTSO and WDUZ/WNFL found their sports niche decades ago. WTMJ probably should have shifted to all-sports around the time Brian Manthey was holding forth on Sports Central a la WIP's transition, but Sykes, Wagner and Green doing fine made that a non-starter.
They did get some big names in John Kuhn and Steve Czaben though. Them not changing the call sign is weird though. The station does exist (minus Czaben and some others) in Madison and on the app.
I’ve been listening to The Game and it’s okay. IMO it has too much focus on Wisconsin sports. I can only listen about the Packers, Bucks, and Brewers for so much in a day. I haven’t listened to 94.5 ESPN radio much but I think they air Rich Eisen’s show show for 2 hours.
I agree, but radio companies do still do it rather often including iHeart. Will be interesting to see if the WLDB calls eventually end up on 97.3.
The L and D were the initials of the owners of MRA. And they don't mean much to listeners. If IHeart opts to obtain a new call sign (once the FCC reopens), anything with a B in it will suffice.
As @JJSPC and many others have mentioned, call letters don't really mean much in the PPM era
Very true. KFXN in Minneapolis is entirely branded KFAN. More interesting is WCFS in Chicago is branded WBBM 105.9 FM, crossing between the AM call letters and FM frequency.
When IHM moved KFAN from 1130 to 100.3, they were forced to go with the KFXN calls, as there was already a KFAN-FM in Texas, which had been using the calls for several decades (not a sports station,î BTW). They won't give up the call sign either. IHM still held the rights to KFAN on the AM dial, so they currently use them on a nearby AM station that they own in Rochester, MN,.part of the KFAN statewide sports network.
Yup, 95.7 will no longer do Christmas music, ending the tradition there for 19 years (excluding 2024). Potentially, they could move the "Milwaukee's Christmas Station" slogan over to 97.3.