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Are The Reds Still Interested in Purchasing a Radio Station?

I'm sure the REDS would love to own a station in this market as it would increase revenue as St Louis Cardinals have with KTRS. CC owns all of the decent signals in the Market and I don't see them selling off stations in Cincinnati.

There have been rumores that CC plans to sell some of its 1200 stations so you never know, maybe they would sell 1360 to them for instance but would the Reds want it as a flagship? I doubt it, since you would need an XM radio or a subscription to MLB.com just to listen to the games at night.
 
Even though KTRS is St. Louis' second best AM signal, there has been considerable fan backlash against the move from KMOX. The Reds better be careful.
 
"I doubt it, since you would need an XM radio or a subscription to MLB.com just to listen to the games at night."
That's the idea. Regionalize the network, and force the people listening in other states to subscribe to MLB.com. I would not be surprised if MLB is applying preasure to local teams to do such things. Just recently, the legendary home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, KDKA whose 50000-watt flame thrower carried the night games just lost the Buckos. They are now on an FM radio station with a 40 or so station network. KTRS in St. Lewis is doing the same thing, as well as the new CC FM talker in Miniapolis. Am I wrong on Major League trying to get involved in this?
 
The Twins are moving to another AM station, 50,000 watt AM 1500 KSTP. It's not nearly as good a signal as WCCO, but it's not a CC station. It's locally owned by Hubbard Broadcasting. Hubbard owns an FM talker, but it's not much of a factor.

By the way, checking their web site at www.am1500.com, there's a guy named Sterling doing Noon to 2.
 
Not being an insider I guess I just don't understand what the Reds owning a station would actually entail.

1. Would they automatically broadcast the Reds games on it?

2. What about the 'Reds Network' that we've heard about for years? Would that be dismantled? Aren't there long standing contracts involved?

3. They would obviously need a very powerful station for it. Are there any actually available now? Could one be beefed-up (assuming someone had the political clout to get that accomplished)?

4. What would they fill out the broadcast day with , and also the off-season programming (more sports I imagine)? Is there enough demand for more sports in town here?

Just looking for some more info about how this might theoretically happen. Everything seems so 'carved in stone' now its hard to imagine the current Reds-Radio situation changing.

Brian
 
brian65 said:
Not being an insider I guess I just don't understand what the Reds owning a station would actually entail.

1. Would they automatically broadcast the Reds games on it?

Yes. That's the whole idea.


2. What about the 'Reds Network' that we've heard about for years? Would that be dismantled? Aren't there long standing contracts involved?

The Red's Network would probably expand to fill in areas previously covered by WLW. When the Cards switched from KMOX to KTRS, they added numerous affiliates in Illinois where KTRS has a poor nighttime signal as a result of having to protect WKRC/WGR.


3. They would obviously need a very powerful station for it. Are there any actually available now? Could one be beefed-up (assuming someone had the political clout to get that accomplished)?

Not likely. In my opinion the would have to land an existing AM signal like 550 or 1530.


4. What would they fill out the broadcast day with , and also the off-season programming (more sports I imagine)? Is there enough demand for more sports in town here?

News/Talk or Sports is the most likely format.


Just looking for some more info about how this might theoretically happen. Everything seems so 'carved in stone' now its hard to imagine the current Reds-Radio situation changing.

Brian
Click to expand...
 
Thanks RadioBill,

It still seems like a huge change and hard to believe it could actually happen. I guess I have listened to the WLW/Reds Network for so many years the change sounds interesting.

I think WLW has been getting too full of itself for the past few years and are taking its listeners for granted.

In this case, I hope this idea has legs. Even if it all falls apart.
 
I think the Reds just re-upped with WLW for another 3 years. Wouldn't make much sense to have a radio station without the rights.
 
Wouldn't the Reds be better off buying a TV station in the market, and duplicating the success of Ted Turner' WTBS, Tribune's WGN, et. al.? I've thought this for years. There would be far fewer Cubs fans if it weren't for WGN, and there would be NO fans of the Braves without WTBS. Remember, WTBS claims the Braves as "America's Team". Wouldn't that be something (Reds owning a TV station).

Bob could always try to buy one of the low powers from Elliot Block.

Years ago, around 1967 or so, the Reds were actually on WCKY. Before that WKRC. So it is possible. Back then, the Reds produced the games, under the late Jim Winters. Now that WLW does it, the game broadcasts suck. I'm sick of commercials between every batter, e-mails, and trivia questions. The only non play-by-play part that is any good is Marty's interview of the writers in the 2nd inning. Other than that, they're terrible.

I listen to other teams' broadcasts on XM, and not a one compares to the garbage on Reds games. Don't tell me it's because they have to have the money. Smaller markets than ours, specifically Milwaukee, has NO commercials between batters. I've listened to several of their games.
 
Yes,

The Reds broadcasts really are getting very annoying to listen to. I noticed that when Marty was awol from the team and Steve Stewart was doing the games with Nuxie, all Stewart did was read commercial after commercial the entire game. I'm sure they were sparing Nuxhall the annoyance of doing it, but it was just annoying as could be.


Thats depressing if WLW has just re-upped with the Reds. That combination surely doesn't offer the fans anything to anticipate or look forward to.

More likely than not, it will just prove to be even more of a downward slide as far as enjoying the games on radio.
 
Like the Reds Really have a choice of where to go other than Staying at WLW since Clear Channel Owns all the best AM Frequencys in Cincinnati. 740 is slaughtered at Night by Toronto, 1050, 1230, 1320, 1450, 1480 are all Graveyard channels at best. and 1160 is really not much cuz of Chicago 1160 at nite. so its either CC or Bust if they want to stay with AM in cincinnati
 
exradio said:
Why would they want to stay on AM?
Click to expand...
With FM you would need a lot more Network Affiliates unlike you dont need a Major Network affilliate in the Midwest with the Reds on WLW. Same goes for the Indians on WTAM, White Sox on WSCR, Cubs on WGN, and former Cardinals/KMOX, Twins/WCCO, Pirates/KDKA 2 of those 3 will be beefing up on Network Stations, the Cardinals did that this year to replace the skywave Coverage of KMOX with the move to KTRS.
 
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