Can someone explain to me why BC basketball is heard on commercial stations like WRKO (due to a Celtics conflict on EEI, I know).. What is the audience for BC hoops? Is it a money maker for Entercom? Shouldn't BC broadcasts be on BC's own college station? I can't imagine there is much of an audience on RKO, or even EEI for this.
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BC basketball preempts Savage
- Thread starter rike101
- Start date
As someone who previously worked on the business side of the BC broadcasts, I can tell you that when I was involved if you had the football rights you also had to guarantee that BC Basketball runs on a major Boston station. BC Hockey also had to air on a Boston station but they were a little more liberal about the station. Years later, I made a nice piece of change carrying BC hockey on a smaller AM station that also owned by two large FM's. Entercom produced the games and paid us to air them.
BC Football is a big money maker and the Football, Basketball and Hockey are generally sold to advertisers as a package. I do not think that Entercom owns the BC rights anymore I believe a company that produces College sports all over the country has the rights and has a joint venture agreement with Entercom.
As far a missing Savage. Can't you go a few nights without listening to the lunatic?
BC Football is a big money maker and the Football, Basketball and Hockey are generally sold to advertisers as a package. I do not think that Entercom owns the BC rights anymore I believe a company that produces College sports all over the country has the rights and has a joint venture agreement with Entercom.
As far a missing Savage. Can't you go a few nights without listening to the lunatic?
Michael Savage show isn't even LIVE here in Boston
The correct time his show is supposed to be on is 6pm-9pm Eastern Time. It states that on their network website (Talk Radio Network)
Over here W R K O put it on Tape Delay (NOT LIVE)
The correct time his show is supposed to be on is 6pm-9pm Eastern Time. It states that on their network website (Talk Radio Network)
Over here W R K O put it on Tape Delay (NOT LIVE)
Even before WEEI expanded to 93.7 FM, WRKO basically served as "EEI-2" during conflicts
(Celtics-Sox, etc.) Recently WRKO wound up carrying the Celtics noon Sunday start and then
the NFC Championship (EEI had Dial Global's call of the AFC Championship and of course wanted to
do Real Postgame Show afterwards). One would think in those situations, they could have had
the AM do Celtics or NFC Champ game, but they wanted it on both AM and FM. As has been
said maybe some areas don't get 93.7 or the other simulcasts well, so they keep the 850 on.
They have to honor contracts, it can make some money, etc.
Of course a couple yrs back Howie lost his last hr or so when WRKO was the Sox flagship (or
sometimes when WEEI had Celts playoffs, so RKO got Sox) and he'd have to tell listeners
to try WCRN, etc. after the "VERY exciting Red Sox pregame show starts" (WCRN was carrying
Howie, not Sox pregame). Once WEEI got a certain bit of competition on the FM dial,
the Sox flagship became WEEI. Entercom may have tried to shore up RKO ratings by having
the Sox games air there, but they found that EEI's night ratings were suffering--and again,
the sudden presence of 98.5 spurred them to put Sox games back full time on EEI
(Celtics-Sox, etc.) Recently WRKO wound up carrying the Celtics noon Sunday start and then
the NFC Championship (EEI had Dial Global's call of the AFC Championship and of course wanted to
do Real Postgame Show afterwards). One would think in those situations, they could have had
the AM do Celtics or NFC Champ game, but they wanted it on both AM and FM. As has been
said maybe some areas don't get 93.7 or the other simulcasts well, so they keep the 850 on.
They have to honor contracts, it can make some money, etc.
Of course a couple yrs back Howie lost his last hr or so when WRKO was the Sox flagship (or
sometimes when WEEI had Celts playoffs, so RKO got Sox) and he'd have to tell listeners
to try WCRN, etc. after the "VERY exciting Red Sox pregame show starts" (WCRN was carrying
Howie, not Sox pregame). Once WEEI got a certain bit of competition on the FM dial,
the Sox flagship became WEEI. Entercom may have tried to shore up RKO ratings by having
the Sox games air there, but they found that EEI's night ratings were suffering--and again,
the sudden presence of 98.5 spurred them to put Sox games back full time on EEI
I can't speak to why BC hoops are on commercial radio, but I can speak somewhat regarding the games being on WZBC, the non-commercial BC-owned station. Admittedly, it's been about six years since I was involved there (contract engineer), but WZBC does provide live broadcast coverage of BC sports. Football, basketball, hockey and I think even some lacrosse. However, there are (or at least were) some major differences between their broadcasts and the commercial radio broadcasts, for better or for worse:
Really, more than anything else, sports on WZBC is about providing an opportunity for BC students to learn how to be sportscasters. As long as that's the case, it means that WZBC isn't going to be suitable for a vehicle to deliver media coverage of BC sports to people who want to consume that media coverage. And the only way it would become suitable would cause too much disruption to WZBC operations and remove most (if not all) of the opportunity for BC students to learn about sportscasting.
That was, if not "is", undoubtedly why you hear BC sports on commercial stations, too.
Interestingly, though, for a lot of college sports these days, having radio coverage is becoming near-totally moot. The best way to reach people who WANT to see/hear coverage of a college's sports is via the web; it's far more targeted and far more able to reach the parents and alums who frequently do not live within the local radio station's signal coverage area. And there are several excellent turnkey systems for sports on the web; we had one at Hobart & William Smith called "Sidearm" that was, I believe, created by Syracuse University. It was quite slick.
- The sportscasters are all students. They tend to be a lot less polished than the professional guys, and they're also usually unabashed BC fans in the coverage. But on the other hand, they also tend to have a lot of passion, which is kinda nice. And in several cases, the sportscaster is friends or roommates with people on the team, so you get some great insider-knowledge tidbits.
- WZBC didn't use to have a good system for remote broadcasting; it was just a telephone-based POTS hybrid. I think it was an old Zercon Max-Z, actually. So the audio quality was gawdawful. Not just because it was telephone-grade, but also because the sportscasters routinely shouted so loudly that it distorted the line into an unintelligible mess (no compressor/limiter ahead of the mixer). I haven't listened in years, though, so they may have started using Skype and portable $50 Behringer mixers. It's more than a little Rube-Goldbergian but it can work pretty good considering how cheaply it can be done.
- WZBC has never had much luck getting stable underwriters, and BC Athletics goes out of their way to make it harder for any student group to monetize the games, so during breaks in the action the sportscast tends to sound really unprofessional as they struggle to fill the time. Used to be that during halftime the in-studio operator would just play music for 20 minutes. Ugh.
- Historically there has always been a tense relationship between WZBC sports and the longtime community DJ's who typically have the weekend shifts when a lot of sports games would pre-empt them. Couple that with a limited budget for travel and many years WZBC doesn't cover all the games; just home games...and often not even all the home games.
- Finally, and perhaps most importantly, WZBC is a music station. They take that mission pretty seriously. You wouldn't believe what an internal battle it was to get Democracy Now on the air. And to keep it, too...there were a lot of DJ's who wanted it gone after a one-year "trial run," despite how wildly popular it was and what a major earner it was during the every-two-years fund drive they run. (still run?) Anyways, sports is not congruent with that mission, and certainly listeners to the sportscasts are, by and large, not listeners to the regular music programming...and vice versa. For WZBC to be the primary source of radio coverage of BC sports would undoubtedly cause significant internal and external tension for the station.
Really, more than anything else, sports on WZBC is about providing an opportunity for BC students to learn how to be sportscasters. As long as that's the case, it means that WZBC isn't going to be suitable for a vehicle to deliver media coverage of BC sports to people who want to consume that media coverage. And the only way it would become suitable would cause too much disruption to WZBC operations and remove most (if not all) of the opportunity for BC students to learn about sportscasting.
That was, if not "is", undoubtedly why you hear BC sports on commercial stations, too.
Interestingly, though, for a lot of college sports these days, having radio coverage is becoming near-totally moot. The best way to reach people who WANT to see/hear coverage of a college's sports is via the web; it's far more targeted and far more able to reach the parents and alums who frequently do not live within the local radio station's signal coverage area. And there are several excellent turnkey systems for sports on the web; we had one at Hobart & William Smith called "Sidearm" that was, I believe, created by Syracuse University. It was quite slick.
WZBC does carry all regular season BC Football and has for many years. They do just selected BC basketball and hockey. I believe that the sports dept. does webcast other basketball and hockey games. They could do more games if they had HD Radio and put the webcast games on HD2. But that wont happen until the price of the fee and equipment does Down quite alot
Friday Night BC Hockey is on 98.5 The Sports HUb. Should mention that BC Hockey has a winning streak this Past decade like the New England Patriots
Friday Night BC Hockey is on 98.5 The Sports HUb. Should mention that BC Hockey has a winning streak this Past decade like the New England Patriots
It would be nice if Savage was on the new, more powerful 1200 live from 6-9pm... He is rising very quickly in ratings..... Maybe it will only be a matter of time. I'd gladly ditch the last hour of howie to listen to Savage live in Boston. In the winter WOR comes in alright, but forget about it other times of the year.
LAUROJRM said:
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