Patriots also usually play on weekends. It's one 9-hour block of programming per week, not interruptions for two or three games a week.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
CELTICS NEED A RADIO HOME AS WEEI WALKS AWAY
- Thread starter Fenway1912
- Start date
True, the occasional Mon or Thu night game but usually weekends. Looking at the Pats radio network list via wikipedia, yes some rock/music stations do carry Pats incl WCCC Hartford, WBLM in Maine, rock or country stations in Central and Western MA, and 101.5 the Fox in Rutland VT...but again one game per wk
1200 As Celtics' Flagship?(Was: Re:CELTICS NEED A RADIO HOME AS WEEI WALKS AWAY)
If the Celtics decide to go in-house with their broadcasts (produce the games, buy airtime on an area station, and sell the spots), I could see WXKS-1200 being the station they buy airtime from.
There would be several advantages:
(1) Clear Channel (or Bloomberg, which leases out 1200 from Clear Channel) would get $$ for selling airtime. And Bloomberg flagship WBBR-1130 in New York does broadcast "overflow" sports events from WFAN-660, and I suspect the latter pays the former for airtime.
(2) The Celtics could buy airtime for the full schedule of pre-season, regular-season, and playoff games and have them on one station. Were they to have stayed at WEEI-93.7, some pre-season games would have been bumped somewhere else on the dial due to possible Red Sox playoff and World Series broadcasts. Likewise, some early-season Red Sox games would get bumped off WEEI due to Celtics' playoff broadcasts (I wonder if the latter led to WEEEI dropping the Celtics----maybe the Sox didn't want early-season games in conflict with Celtics playoff games bumped).
(3) If the Celtics make a deal now to buy airtime, they should have about six-seven weeks before the start of the pre-season schedule to "put everything together".
One issue is that while WXKS is a 50,000-watt signal, it is directional and beamed towards the East/Northeast from the Sawmill Brook Parkway site in Newton. Outside of the I-495 belt, you can't pick it up, especially at night. The team would have to build a regional network; and a question that would have to be addressed is whether the team should buy airtime on stations in a half-dozen other stations in "major" New England cities (leaving smaller markets without a radio affiliate), or offer games on a "barter" basis outside of Boston.
Maybe Worcester's WCRN-830 could become an affiliate, which would solve the "1200 issue" in the Western suburbs; but then again, there would be conflicts with pre-season games in October and playoff games in the Spring owing to their status as a Red Sox affiliate, although there might not be any Celtics' playoff games in 2014.
(On the other hand, I can see Entercom "blowing up" the 107.3 part of the WAAF simulcast and flip it to a simulcast of WEEI, which would negate the need for WCRN to be a Red Sox affiliate----but were that to happen, I'd expect WCRN to begin carrying New York Yankees' games)
Even if the above scenario plays out (and I think it's the most likely one for the Celtics for the coming season), there may not be many stations carrying the team's games outside of Boston. But to be honest, given the change in coaching and over half of last year's players likely to be gone by the time the coming season starts, there might not be much interest in Celtics' radio broadcasts in other parts of New England anyhow.
(I should note that for a few years, until their 2011 Stanley Cup victory, I believe there were only three stations outside of Boston that carried Bruins' radio broadcasts)
Had the Celts stayed with WEEI, I suspect the "WEEI Network" would probably have been the only stations outside of Boston that would have carried the Celtics.
If the Celtics decide to go in-house with their broadcasts (produce the games, buy airtime on an area station, and sell the spots), I could see WXKS-1200 being the station they buy airtime from.
There would be several advantages:
(1) Clear Channel (or Bloomberg, which leases out 1200 from Clear Channel) would get $$ for selling airtime. And Bloomberg flagship WBBR-1130 in New York does broadcast "overflow" sports events from WFAN-660, and I suspect the latter pays the former for airtime.
(2) The Celtics could buy airtime for the full schedule of pre-season, regular-season, and playoff games and have them on one station. Were they to have stayed at WEEI-93.7, some pre-season games would have been bumped somewhere else on the dial due to possible Red Sox playoff and World Series broadcasts. Likewise, some early-season Red Sox games would get bumped off WEEI due to Celtics' playoff broadcasts (I wonder if the latter led to WEEEI dropping the Celtics----maybe the Sox didn't want early-season games in conflict with Celtics playoff games bumped).
(3) If the Celtics make a deal now to buy airtime, they should have about six-seven weeks before the start of the pre-season schedule to "put everything together".
One issue is that while WXKS is a 50,000-watt signal, it is directional and beamed towards the East/Northeast from the Sawmill Brook Parkway site in Newton. Outside of the I-495 belt, you can't pick it up, especially at night. The team would have to build a regional network; and a question that would have to be addressed is whether the team should buy airtime on stations in a half-dozen other stations in "major" New England cities (leaving smaller markets without a radio affiliate), or offer games on a "barter" basis outside of Boston.
Maybe Worcester's WCRN-830 could become an affiliate, which would solve the "1200 issue" in the Western suburbs; but then again, there would be conflicts with pre-season games in October and playoff games in the Spring owing to their status as a Red Sox affiliate, although there might not be any Celtics' playoff games in 2014.
(On the other hand, I can see Entercom "blowing up" the 107.3 part of the WAAF simulcast and flip it to a simulcast of WEEI, which would negate the need for WCRN to be a Red Sox affiliate----but were that to happen, I'd expect WCRN to begin carrying New York Yankees' games)
Even if the above scenario plays out (and I think it's the most likely one for the Celtics for the coming season), there may not be many stations carrying the team's games outside of Boston. But to be honest, given the change in coaching and over half of last year's players likely to be gone by the time the coming season starts, there might not be much interest in Celtics' radio broadcasts in other parts of New England anyhow.
(I should note that for a few years, until their 2011 Stanley Cup victory, I believe there were only three stations outside of Boston that carried Bruins' radio broadcasts)
Had the Celts stayed with WEEI, I suspect the "WEEI Network" would probably have been the only stations outside of Boston that would have carried the Celtics.
Yes Mark from BRW did say 1200 was a possibility but a long shot (financial by day with C's three times a week or so, nights/weekends?) It does indeed beam east after sunset. They now do Bloomberg as an LMA after conservative talk and the brief comedy format. It is true, 1130 in NY
did do some overflow sports.
>>The team would have to build a regional network
Yes, while the graphic of C's radio network stations is no longer on the WEEI site (it did pop up at the Herald) I believe there was a list of the network stations on Wikipedia and many of them are tied in to WEEI, but there are others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Celtics_Radio_Network
As the page notes no flagship announced yet. It lists 96.3 in Dennis, 1440 in Worc., and
105.5 in Easthampton as affiliates but those are all tied in to WEEI. Then there are other stations in New England, but if 1200 or someone else did land the C's, covering much of Eastern MA
would have to be considered.
CC has 580 in Worc. 920 in RI, 610 in Manchester...but what about areas WXKS can't necessarily reach here in Boston? (For Manchester NH, 107.7 from Hillsborough has been in the network)
Wikipedia has a link to WEEI's site for a map of the C's network--but again, that info is gone
from the WEEI site. (header of the page linked says "Access Denied")
did do some overflow sports.
>>The team would have to build a regional network
Yes, while the graphic of C's radio network stations is no longer on the WEEI site (it did pop up at the Herald) I believe there was a list of the network stations on Wikipedia and many of them are tied in to WEEI, but there are others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Celtics_Radio_Network
As the page notes no flagship announced yet. It lists 96.3 in Dennis, 1440 in Worc., and
105.5 in Easthampton as affiliates but those are all tied in to WEEI. Then there are other stations in New England, but if 1200 or someone else did land the C's, covering much of Eastern MA
would have to be considered.
CC has 580 in Worc. 920 in RI, 610 in Manchester...but what about areas WXKS can't necessarily reach here in Boston? (For Manchester NH, 107.7 from Hillsborough has been in the network)
Wikipedia has a link to WEEI's site for a map of the C's network--but again, that info is gone
from the WEEI site. (header of the page linked says "Access Denied")
If (and this is a big IF ) Greater Media takes on the Celtics it gets their foot in the door for when the Red Sox contract opens up in 2016.
The Red Sox are going to take a hit as nobody will pay them 20M a year again for radio rights.
A friend at Entercom told me one thing that has hurt radio the past 10 years is that it is now impossible to sync the radio broadcast with the TV - while some at home are tech savy enough to sync the DVR to the radio most people won't bother. The station gave up trying because every cable box decodes differently.
The Celtics would prefer to be on FM and GM can offer them one signal for all the games - CBS can't.
The Red Sox are going to take a hit as nobody will pay them 20M a year again for radio rights.
A friend at Entercom told me one thing that has hurt radio the past 10 years is that it is now impossible to sync the radio broadcast with the TV - while some at home are tech savy enough to sync the DVR to the radio most people won't bother. The station gave up trying because every cable box decodes differently.
The Celtics would prefer to be on FM and GM can offer them one signal for all the games - CBS can't.
How big a deal are the outlying areas to the C's anyway? In Hartford -- where they used to play a few regular season games a season, remember? -- they don't have so much as a rimshotter serving the city proper. (105.5 Easthampton is unusable by the time you get that far down I-91 from Springfield.) Is radio coverage in Manchester, Worcester and the Cape really important, so long as all those areas can get Comcast Sportsnet on their cable system/satellite?
Would Greater Media ever consider doing an FM sports station in Boston? Im sure they were thinking about it before 98.5 The Sports Hub rolled out and became the new leader for sports on radio. But if say a Boston Sports radio started like in Detroit would it work well with The Hub and WEEI?
GM has five FMs in town 92.9, 96.9 , 102.5, 105.7, 106.7
and I don't know if any would switch.We already have
four all sports stations.Could make a deal to bring 1510
to FM.
So C's, local sports talk, NBC, Yahoo.
.or grab Fox somehow? Heck throw Brother Stair
in the wee hours too...Sox in Spanish on an FM...
Or simulcast Meter and Royal from Herald Radio. Not sure.
If they did don't expect em to kill off country...#1 in town
and I don't know if any would switch.We already have
four all sports stations.Could make a deal to bring 1510
to FM.
So C's, local sports talk, NBC, Yahoo.
.or grab Fox somehow? Heck throw Brother Stair
in the wee hours too...Sox in Spanish on an FM...
Or simulcast Meter and Royal from Herald Radio. Not sure.
If they did don't expect em to kill off country...#1 in town
It was actually in April or May of 2006, the year the Sox contract was set to expire. The news broke in the Globe that the Sox would land on GM's WBOS, with the Sox possibly buying a stake in the station. A month or so later, it was announced that GM withdrew and Entercom was re-upping, with
RKO as the primary station and some games on WEEI.
In 2009 WEEI became the primary station--right after the debut of Sports Hub, no doubt to
booster AM 850 as a sports station.
>>The company was going to get the Red Sox rights and D&C.
Well there was some kind of effort by Nassau to launch a sports network on 99.5 with D&C , etc/
2007 (Sox rights would have stayed with Entercom):
http://www.fybush.com/NERW/2007/070820/nerw.html
>> beginning with morning reports that Nassau was thinking of flipping 99.5 from classical to sports, challenging Entercom's WEEI (850 Boston) with a lineup that would include WEEI's current morning team of John Dennis and Gerry Callahan.
But as Fybush continued, "by the end of the day" a deal emerged that would help syndicate WEEI across New England. WEEI would have gotten a half-interest in WCRB 99.5 and WEEI would in addition to its Worc, Springfield, and Prov stations would have landed most likely at 102.9 on the Cape, 870 and 1470 in Portland, 1490 in Laconia, and a couple stations in the Upper Valley.
It was also possible WEEI could have wound up on FM here--on 99.5
It didn't happen.
The deal fell through by Jan of 08:
http://www.radioink.com/HeadlineEntry.asp?hid=140600
>>"The transaction hit an impasse," said Nassau President/CEO Lou Mercatanti -- who also said there was no plan to change WCRB's nearly six-decade-old Classical programming.
By 2009, WCRB was being sold to WGBH. So much for Sports Radio 99.5.
RKO as the primary station and some games on WEEI.
In 2009 WEEI became the primary station--right after the debut of Sports Hub, no doubt to
booster AM 850 as a sports station.
>>The company was going to get the Red Sox rights and D&C.
Well there was some kind of effort by Nassau to launch a sports network on 99.5 with D&C , etc/
2007 (Sox rights would have stayed with Entercom):
http://www.fybush.com/NERW/2007/070820/nerw.html
>> beginning with morning reports that Nassau was thinking of flipping 99.5 from classical to sports, challenging Entercom's WEEI (850 Boston) with a lineup that would include WEEI's current morning team of John Dennis and Gerry Callahan.
But as Fybush continued, "by the end of the day" a deal emerged that would help syndicate WEEI across New England. WEEI would have gotten a half-interest in WCRB 99.5 and WEEI would in addition to its Worc, Springfield, and Prov stations would have landed most likely at 102.9 on the Cape, 870 and 1470 in Portland, 1490 in Laconia, and a couple stations in the Upper Valley.
It was also possible WEEI could have wound up on FM here--on 99.5
It didn't happen.
The deal fell through by Jan of 08:
http://www.radioink.com/HeadlineEntry.asp?hid=140600
>>"The transaction hit an impasse," said Nassau President/CEO Lou Mercatanti -- who also said there was no plan to change WCRB's nearly six-decade-old Classical programming.
By 2009, WCRB was being sold to WGBH. So much for Sports Radio 99.5.
For the next deal im sure 98.5 The Sports Hub goes after the Red Sox. Now if 98.5 gets the Red Sox on the next radio contract where will that leave WEEI?
raccoonradio said:
Currently true but not a unusual move at all. Within the last decade, four NBA teams have had flagships which have had music formats, some of which with odd format fits (Timberwolves were on a Country rimshot, Bobcats on a FM Standards outlet, then-Hornets first New Orleans outlet played Oldies).
Given this metric, I have an odd feeling that the rights would be Greater's for the taking if they wanted them. A shame that 96.9 was flipped as that would've been a logical home.
WEEI is on the hook for $20M in 2014 and 2015 as contract was backloaded.
WHY David Field agreed with this boggles the mind as once Greater Media pulled out, Entercom was bidding against itself.
The ups and downs
How low is Celtics interest? The poll on the team website is which new assistant coach you're most excited about
CBS would deal a fairly serious blow to Entercom by grabbing Celtics rights. WBMX might be demographically a decent landing spot for C's conflicts but the music people would go nutzo. I wouldn't rule out the AM. There are 17 B;s - Celts conflicts this year, but remember that includes a two-week NHL Olympic break, so on most years it would be about a quarter of the schedule.
As for WEEI, they need to reposition themselves and without rights obligations in three of four sports, they could become the contrarian station, with the freedom to rip management while BZ is compelled to toe the party line for the most part, especilaly with Gresh (forever trying to sound like a big X and O guy despite not having a clue) leading the way as a toady for team management.
I'm betting Sox do ****ysis to see if it's more profitable to keep rights in house or go outside. That, in turn, depends on whether there is a sports radio battle going on when the bids come in; the broadcasters have been willinlg to use it as a loss leader in the past. That's what Entercom did. That's why Mariner overpaid for the rights in 1975, not, despite a wild claim to the contrary, because Tom Yawkey thought WHDH was drifting away from his kind of music. Mariner ultimately went bankrupt
How low is Celtics interest? The poll on the team website is which new assistant coach you're most excited about
CBS would deal a fairly serious blow to Entercom by grabbing Celtics rights. WBMX might be demographically a decent landing spot for C's conflicts but the music people would go nutzo. I wouldn't rule out the AM. There are 17 B;s - Celts conflicts this year, but remember that includes a two-week NHL Olympic break, so on most years it would be about a quarter of the schedule.
As for WEEI, they need to reposition themselves and without rights obligations in three of four sports, they could become the contrarian station, with the freedom to rip management while BZ is compelled to toe the party line for the most part, especilaly with Gresh (forever trying to sound like a big X and O guy despite not having a clue) leading the way as a toady for team management.
I'm betting Sox do ****ysis to see if it's more profitable to keep rights in house or go outside. That, in turn, depends on whether there is a sports radio battle going on when the bids come in; the broadcasters have been willinlg to use it as a loss leader in the past. That's what Entercom did. That's why Mariner overpaid for the rights in 1975, not, despite a wild claim to the contrary, because Tom Yawkey thought WHDH was drifting away from his kind of music. Mariner ultimately went bankrupt
Mariner had NOTHING to do with WMEX getting the Red Sox rights.
WHDH (Blair) was looking at a reduced fee but was willing to see what WEEI or WBZ might do. Out of left field came Dick Richmond who overpaid but knew having the Red Sox could make 1510 more attractive to a buyer ( enter Mariner )
Richmond did flip to MOR because of Yawkey and WMEX offered Jess Cain a huge contract. Blair in turn gave Jess a blank check.
Dick Richmond wanted to unload WMEX and by getting the Red Sox was able to sell the station for big bucks. Richmond also held on to 111 Broadway and Mariner ultimately moved back to 70 Brookline Ave with the Red Sox as the landlord.
I noticed the Maxwell/Grande Celtic/NBA talk show was off' EEI on Sat? Maybe it was scheduled to go on 8/24 but it could be the result of the Celts lack of a '14 deal IDK?
Rob Bradford was in the time slot and nothing was mentioned (that I heard).
#Note: the new format looks great but is definitely harder on the Eyes!
Rob Bradford was in the time slot and nothing was mentioned (that I heard).
#Note: the new format looks great but is definitely harder on the Eyes!
Maybe I'm missing something......but I think it would be in the best interests of "The Sports Hub" to do whtever it would take to secure the C's games. I realize that the team won't be a world-beater for the next few seasons.......but there IS something to be said for building brand loyalty and goodwill among the C's faithful. Besides.....this would give WBZ-FM 3 or the 4 major teams in the market. To me......it seems like (pardon the pun).....a 'slam-dunk'!
Last edited:
- Status