ESPN Boston to land somewhere else?

[raccoonradio]

http://www.boston.com/sports/other_...pnboston_to_enter_crowded_web_picture/?page=1

ESPN Boston will soon launch a new website--and in a post on boston-radio-interest Kevin Vahey was told by Mike Reiss that it would be linked to a station with a "much stronger signal" than 890 now has...?

http://lists.bostonradio.org/pipermail/boston-radio-interest/2009-August/022011.html

>>Now the domain espnboston.com currently resolves to WAMG but Reiss
told me they have lined up "another station that will have a much
stronger signal"

Interesting...perhaps ESPN to 1200 and Rumba to 890? Or it could be any of a number of places...?

 

[sportsradioweei1037]

i think they go fm maybe a lma or whatever its called with 99.5??? who would they go after since they have little local personalities, it would be interesting if they went to fm and weei gets left behind onthe am side, do you think then weei moves to fm??? or maybe entercom agrees to run it and it goes fm to take on the sports hub.???

 

[PaulRAnderson]

Does anyone think that ESPN Radio would work in Boston, regardless of the size of the station that carried it? With two local sports stations already, how could a national broadcast get any ratings at all?

Paul

 

[raccoonradio]

I would have thought the Sports Hub would have tried to get ESPN or vice versa but I also knew that ESPN wants to be on nearly full-time or definitely full time, and the Sports Hub wouldn't give them that. "Hi, CBS here; we could put you on 11 pm-5:30 am and also a lot on weekends and carry your major league baseball playoffs, etc.; are you interested?" Nope.
The arrival of 98.5 isn't going to help 890/1400/ESPN at all. Powerful signal, money behind it, Pats and Bruins.

ESPN is definitely a name in sports but they deal here with a city where allegiance is most to the local teams, though some might be interested in national sports perspective. WEEI has Fox Sports overnight and on part of their
weekend lineup; WBZ-FM does the same with Sporting News. Is there room for ESPN? Maybe on an AM 590 or
something (not that Salem would sell..?) and even then would they get ratings?

I know I would want to hear stuff like baseball playoff coverage and some would like some of the ESPN talk
personalities but is there room now, esp. with 98.5 starting? An ESPN would be lucky to get a 1. Had ESPN
linked with 98.5, yes, they'd only be on overnights and some weekend slots but they'd be with a more powerful
station with money behind them, etc. I don't know if ESPN tried to link up with 98.5 or vice versa but WBZ-FM
got Sporting News instead.

Where would an ESPN go?
590--if Salem wanted to sell the religious station
680--Entercom committed to talk here, 2 daily local shows and syndie. They'd want to stay talk and not do sports
(though we do know if there are conflicts, the Celts or Revs could wind up on WRKO; BC sports , etc.) They'd be competing with their own 850! Only reason some sports broadcasts wind up on RKO is because EEI is busy with
something else.

740--highly doubt; weak signal nights, Bittner prob wouldn't want to sports
We know 850 is too busy with other stuff unless they wanted to dump Fox Sports. They had ESPN before IIRC.
PART time.
950? not best signal

1030 too busy with news and talk
1200--hmm...as I mentioned, would CC link with ESPN and the owners of 890 could go Spanish?
1260--MICKEY MOUSE; owned by Radio Disney--might they think sports w/ ESPN (owned by ABC/D right?) would be better than kiddie or teen mall rat stuff?

various small AMs
1510--Santos buying prog talk...not best signal...how much time available?

And on FM--roll over Beethoven on 99.5? Would Nassau sell or LMA them? Interesting: you'd have 98.5 for BZ-FM
and then sports on 99.5 too (and what of the alleged agreement to keep classical on air; could move it to an HD
channel)

Where else?
So, "stronger signal" but where?

 

[raccoonradio]

For what it's worth:

http://www.espn1260.com

coming soon from a site registered to Network Solutions.
though a WHOIS search said it was registered in 2003 and will expire later this yr

 

[jlehmann]

For what it's worth:

http://www.espn1260.com

coming soon from a site registered to Network Solutions.
though a WHOIS search said it was registered in 2003 and will expire later this yr

That was for a station in Austin, TX , which moved the english ESPN to 1530, and started broadcasting spanish ESPN Deportes on 1260.

 

[raccoonradio]

No doubt; I checked the WHOIS and saw it was registered to someone in Texas (then again companies like Clear Channel will put down an out of state address like in Texas) but THEN saw references online to an ESPN Deportes
signal on 1260 down there...

 

[mgpt6]

Would FCC rules allow WEEI to be broadcast on both 850 AM and on FM (93.7,99.5 or 107.3) in Boston at the same time?

 

[DanStrassberg]

Would FCC rules allow WEEI to be broadcast on both 850 AM and on FM (93.7,99.5 or 107.3) in Boston at the same time?

I believe so--especially since none of the FMs you listed or WKAF 97.7, which you missed, is licensed to Boston. However, I'm not sure whether FCC rules would permit simulcasting by AM and FM stations licensed to the same community.

 

[Blackroc]

I think they were doing it in Providence for a year or so--AM630/99.7?-- after their FM sports station went under against EEI-FM.

 

[jlehmann]

I think they were doing it in Providence for a year or so--AM630/99.7?-- after their FM sports station went under against EEI-FM.

You're a little mixed up. The sports station in RI that WEEI put under was a AM/FM simulcast, 790 and 99.7 The Score. 99.7 is a class A that best covers the southern area of RI. It is now a simulcast of 630 WPRO, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

The FMs that were mentioned, 107.3, 99.5, and 93.7 all cover areas that 850 does not, so I'm sure they could get away with it if they wanted to. These rules may not even be enforced at all anymore, as long as it's not 2 stations with exactly the same coverage area, but I'm not sure.

 

[mgpt6]

Mike -FM covers alot of the coverage area of WEEI-850 AM.With a good radio it makes it to Fall River to the south. Mike-FM signal covers more area than WEEI 850 at night.

 

[beantownradio25]

What about 1090? Radio One wants to get out of Boston and 1090 definately covers more ground in the day than 850. However they sign off every night, so probably not... ?

 

[DanStrassberg]

1090 definately covers more ground in the day than 850

Your statement is definitely wrong--including the word "definately," which you misspelled.

Although radio-locator is not what I'd call an authoritative source for coverage information, check there to get a rough approximation of the coverage differences between WEEI and WILD. I don't think r-l will show you maps of critical-hours coverage, but during CH (sunrise to two hours after sunrise and two hours before sunset to sunset--in other words, AM drive and PM drive in several months), WILD drops its power from 4800W to 1900W. What would you imagine such a power reduction does to the station's coverage?

OTOH, if WILD could go directional, a very substantial daytime power increase might be possible (maybe even to 50 kW). But this would cost BIG $$$, which R1 certainly doesn't have AND the power increase would NOT change WILD's daytimer status.

 

[DanStrassberg]

It takes a decent amount of patience to get radio-locator to produce coverage maps for WEEI (AM). Since there is a WEEI-FM and both the AM and FM stations have their own Web sites, R-L doesn't want to let you see the coverage maps (yuck)! However, I got 'em and here is the link for the daytime map:

WEEI, days--http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WEEI&service=AM&status=L&hours=D

As for WILD, contrary to what I suspected, the non-CH and CH maps are available and here are the links:

WILD, non-CH days--http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WILD&service=AM&status=L&hours=D

WILD, CH (days)--http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WILD&service=AM&status=L&hours=C

 

[ThatGuyOnTheRadio]

You must be a very impatient man... took me all of 15 seconds to find that info. Without using the links provided.

 

[raccoonradio]

Someone noticed on boston-radio-interest that 1200 and 1430 were broadcasting diff. Spanish programming on each station, and 1430 was not saying "1200" en espanol as part of their ID/liner, etc. And Dan replied maybe the rumors
could be true about 1200 landing ESPN and perhaps 890 would then go to Spanish lang programming...Kevin Vahey had mentioned on the list that Mike Reiss (IIRC), who is leaving the Globe to be part of the new ESPNBoston web presence,
had said that a newer more powerful outlet for ESPN Boston would be coming...

http://lists.bostonradio.org/pipermail/boston-radio-interest/2009-August/022042.html

Vahey's earlier post:
http://lists.bostonradio.org/pipermail/boston-radio-interest/2009-August/022011.html

>> but Reiss
told me they have lined up another station that will have a much
stronger signal.

Someone emailed me and asked me if I was talking about the new ESPN site, maybe that's what I was thinking of.
See the post above: if true, ESPN is indeed moving to a more powerful station, and that sure sounds like WKOX
which finally boosted its power after many years of waiting.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

As for WILD, contrary to what I suspected, the non-CH and CH maps are available and here are the links:

WILD, non-CH days--http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WILD&service=AM&status=L&hours=D

WILD, CH (days)--http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WILD&service=AM&status=L&hours=C

But, what they don't show at all is WILD's last half-hour of each on-air day after sunset when they drop to a much lower power than even the CH - probably under 100 watts - until a half-hour after sunset.

 

[DanStrassberg]

if true, ESPN is indeed moving to a more powerful station, and that sure sounds like WKOX which finally boosted its power after many years of waiting.

And if 890/1400 flips to Rumba. it will be tacit acknowledgment that the combo of 1200 and 1430 was a good fit with the Boston Spanish market UNTIL WKOX moved out of Framingham. Although the 890 transmitter is in Ashland, only a couple of miles south of the Framingham line, 890 is not a perfect substitute for the old 1200. When it was in Framingham, 1200 was ND days and not terribly directional at night. 890, despite substantially higher day and night power, has very narrow directional patterns day and night. However, 890 should reach the MetroWest Hispanic population a lot better than the new 1200 in Newton does. The 890/1430/1400 combo would reach the Hispanic population in metro Boston about as efficiently as any group of AMs can.

I doubt, however, whether Raccoon will find that the new 1200 in Newton comes in particularly well in the Postal facility where he works at night in Billerica (or wherever). The 1200 night signal in that area is probably not even as good as the 1510 night signal.

 

[raccoonradio]

The facility where I work is in N. Reading and yes 1200 and 1510 don't come in well at night--barely but not as clear as I'd like (maybe slightly, in the break room). Technically if I want ESPN for such things as the baseball playoffs, the 1400 out of Lawrence and Lowell might come in (Lawrence xmtr) and on occasion it has. I found that a better bet would be the ESPN affiliates in Hartford (1410) or NYC (1050) and at times the 890 would
come in, barely, at least at the early part of the night. (Last year World Series coverage did work out for me as
the Phillies were involved and Harry Kalas--who sadly passed on early this year--and the Phillies flagship WPHT 1210
did work for me.)

A Google map search using my workplace's address along with "Amesbury St. Lawrence" (info from bostonradio.org)
shows WLLH's Lawrence stick's roughly 9.4 miles away (pretty much up Rt 28). It would be far better for me if ESPN had to have a Lawrence-based transmitter to have them on 800...