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ESPN on WGNY-AM?

A

Area 845

Guest
Heard ESPN on WGNY-AM 1220 between 6 and 7pm with an ID that mentioned the New HV home for Mike & Mike in the AM, Colin in Midday and Michael Kay in the afternoon. Then at At 7pm it switched to Old time radio. Could they be an ESPN affiliate?
 
MHVRadiofan said:
i just checked  1220  WGNY -AM is indeed ESPN sports.They are IDing the FM as Fox oldies 98.9 without 1220.
Click to expand...

I haven't checked it yet, but I'll find out. As you know, this station is bringing sports radio back to the Hudson Valley for the first time since 2003 when WEOK/WALL flipped from ESPN Radio to a Spanish format known as "El Ritmo". Last year, 1050 lost its ESPN affiliate to a Spanish sports known as ESPN Deportes, and it still remains as a 50 kw station to hear ESPN programming in Spanish when it reaches the Hudson Valley and the main ESPN Radio is on at 98.7 only in the NYC area. And now, 7 months later, ESPN Radio is now at 1220 AM which is WGNY-AM. They dumped "Fox Oldies" on the AM side to go sports, but I don't see "Fox Oldies" going away on FM anytime soon. I check TuneIn, and it still says "Fox Oldies 1220" but only heard it says 98.9 instead of 1220 along with "Money Matters" and "When Radio Was" on the FM side and the rest of the format is sound a lot like the original CBS-FM circa 1974 from back in the Bill Brown days due to the lack of ratings from the Fall book. I don't know what's going to happen to 94.9 in Middletown?

If WGNY-AM has ESPN on there, why not put CBS Sports Radio on 1340/1390 AM in Poughkeepsie, and make the sports station comes back. As of WGNY-FM is still competing with "True Oldies Channel" on WEOK/WALL with Scott & Todd from WPLJ in mornings on the Poughkeepsie side and Mark West on the Middletown side. But I don't see WGNY-FM giving up oldies anytime soon. If there is a rumor, they should flip to a Classic Hits format to play more 70's and 80's music while dropping the pre-1964 stuff completely to compete with WBPM. "Fox Oldies" is still playing a lot of pre-1964 music on that station while playing the post-1964 stuff right up until 1973. This is not CBS-FM circa 1974, they need to playy more 70's even disco or any of the Bee Gees stuff from the "Saturday Night Fever" days. Get it going.

And I forgot to mention, I checked foxradio.net, but it still says "Fox Oldies" on 1220/98.9. What's going on with is site? I guess they should drop 1220 and leave it as 98.9 only just like they did with "The Fox" at 103.1.
 
And for those of you are listening to WJGK on its HD3 channel, they pulled the plug on "Fox Country" completely and went to "Fox Oldies" without airing "When Radio Was" and some talk programming on HD3, only on 98.9 where they have "When Radio Was" and other talk programming.
 
Flipping WGNY –AM to ESPN makes some sense as it will help fill in ESPN to some areas that lost it last fall when WEPN moved to FM. However, I think 98.7 WEPN-FM is listenable south of Newburg, so I don’t know how much help WGNY is there. While WGNY-AM 1220 does return ESPN to the Poughkeepsie area during the day, after dark another out of area 1220 (Boston?) takes over the frequency.
I see Disney posted above me, but it appears yet another one of his useless, long winded history lessons so I did not read it. Hopefully I am not repeating any information.
One odd thing the TOH- ID on WGNY – FM mentions 98.9 WGNY -FM, andWJGK-HD3 but not WGNY -HD2maybe to much clutter as I believe they are still there. WGNY-HD2 is.
 
MHVRadiofan said:
Flipping WGNY –AM to ESPN makes some sense as it will help fill in ESPN to some areas that lost it last fall when WEPN moved to FM. However, I think 98.7 WEPN-FM is listenable south of Newburg, so I don’t know how much help WGNY is there. While WGNY-AM 1220 does return ESPN to the Poughkeepsie area during the day, after dark another out of area 1220 (Boston?) takes over the frequency.
I see Disney posted above me, but it appears yet another one of his useless, long winded history lessons so I did not read it. Hopefully I am not repeating any information.
One odd thing the TOH- ID on WGNY – FM mentions 98.9 WGNY -FM, andWJGK-HD3 but not WGNY -HD2maybe to much clutter as I believe they are still there. WGNY-HD2 is.
Click to expand...

You mean WGNY-HD2 which is "Fox Drive FX", not "Fox Oldies".
 
Unless you're a 50k torch, AM is near dead. Some will deny it, but that's the way it is. This is ESPECIALLY the case when you're 180 watts directional at sunset, and still trying to play music on AM. WGNY-AM does nothing for the business at large with the Oldies simulcasted on FM. While it's a huge heritage station locally I've always thought it would be inevitable sooner rather than later to see the format go. I thought they'd end up with Talk shows, but since they ran ESPN on 1490 WDLC when they had the LMA, it makes sense.
 
They are also running the format on 97.3 which is their translator in Poughkeepsie - according to all access. I didn't tune in to verify that. Which means they are running it on a HD 2 or3 someplace to feed the translator. This brings ESPN into the Poughkeepsie Metro.
 
TTCTY said:
They are also running the format on 97.3 which is their translator in Poughkeepsie - according to all access. I didn't tune in to verify that. Which means they are running it on a HD 2 or3 someplace to feed the translator. This brings ESPN into the Poughkeepsie Metro.
Click to expand...

I haven't checked these yet, but I'll try. I guess they'll bring in some Poughkeepsie listeners from the loss of 1050 AM last fall when it flipped to Spanish as ESPN Deportes after all the agony that has been going for the last few months or so. I hope there's going to be more room for more sports stations on the way. I've heard it during TOH that mentions "Fox ESPN" at 1220.

"MHVRadioFan" has pointed out that 1220 doesn't come in at night due to an interference such as either a religious station or not. If 1220 doesn't come in at night, there are several station that carries ESPN Radio programming, maybe WMVP at 1000 AM which is a 50 kw station in Chicago. You should pick it up at night to hear it in Poughkeepsie which is coming from Chicago.
 
TTCTY said:
They are also running the format on 97.3 which is their translator in Poughkeepsie - according to all access. I didn't tune in to verify that. Which means they are running it on a HD 2 or3 someplace to feed the translator. This brings ESPN into the Poughkeepsie Metro.
Click to expand...
While that sounds like a great idea, I just checked and 97.3 is still repeating 103.1 WJGK, not ESPN on 1220. Perhaps they want to do this, but wouldn’t they need a FCC waver to put AM on an FM translater ?
Poughkeepsie is well beyond their nighttime couture might be a problem for the FCC.
The legal ID on 1220 mentions only that 1220 WGNY, Newburg, returning ESPN to the Hudson Valley, nothing about a FM HD 2 or 3. Unless they created WGNY –FM HD 3 there is no place to put it Going to HD 4 on one of their FM class A stations will degrade the signal. If Sunrise was to try that how could they get the signal to Rosendale at night?
 
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