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Florida (Sports) Man Radio ESPN 660?

F

FrankF

Not exactly sure what's going on, but it looks like Florida Man Radio is no longer on AM 660. Their now former AM 660, WDYZ has flipped to ESPN radio. That's what they're running as of tonight with no legal ID by the way. Florida Man Radio is still on WFYY 103.1 HD-3 and the translator W288CJ 105.5. Legal id's there still say WDYZ along with the other stations on that network though. For what it's worth the translator is only good north of the city. Once you go south you start to lose it. I live by Universal Studios and I cannot get 105.5 good in my car at all. It's mostly a fight between WTMS-LP and WDUV. I have a portable HD radio that gets 103.1 HD-3 in perfectly as well as 105.5, but that's being stationary. So now their going to lose the chosen few that live south of the city that listen on the AM while driving.

Now as for flipping 660AM to ESPN radio, as bad of a sports station WYGM (740, 96.9 (translator), 101.1 HD-2) may be, there's a reason why they were the only sports station in town. Look at the ratings and you'll see. JVC would be better off putting their country station The Wolf (WFYY 103.1 HD-2) on 660. At least some more people would be able to listen to it. And I believe it would also be cheaper to run. From my understanding, (I don't know what kind of arrangement JVC has) it costs a nice chunk of change to carry ESPN Radio.

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I launched a sports format in Knoxville (market #77) in 2018 and ESPN was impossible to use unless you just wanted to feed it 24/7 off the satellite. Cash payment every month plus huge inventory chunks - and make goods if you preempt them. Nightmare to work with then and I can't imagine that has changed much. Ended up using what is now Sportsmap Radio as I was live much of the day and had lots of HS sports on at night.
 
FrankF said:
Now as for flipping 660AM to ESPN radio, as bad of a sports station WYGM (740, 96.9 (translator), 101.1 HD-2) may be, there's a reason why they were the only sports station in town. Look at the ratings and you'll see. JVC would be better off putting their country station The Wolf (WFYY 103.1 HD-2) on 660. At least some more people would be able to listen to it. And I believe it would also be cheaper to run. From my understanding, (I don't know what kind of arrangement JVC has) it costs a nice chunk of change to carry ESPN Radio.
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Sports is not a ratings based sale. When WFAN was the #1 biller in NYC, (and it is still in the top 2 or 3) it never was higher than 15th in ratings. Sports dollars are not, mostly, ratings dollars.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Sports is not a ratings based sale. When WFAN was the #1 biller in NYC, (and it is still in the top 2 or 3) it never was higher than 15th in ratings. Sports dollars are not, mostly, ratings dollars.
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You are correct, but for what it's worth the New York Metro area has got at least 2 teams in all 4 major sports. Unlike Orlando which only has 1 major sport. The only major sports team we have is the Orlando Magic basketball team, and they haven't been good in years (they're currently 13-24). I guess you could count Orlando City soccer too, but that's not one of the 4 major sports. And there's also the mediocre University of Central Florida sports program. WFAN is live and local most (if not all) of the broadcast day. They'll bill better because sports fans want to hear about their local teams more than just national sports. WYGM outside of AM & PM drive time during the week is not. The rest of the time they're either running Fox Sports Radio, play by play for the Magic, UCF and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers , informercials, or some other paid for crap.
Now to be fair I don't know how much WYGM is billing. They are part of the Orlando i-heart cluster of 12 stations (this includes HD-subchannels and a station they lease that all make the ratings books).

As much as I welcome another station, I really don't see how JVC is going to make any kind of money with (as of now) just a national feed of ESPN radio on AM only even though it has a decent signal. Perhaps they will bring in some local talent eventually, maybe even play by play from an out of market team, but the other sports station has been here allot longer, and they outlasted all of the other sports competitors. Once upon a time, for some reason there were 4 sports stations here for a little while, and 3 of them tanked. Actually all 4 of them did for the sports radio pie was sliced 4 ways. WYGM stuck it out. This market IMHO unfortunately isn't really big enough for more than 1 sports station at this time.
 
Wow. JVC should just give up trying music formats on 103.1 in Orlando and move Florida Man there. It would match with what's already in Fort Walton. One logo and on-air brand/imaging instead of two.

Do whatever with the AM and the translator. Go on and fail with the ESPN experiment. Or try music. Or sell it. It's a 3.5kW AM/translator combo, it's not that important.

And I hope this was a glitch or stunt and something even better comes from this.

Byron
 
Is this still ongoing? Espn 660 or did someone fix a mistake after returning from new years?

Byron
 
And still no legal ID. Just 10 seconds of dead air before the top of the hour. Florida Man Radio is now doing a proper ID, although I haven't heard one for W288CJ (their 105.5 translator out of Oviedo) in a long time. They id the translator for their Ocala station (fed from an HD subchannel) that no one knows about every hour. Anyone know offhand what the FCC fine is for improper and/or no legal ID's?
Also the Florida Man Radio webpage still shows them on AM 660.
 
Sorry to nitpick, guess I'm bored. This article has some inaccuracies.

>> JVC BROADCASTING is flipping News-Talk WDYZ-A-W288CJ (FLORIDA MAN RADIO)/ORLANDO's AM signal to Sports as ESPN 660, ORLANDO SPORTS RADIO, effective TODAY (2/8). <<

I wouldn't have exactly said WDYZ was news / talk, more along the lines of conservative talk. And they flipped to ESPN Radio back in late December.

>> ESPN RADIO was heard on crosstown COX MEDIA GROUP's WDBO-A in 2012-2020 while that station's News-Talk format aired on FM, and has been off the dial in the market since the return of News-Talk to the 580 AM frequency. Prior to that, ESPN RADIO aired in ORLANDO on GENESIS' WHOO-A in 2002-2012. <<

WYGM was carrying ESPN Radio on the weekends after WDBO-AM flipped back to news / talk.
 
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