Has Entercom ever considered putting the Red Sox on WWKB?

[Fenway1912]

Being from Boston I still have fond memories of the old KB radio which came into Massachusetts like a local after sundown.

Today the station most likely has trouble paying the electric bill for the transmitter.

Entercom owns the Red Sox radio rights and it would seem like a no-brainer to beam the Red Sox games east into Rochester, Syracuse, Albany and into other parts of New England that their extensive network has holes.

Also wouldn't 1520 solve the WGR night signal to the east problem for the Sabres and next year the Bills?

 

[Element9]

Interesting proposition, even if most of upstate NY cheers for the Yankees. WGR and the Sabres would get help from KB's big signal, filling in the eastern nulls of WGR's night pattern, but it appears Entercom's plan for KB is "let it idle" so it doesn't take shares away from WBEN and WGR.

 

[Jeff Michaels]

As a Sox fan, I'd love that myself! I can tell you for sure that I'd love that. In Rochester at night I can receive 1080AM which is from Connecticut and broadcasts Sox games from the WEEI radio network.

 

[SirRoxalot]

And, I've heard about this new thing call "The Internets". I hear that they have baseball games on there.

 

[Bob1370]

If Entercom carries any non-local sports on any of its stations, it won't be the Red Sox because Red Sox Nation doesn't move this far west in any significant way--there are devoted fans for that team everywhere but not enough of them to move the Arbitron needle west of Hartford. The Yankees, on the other hand, have a strong fan base all the way from the west bank of the Connecticut River to the Niagara River, so carrying the Yankees on KB (the way WGR once did when it didn't have the Sabres) might be a possibility, as soon as the team's rights in the Buffalo market are available. Getting a 50 kW signal with full market reach would help the Yankees merchandise themselves the way a 1-kilowatt signal which can't cover its home county fully never will.

As far as using KB to stretch the Sabres signal, don't expect it. Since moving WBEN's signal to a simulcast on 107.7 didn't move the ratings needle except in the Rochester TSA (which does them little or no good) you can expect Entercom to re-think that, and down the road, turn 107.7 into WGR-FM, which WOULD fill in the blanks left by WGR's pre-sunrise and nighttime pattern.

 

[Element9]

As far as using KB to stretch the Sabres signal, don't expect it. Since moving WBEN's signal to a simulcast on 107.7 didn't move the ratings needle except in the Rochester TSA (which does them little or no good) you can expect Entercom to re-think that, and down the road, turn 107.7 into WGR-FM, which WOULD fill in the blanks left by WGR's pre-sunrise and nighttime pattern.

Which would leave WBEN AM 930 to wither on the vine with little but 65+ listeners. Makes too much sense to put WGR on 107.7. Entercom will see the "WBEN on FM" process through because there is no choice if the format is to be sustained, especially if and when Rush retires or kicks. That will be a Paul Harvey moment.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Bob, you're expecting Greg Gried to admit a mistake? Really?

 

[W2JUV_AL]

FWIW, I think WOFX-980 in Albany will broadcast the RedSox in the upcoming season and the ESPN network stations in Syracuse picked up the Sox at start of last season.

 

[Bob1370]

"Bob, you're expecting Greg Gried to admit a mistake? Really?"

Actually, I give the Entercom Western NY braintrust a lot of credit for trying something different in the way they've used 107.7 to try to expand WBEN's audience.

Having said that, the FM move doesn't seem to have moved the needle, any more than similar moves by other companies in other markets where the coverage pattern of the heritage AM hadn't become a serious issue (and market coverage wasn't, and isn't, an issue in Buffalo). It's been a couple full books now, which is the amount of time you should always give any programming move before you evaluate it. So that means it might now be time to step back, re-examine some elements of WBEN strategy for the future, and take a fresh look specifically at that portion of the programming schedule which is NOT produced locally.

It's not the FM vs. AM question that really matters, it's what you're putting on the air--and the syndicated portion of the day is not likely to draw 25-54 men or women. Leave the local programs, which are successful, alone--but just do more of them, scrap some of the syndicated stuff that's getting tired and bring in some fresh local talent. It'll draw new sampling, probably boost the TSL as well, and save some $$ too, because many of these syndicated shows are becoming notorious for the way they overcharge local stations for what they deliver.

 

[fybush]

If Entercom carries any non-local sports on any of its stations, it won't be the Red Sox because Red Sox Nation doesn't move this far west in any significant way--there are devoted fans for that team everywhere but not enough of them to move the Arbitron needle west of Hartford.

Times have changed. I see almost as much Sox gear as Yankees gear being worn at Rochester Red Wings games these days, and as other posters have noted, there are now Sox radio affiliates in Syracuse, Albany and Johnstown.

KB is actually not an ideal signal for night service to Rochester - there's too much groundwave here to interfere with the first skywave hop back to earth. Where Sox-on-KB really makes sense is in covering parts of rural New England that are outside the reach of local Sox affiliates. WEEI on 850 is useless in western Massachusetts, VT and NH, of course, and skywave-groundwave interference cancels out WTIC in much of western Massachusetts as well. But KB is like a local after dark in exactly the areas where those stations are weakest.

 

[aaronread]

If Entercom carries any non-local sports on any of its stations, it won't be the Red Sox because Red Sox Nation doesn't move this far west in any significant way--there are devoted fans for that team everywhere but not enough of them to move the Arbitron needle west of Hartford.

A: You'll see a lot more Red Sox jerseys at their road games than you'll see Yankees jerseys at theirs. RSN travels much better than the Yankees. Actually, better than pretty much any other MLB team, AFAIK. And Scott's right, you see more Red Sox clothing at Rochester Red Wings games than you see Yankees' stuff. And way more than Blue Jays' stuff. Hell, you see more Red Sox than you see Red Wings! :

B: If what you say is true, then why were there five affiliate stations in NY state last year? And as far east as Syracase? (560/WCKL: Hudson, 930/WIZR: Johnstown, 980/WOFX: Troy (Albany), 1440/WSGO: Oswego, 1200/WTLA: Syracuse)

 

[Savage]

I don't think the issue is coverage. It's beyond dispute that KB covers most of New York and New England at night. The problem is: who are you going to sell Sox advertising to?

I'm sure that New England sponsors feel they've got the Sox adequately covered for their local market on the originating station. I don't think they'll spend extra to be heard on a Buffalo signal.

 

[W2JUV_AL]

Oops...gotta take 1200/WTLA Syracuse off the RedSoxNation list. They just announced they're switching to Mets broadcast for the upcoming season. Selling local ads for Mets baseball in Syracuse will not be easy.

 

[therealjm12]

Selling local ads for Mets baseball in Syracuse will not be easy.

Yeah, WSEN/WFBL tried it a few years back. A complete disaster.

 

[Rollo-Smokes]

Isn't Buffalo close enough to Cleveland to be also considered Indians territory? And if so, do the Indians have a radio affiliate there?

 

[TVJunkie12]

Isn't Buffalo close enough to Cleveland to be also considered Indians territory?

KB's signal has a pretty deep null to the southwest (to protect 1520 in OKC) so you wouldn't pick up many listeners in eastern PA. or Ohio. Probably wouldn't be a good fit.

 

[BJSteigner]

I was thinking that WWKB should broadcast the Toronto Blue Jays game since they are not far from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Toronto's biggest draw from the Buffalo area happens when the Yankees are playing in the Great White North.

 

[Bob1370]

Fan bases probably were staked out by the teams during the 1950s and 1960s when the ABC and CBS networks' Game of the Week broadcasts divvied up the country into territories for the various teams and decided which group of stations got which of several regional feeds based on rough proximity to the teams' home markets. In upstate NY you usually got the Yankees, especially after the two National League teams left New York City and handed over the territory between the Connecticut River and the Niagara River to the Yankees. Hartford/New Haven, New York, Albany/Schenectady/Troy, Utica, Syracuse, Binghamton, Rochester and Buffalo all got the Yankee games. Western and Central Pennsylvania pretty much belonged to the Pirates while the Pennsylvania/Ohio border was the start of Indians territory.

Some teams had huge territories. Before the majors expanded into Minnesota and Texas in the early 1960s, the entire central 1/3 of the country from the Rockies to Ohio's western border was St. Louis Cardinals territory, while for a decade starting in 1958 the the Giants split the western third of the country from the Rockies to the Pacific with the Dodgers. One team still has a huge primary market--the Toronto Blue Jays basically have all of Canada, and their games air coast to coast north of the US/Canada border..

 

[qman]

It's been my understanding that the yankees have exclusive rights in this territory to broadcast major league games. The red sox & baltimore orioles sought to place their games in the rochester market only to be blocked in their efforts by the yankees. Wondering if this exclusivity rule is still in place & if so how does the syracuse market get away with broadcasting sox games?