• 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

How much longer can Jackson support three sports stations?

T

the golden boy

There's a similar topic about this on the Memphis board.

It's been a couple of years or so since WPBQ 1240 switched to sports as an ESPN Radio affiliate, joining the other two stations in the area: The Score 620 and Supersport 930. I love the option of having three sports stations in the area, especially during football season. But I do wonder how long can three stations in a market like Jackson split the pie. Some of the bigger markets like Atlanta and Chicago only have two and much more money could be made in those markets.

I listen to the Score more than the others, mainly because of Jim Rome and the evening sports shows, along with JT the Brick of Fox Sports Radio. Plus, their signal is much more clearer at night where I live, as opposed to 930, which is not nearly as good. 1240 is non-existent. I have been listening to Bo Bounds on 930 and Mike & Mike on 1240 more in the mornings. I also like listening to Colin Cowherd on 1240, but where I work, 1240 is also non-existent due to their weak signal and interference with computers in the office and I can't listen to streaming audio on the computer.
 
sports stations make money. at least here in BR anyway. we just had a station flip back to sports because of that fact. 3 could survive. 620 has the atlanta braves and 930 has the mississippi braves. what team does the other station have? i listen to the mississippi braves games btw. (when i am not at the game that is :)
 
930 is still on the air?


Sorta. But it ain't just ain't the same without Farmer Jim in the morning. The quality of its signal seems to have gone to pot in recent years also. And whoever dumped the very old WSLI call letters should have his butt kicked. That was one of the oldest stations in Jackson. I guess nobody cares much about history and heritage. WJDX is one of the last ones around here with the original call letters, not counting those several years they were WJDS
 
You can blame the changing of the WSLI call letters on "The Rainman"

If somebody flipped one of the FM frequencies to a well-done simulcast with generally SEC sports outside of Rome or Dan Patrick, it'd be game over for everyone else in town. And more than likely the cash flow would come with it.
 
How does these sports stations get advertising? Even WJDX, which has one of the best AM signals in town has usually a 1 or less rating. I haven't seen 930 AM in the ratings in years and I don't think I've ever seen WPBQ show up.
 
smashedcd said:
sports stations make money. at least here in BR anyway. we just had a station flip back to sports because of that fact. 3 could survive. 620 has the atlanta braves and 930 has the mississippi braves. what team does the other station have? i listen to the mississippi braves games btw. (when i am not at the game that is :)
Click to expand...

620:
Atlanta Braves
NASCAR
New Orleans Saints
Madison Central High School football

930:
Mississippi Braves
New Orleans Hornets
Jackson Academy
St. Andrews football (tape delayed on Saturday mornings)
Delta State
Millsaps College
Westwood One NFL games

1240:
Belhaven Blazers
Jackson Prep
Tennessee Titans
MLB on ESPN Radio (Saturday afternoons)
 
flytrap said:
The quality of its signal seems to have gone to pot in recent years also.
Click to expand...

I noticed on radio-locator that they have a permit to move down from their old site on US 51 to W Beasley Rd. Perhaps that is the cause of (or solution to) the signal issues?

I had to check the stations' coverage out because... I've been to Jackson a number of time but don't recall anything about 930 or especially 1240... 620 is the only sports station I was aware of. Heard it loud (but with a layer of IBOC noise) south of Cleveland today. Are they HD now, or was that noise from WREC in Memphis?
 
1: Go back to R-L and carefully compare the lat-lon for the 1300 license and the 930 CP... yep, they're the same site. Both signals are diplexed on the same tower that also serves as the aux site for 94.7, which also holds the antennas for the STL origin or mid-point for about 6,721 stations in and/or around Jackson. The original 4-tower WSLI site is now a Target :-(

2: HD is/was coming from WREC.
 
wasn't WSLI 5000watts day and night when it was on I55? I remember there was around 4 towers where the Target is now located. I used to get it good at night but the last number of years its just not as good. Plus there may be more background noise that it used to be. I remember in the 70's the audio was fairly loud and had more midrange than WJDX had.
 
flytrap said:
wasn't WSLI 5000watts day and night when it was on I55? I remember there was around 4 towers where the Target is now located. I used to get it good at night but the last number of years its just not as good. Plus there may be more background noise that it used to be. I remember in the 70's the audio was fairly loud and had more midrange than WJDX had.
Click to expand...

WSLI was 5kw non directional day and 5.4kw directional night. The night pattern directed most of the signal to the south. You could hear WSLI in New Orleans at night when everything was working right.

Right now WSFZ is operating 1kw non directional on a backup transmitter, so the signal isn't what it should be. The old 5kw Collins transmitter is in bad shape and needs some work to get it operational again.

You're right about the WSLI sound in the 70's. That Collins transmitter and CRL processing used to sound sweet back in the day.

RFB
 
AND, How about the old , basically unprocessed RCA Xmitter from the Mid 60's,
when they were on N. State...Talk about SWEET...BUT, hey, I am just an old man
thinking about the past....JBI
 
But,JB,if we don't remember and learn from the past,we wind up buying radio stations in the delta and put urban ac formats on them, for example. It's a shame somebody hasn't produced a historical summary of radio in MS prior to the conglomeratization(not a word,I know)of the business. It's also a shame that those under 40 probably wouldn't read it.
 
(re historical summaries)

I've always admired La board member Bob Walker for his very readable efforts to chronicle the wild and large amount of history of New Orleans radio on http://www.walkerpub.com/radio_directory.html. Bob's history-by-frequency page is particularly useful http://www.walkerpub.com/radio_frequencies.html.

Alabama even has a book about their history, and it just covers 1920-1960. http://al-ba.com/broadhist.html

I have been spinning the Jackson radio dial since I was a shy kid glued to the radio (I started to write "...all through school", but even as I post this I'm listening to one radio stream while recording two others). I have all sorts of fond-but-fuzzy radio memories, but I only actually *worked* in Jackson radio for a short time doing news on JDX and weekend/overnight/I'll-take-any-shift on ZZQ, before I migrated down here to Baton Rouge. Thus I don't have the cred to write or publish a Jackson radio history, even though I agree it needs to be done and would like to contribute.

Come to think about it, just by researching our own gabbing on this board, one might get enough info to start a skeleton history page. As a web page creator, I make a great engineer ;-) but I wouldn't mind crunching some research data if someone else could put it in web-publishable form. Maybe Bob would let us crib a bit of his code to get started ?!?

(Paul E. Burt reaches for another cup of Community Coffee as he realizes what he just volunteered for)
 
Bob McRaney Sr. of WROB West Point, wrote a nice history of Mississippi Radio
about 1973. It is a hardback, and I am sure someone on here has a copy. I lost mine in a housefire in 1977, and it was out of publication by that time. JBI
 
The Internet is our friend. I see that the box of Mr. McRaney's research material is on file at the MSU library, as is a copy of his book. Have to make a note to check it all out the next time I am in Starkburg. Amazon says no copies are available. I'll ask Jackie Lett if there is any MAB interest in a reissuance.
 
Doctor_Technical said:
The Internet is our friend. I see that the box of Mr. McRaney's research material is on file at the MSU library, as is a copy of his book. Have to make a note to check it all out the next time I am in Starkburg. Amazon says no copies are available. I'll ask Jackie Lett if there is any MAB interest in a reissuance.
Click to expand...
Maybe an update in some version can be done that could include the rest of 70's and 80's, at least. Thanks for taking it on,Paul! Remember to spellcheck.
 
I have a copy of that book somewhere. Makes for some great reading if you are a Mississippi radio / TV history buff.

RFB
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom