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Indians, Clear Channel announce five-year contract

billf82 said:
So does The Fan try to go after the Browns or Cavs now? Or Ohio State?
Click to expand...

The Browns rights expire in the spring (presumably after the NFL Draft), so that's gonna be a (no pun intended) dog fight between Clear Channel and CBS (let's be honest -- those are the only two real players here).

The Cavs just recently signed a long term deal with CC, so they're locked up.

The Buckeyes' deal with WKNR I believe expires at the end of the year, so I'm sure 92.3 will throw their name into the mix to snag them.

I bet before too long, 2nd tier stuff like the Monsters, CSU and maybe even Notre Dame football will wind up on the Fan eventually (they already have the Gladiators).
 
"WLW (Reds' flagship) now has an FM translator at 94.5 FM which covers most of Cincinnati, so I guess that'd be sufficient for MLB."
I'm sure that when the Reds' rights are up for negotiation again an FM simulcast will be discussed. The question in Cincinnati would be what group other than CC would go aggressively for the rights? If there is a bidding war, CC might be forced to offer up an FM simulcast. If not, the reds might have to be content just being on WLW and its translator. The main reason that WMMS was offered up was that CBS was going aggressively for the Indians rights. I doubt that would have happened if it was just CC vs. WKNR.
 
Cincinnati has a new FM sports station at 100.3, but it does not have the signal reach, even in Cincinnati, that WLW does. It's the only talk station on the FM dial. And Clear Channel owns the other two sports stations in town (1360 and 1530). It'd have to be a simulcast deal with WEBN-FM, but they are already doing Bengals' radio broadcasts, and any University of Cincinnati football or basketball broadcast that gets bumped off WLW because of Reds' coverage.
 
In all major league baseball markets just about any FM station who's classic rock, album rock, or oldies is a viable spot for MLBB play-by-play.

These formats have rapidly-aging core audiences that no longer bring them strong 25-54 female or 25-54 adult national and regional ad buys (where most radio revenue comes from in top 50 or so markets), and dropping music for a couple hours a lot of evenings won't hurt them at all as most adults aren't listening to music on radio 7pm-midnight any way, and is baseball programming has potentially much-stronger ad revenue than music.
 
The Reds just extended their contract with WLW through 2017 yesterday. No FM simulcast is mentioned in the extension. The only change is more spring training games will be aired, albeit on sister station Fox Sports 1360. WLW will do their usual 18 spring games, and 1360 will carry 11 weekday spring games.
 
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