Forget where I saw it but someone mentioned the average age of listeners to cons talk, "moderate talk", standards, sports, et al and of them, sports was the youngest. I would think it appeals to a broad demo and many desired younger listeners. Comedy, too; hence 1200's move. You wanna sell
spots for Bud or various other advertisers, do you want fans of Ingraham/Savage/Hannity etc who
trend older, or younger folks (who frankly might care more for the NFL than the elections?) If you have a moderately powerful AM (like 1510) what is likely to get more listeners for your advertisers.
So yes it's a third station doing sports and a) signal not great at night, and b) we know rep of
890, 1510 etc in past. But they're willing to go for sports and clear NBC/Dial Global's new network.
Some local shows may follow. I don't know if Santos will continue to buy time, etc, but 1510 is putting on its shoulder pads and cleats and going for a format where they might do half decently
in selling spots. It won't challenge 93.7 and 98.5 (and soon they may indeed get 850 as yet another sports outlet if they go all ESPN) but it seemed the most likely to do half decently. For now.
oh here it is: it was on the radioinsight page about NBCSports Radio affiliates. It mentions the median age of listeners to cons talk (57), moderate talk (49), sports (36 and 47), soft MOR (78) etc. Davis says: "If I owned a crappy AM station, I’d rather take a crack at sports and go after the people who haven’t turned 50 yet before signing up for a bunch of third tier political talk shows and trying to turn a buck from a geezer audience. There’s more money in beer."
http://radioinsight.com/blog/headlines/70227/nbc-sports-radio-reveals-inaugural-affiliates/