Good, local, ratings-generating talk radio requires talented hosts, board-operators, producers, as well as news and sports anchors. It's an incredibly expensive format to produce, whether it's news talk or sports talk. I doubt that any Buffalo AM radio station has the financial and personnel assets to challenge WGR, good, bad or indifferent as it may be. Nor does any other Buffalo AM have WGR's massive (daytime) signal which, while somewhat restricted at night, covers most of the MSA to the north and south. Taking on WGR would be like WHLD trying to take on WBEN... a fool's mission.
It aslo helps to have the rights to a local major league sports franchise. Sorry, but dear as they may be to Buffalo, the Bisons aren't major league. Their front office personnel, promotion efforts and play by play crew (past and recent past) are top notch, but the Bisons simply do not generate significant ratings, certainly nowhere near the numbers put up by the Bills and the Sabres.
This having been said, there's probably room for a sports feature show that features local high school and college sports on one of the AM teapots. But even this is a stretch. There are two other AM signals that have some punch, those being WHLD and WXRL, but neither of these stations blankets the market at night. WLVL, Lockport is, for all intents and purposes, a daytimer, much like WJJL, Niagara Falls-West Seneca.
These days, most guys between 15 and 30 can do a good job talking about sports in a pool hall or bar. They know the players, the coaches, the game, the stats and have a duffel bag full of personal opinions. It's an entirely different thing making that barroom banter work on the radio.
One more critical point about news or sports talk radio. It requires an immensely talented and thick-skinned corp of street-fightin' sales people who know how to get through client objections and the advertising agencies which are predisposed against buying talk radio because of strongly opinionated talk show hosts.
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Recently, I noticed WSPQ Springville chucked its sports format and replaced it with classic hits. The new format isn't bad, but WSPQ would be better served by targeting its format to music primarily from the 60's with a smattering of hits from of the 50's and 70's, rather than trying to mimic WHTT's 70's, 80's and even 90's mix. WSPQ should forget about playing music like Rod Stewart and Huey Lewis and instead feature classic hits from Elvis, the Everly Brothers, Four Seasons, Supremes, Temptations, Roy Orbison and the panoply of artists that comprised the British Invasion, such as the Stones, Beatles, DC-5, Kinks and the Who. It would also help if the station's website was properly updated to reflect the change in format.
Yeah, okay Alan.