NFL

[NigelWick]

I was dialing around last night and couldn't find Monday Night Football on Scranton/WB radio. Who is carrying the games? Is Westwood One still the network?

 

[The Sigon]

Monday night games? Don't know. But 107 has the Philadelphia Eagles! Discuss.

 

[masterg]

Discuss? OK!

Ancient history, perhaps, but a lot of people who worked at WARM looked at two watershed events in the decline of the once great station.

1) Penn State football live. Prior to signing the contract with PSU, WARM never carried any sports live. It had the best sports dept. radio-wise in the market yet never went near play-by-play. They knew it was a bad move. The PSU deal, dating back to the late 70s, was all about money in the short term, there was no long range thinking there at all.

2) Then the Phillies came along. Another move all about money. Another really bad move. Phillies games in afternoon drive? Not what WARM listeners had in mind, so little by little they drifted away never to return.

Any "music" station that carries PBP sports of any kind is pushing listeners away. Sooner or later, it will bite you.

 

[NT3]

Don't worry, TS knows what they're doing. They aired Penguins games on The Q and things worked out well.

Oh wait...never mind.

 

[Rockin Rob]

Didn't Magic 105.5 carry the NFL, or was that strictly for the playoffs/Super Bowl?

Also, I believe 97.9 the X carries the Eagles (WBSX is listed on the Eagles website as an affiliate), so I could see where they could pull "market exclusivity".

 

[pell guy]

The NFL and Rock stations have worked before -WYSP IN Philadelphia,has been the flagship for
the EAGLES for t quite a few seasons. WNEW-FM IN New York was bringing the Giants when they
were rocking. They are just two I could think of,i"m sure there are more "Rock FMS who bring
the NFL.

 

[Nokmo True]

Agree Masterg, huge mistake. A short term possible infusion and a new hook for local advertisers though I flipped it on three times when I went in the kitchen to get a beer to go back and sit in front of the TV to watch football...twice caught commercial breaks and both times they didn't sound local to me. Anybody listen? Wonder how many complaints they got. Talk about a portend of things to come. See what happens when you spend less and less and expect more and more? That's a loose definition of desperation.

It's worked in Philly and New York but guess what...we ain't in Philly or New York. A city with a team has a built-in fan base and when you combine sports with rock stations the knuckle-dragging demo to which both have strong appeal will support it.

I find it hard to believe that in this day of DirectTV and the NFL package where blackouts are a thing of the past that anyone, unless they're forced to listen to a football game on the radio, would do so.

 

[normhill007]

I was partly responsible for one of the biggest screw-ups in WARM sports history. I forget the year and I'm too lazy to look it up but it was the year after the Giants won the Superbowl. The Eagles had stunk up the joint that year and we had the opportunity to replace them with the Giants, and Ron Allen and I sat down and talked about it and we both agreed that the Giants had a good chance of repeating and the Eagles would stink up the joint again so we decided on the "Gints"..First sign of trouble was when Ron went to training camp and got into a rather lively discussion with Bill Parcells where Parcells basically said out loud, "Who the hell is this guy"...Then the Giants went on to stink up the joint as bad as the Eagles so we went back to the devil we knew. Another bizarre one was the Phillies and the must carry pregame show which may or may not come in on time..It was 2 minutes, more or less after the pre-pre game show which nobody monitored. So you brought them up and .....nothing..so you scrambled for an instrumental...one night Richie Ashburn came on and did about 5 differant openings before he got one he apparently liked.

 

[Prospector]

I was dialing around last night and couldn't find Monday Night Football on Scranton/WB radio. Who is carrying the games? Is Westwood One still the network?

WEJL-WBAX carries Monday Night Football, it was bumped for a Phillies game

 

[Keeth]

I used to board-op the Phillies on WARM----Basically I WOULD monitor in cue for the start of the pre-game, but I remember a couple nights when I had to use 4 or 5 of Terry McNulty's Bumper music carts to fill. Not only could you not count on the start of the pre-game, you also couldn't count on the length of the commercial breaks. A very shabbily run feed.
I agree, however, with a previous poster. Your listeners need consistency. If you're listening to a station in the afternoon and find something you like---you leave it on the car radio---then you come back in the evening and there's a hockey game on? Well, that person will leave and may never come back. Out of sight (or hearing) out of mind. On the other side of the coin, sure you get the sports fan to listen but they won't be there for the music programming. ESPECIALLY if, during the game, you don't promote what's on the station the other 22 hours of the day. I don't believe music stations have any business carrying PBP sportscasts.

 

[yonkstur]

I forget the year and I'm too lazy to look it up but it was the year after the Giants won the Superbowl.

Norm, I think that might have been the 86 season where the Giants beat the Broncos in 1987. And carrying the Giants games were a disaster since WARM was aligned with the Eagles. Later WICK carried the Gints.

While sports played havoc with programming, it was a good way to infuse AM stations with cash. My most successful period money wise was selling the Yankees on WEJL in the 90s. It increased billing and gave the station more money. Not that they spent it on other programming or upgrades...........................

Yonkstur

 

[travist102]

Anybody have any idea why WILK carried the Redskins in 1993 and 1994? I understand why they carried the Cowboys for a while in their glory years. As a sorta-Redskins fans, I was thrilled, yet perplexed.

 

[travist102]

Answering a previous post... WMGH now carries Steelers. WPPA has Eagles and CBS. WZXR Williamsport carries Steelers, and WBZD has the Eagles.

 

[yonkstur]

WMGH now carries Steelers.

Magic carrying football, how the mighty have fallen! Must need that billing. Those early year sales blitzs are not the hits they once were.

yonkstur

 

[DoneDrinkingKoolAid]

Just to clarify, Yonkster...

That would be WMGH, Magic 105.5 Tamaqua carrying the Steelers.

NOT your former WMGS, Magic 93 Wilkes-Barre.

I've always pondered why WMGH would continue to position themselves as 'Magic' when such a powerful juggarnaut could be heard in... well... most of their listening area.

 

[normhill007]

WMGH may have kept the Magic moniker in case some didtz got a diary and couldn't tell which Magic they were listening to. In Tunkhannok management thought that 107.7 had better ratings than they showed (actually didn't..only book I know about was around 1990 when Wyoming County got a whopping 18 diaries. (Nikki Walton was delusioned into thinking that 107.7 was #1 in Wyoming County because the book erroneously had Rock 107 diaries mistaken for ours. Even said it on air and in liners..a real bad no-no) I never remember seeing a Wyoming County metro breakdown. Don't think that animal exists. Either way, money was coming into the AM and it wasn't coming into the FM, hence the sale to Citadel. Had we remained a standalone AM, it wouldn't have been sold and the money coming in on that side of the house was enough to pay the bills and have a few pennies left over.

 

[wirelessinnepa]

Is it really your contention, Norm, that it was wrong for the owners of Endless Mtns Broadcasting to get an FM station? Rather they should have just continued operating as an AM only company? Really?

Ben

 

[yonkstur]

Just to clarify, Yonkster...
That would be WMGH, Magic 105.5 Tamaqua carrying the Steelers.
NOT your former WMGS, Magic 93 Wilkes-Barre.

Thank you for the clarification. You see how desperately out of touch I am with local programming? Once they learn how to burn their own CDs, find out about you tube and use a computer for news, how the heck are they going to keep them down on the farm???? Thanks for the update.

yonkstur

 

[MCNDRWS]

107.7 WYMK could Have Actually Grown Into A Viable Station If Uncle Normie And The Board Had Only

Listened To Aldo Cardoni, Jim Petrie And Myself From The Very Beginning. They Just Wouldn't Put Any Money

Into It. Glen Werkheiser ( Norm's Son ) Bought A Used Van With His Own Money And Had It Lettered Just So

We Had A Vehicle To Take Places Like The Wyoming County Fair. They Spent Nothing At All On Promotion.

 

[normhill007]

EMR was a profitable stand alone station and had strong Nascar programming along with filling a niche (Classic Country) that Froggie wouldn't touch..And even a good venue for new artists and some indie's who eventually got good labels. Froggie wouldn't touch Leanne Rimes "Blue" because she was just a novelty..Same with early Kenny Chesney and Terri Clark. It wasn't a bad idea to get an FM but it was doomed from the beginning. Instead of sticking the elements on one of the many towers on the mountain they decided to have one of their own. It was the last tower on the power circuit and no generator. When we finally got a generator, they did it on the cheap, so it worked rarely. Meanwhile, the AM in my 7 years chugged right along and only went down 3 or 4 times due to weather..Including 2 lightning strikes on the tower in 1 week..(old indian burial ground legend)..They also got an automation system on the cheap that was down half the time. Missed spots like crazy or the carousel would hang and....dead air for long periods because the silence sensor didn't recognize silence. Then Ronnie Schott got EJL to give us their old automation system. (they were glad to let it go) Ronnie got it up and running and it worked (eventually) perfectly until a power surge knocked out it's brain and even Ronnie couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again). Jeff Laird decided to go with Bright 107 and that was a disaster. He got Westwood One's AC/light rock/whatever format and we were going to simulcast, and that was a huge disaster. Every hour you could hear an Elton John song, a Fleetwood Mac song, and my personal favorite, a Michael Jackson song..Maybe two if he had a hit. I was given mornings and that was a complete disaster, my only real failure. I'd not had anything to do with the FM and I found out that the board had been wired by a chimpanzee. Impedence mismatches out the ying yang..buzzes..ambient noise from the AC, and those long period's of silence when the mountain was without power. Bright was bombing and Jeff said we were going back to country on the AM and I had my choice of which side of the house I wanted to do, and I quickly said the AM and finished out until Citadel took it over. And even there, it took a year to get the FCC to alow the move of the studios to Baltimore Drive . I kept doing Country for another 4 months when they decided to simulcast Cat Country and I was asked to stay as "Station Manager" until the FCC got their stuff together..I think it was the air miles. Citadel was saying 24.9 and, according to the sectional charts pilots use, it was 25.2 I stayed and "managed" an empty building for another 8 months because I had given my word and was told by Bill Betz that I would be rewarded..I outlasted Betz and Regina Todd didn't even realize there was somebody in Tunkhannock. So the long answer to a short question, yes, it was, under those circumstances, for Endless Mountains Broadcasting to have gotten the FM license. The AM alone one year NETTED 250 thousand..After the FM, from the money Norm Werkheiser and Don Sherwood kicked in, out of their own pockets, had to be at least 10 thousand a month. As for the "Van" it was a Chevy Astro that was probably on Sherwoods back row and it was a death trap. I think Ernie (forget his last name) of K and K Tire Barn took pity and let it pass inspection..Ball joint's..what the hell are ball joints