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No Sale Looming, ESPN 98.7 expected to pivot to Music

NYRadioFan22 said:
I'm sure they have an idea on what the new format will be
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Why would they have an idea?

As you've been told SO MANY TIMES, the programming that's on 98.7 right now doesn't come from Emmis. It comes from Good Karma. Kay and the other hosts aren't Emmis employees. They don't work in an Emmis facility (and there isn't one in NYC anyway!)

They work for Good Karma in a Good Karma studio today, and on Monday they'll still be working for Good Karma in a Good Karma studio (except for the night guys who are getting laid off.)

The only difference between now and then is that the feed that sends their show to 98.7 will be disconnected. What happens to 98.7 after that is of no concern to them or to Good Karma itself, except that the WEPN-FM calls will need to be changed once the LMA contract ends, since they belong to Good Karma, not to Emmis.
 
YoYoGo said:
Kudo's to the good folks at Emmis Communications for having achieved one of the best non-stunt stunt's in broadcasting with more than 600 responses to this original post alone. And it didn't cost them a dime!
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And I can guarantee it means nothing to them, since they stand to gain nothing right now by having 98.7 be the focus of discussion. It's the empty JC Penney store at the mall. Once the doors get locked, the property owner doesn't want the public there. They want to get it sold or leased and redeveloped and only then does it become a business-to-consumer relationship again.

Emmis' only business interest right now is b-to-b - the sooner they find a buyer or a new LMA tenant, the sooner they're generating revenue again. None of this chatter generates revenue or helps Jeff fulfill his duty to his investors.
 
fybush said:
What happens to 98.7 after that is of no concern to them or to Good Karma itself, except that the WEPN-FM calls will need to be changed once the LMA contract ends, since they belong to Good Karma, not to Emmis.
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About those call letters, Scott...

Disney put them on 1050. Ninety-eight-point-seven was then given the calls after the LMA with Disney first took effect.

Specifically as far as WEPN-FM, I can safely assume they were part of the IP acquired by Good Karma when they took over the LMA from Disney?
 
Keep in mind we have three stations each with different owners in Boston all using the same core call letters: WBZ.

I'm sure there are other examples.
 
Rollo-Smokes said:
About those call letters, Scott...

Disney put them on 1050. Ninety-eight-point-seven was then given the calls after the LMA with Disney first took effect.

Specifically as far as WEPN-FM, I can safely assume they were part of the IP acquired by Good Karma when they took over the LMA from Disney?
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I think that's a very safe assumption. Even without seeing the details of the LMA with Emmis, I have zero doubt that the Disney lawyers drafted it so that control of the WEPN callsign remained with them (and their successors in interest, in this case GKB) and not with Emmis.

Same way that when JC Penney or Spirit Halloween rent space at the mall, all of the JCP or Spirit trademarks and IP stay with the tenant and not the landlord.
 
Just a note here. The original press announcement was on August 31st. it was to relinquish the signal. So that means no ESPN 98.7 Radio tomorrow and God knows what will be on there tomorrow.
 
My guess is this evening, overnight and tomorrow will be a simple beacon. "ESPN New York has moved. You can now find us at 880 on your AM dial." Clear, simple, repeated every 15 seconds until the moment Emmis pulls the plug.

BTW, unless that press announcement specifically mentioned a time, it's reasonable to assume it will cut over at 11:59 pm. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they kill the carrier at that time so some behind-the-scenes tech work can be done overnight on 9/01, and then launch whatever they're launching when they sign back on.
 
wabc860 said:
Just a note here. The original press announcement was on August 31st. it was to relinquish the signal. So that means no ESPN 98.7 Radio tomorrow and God knows what will be on there tomorrow.
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The LMA filed in 2012 has always listed August 30, 2024 at 11:59pm as the end of the deal.
Weiserguy said:
My guess is this evening, overnight and tomorrow will be a simple beacon. "ESPN New York has moved. You can now find us at 880 on your AM dial." Clear, simple, repeated every 15 seconds until the moment Emmis pulls the plug.
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If they were going to do that, it would likely have been while Good Karma had control of the signal. Why would Emmis give them free publicity AFTER they walked away from their deal?
AlNYRadio said:
Alan Hahn from the Bart & Hahn show said that today is the last day of ESPN on 98.7. Its right at 42 min in Hour 2. Hour 2: Audio Files by Bart & Hahn
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Again, that's been stated for weeks here...
 
wabc860 said:
Just a note here. The original press announcement was on August 31st. it was to relinquish the signal. So that means no ESPN 98.7 Radio tomorrow and God knows what will be on there tomorrow.
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Weiserguy said:
My guess is this evening, overnight and tomorrow will be a simple beacon.
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lanceventa said:
If they were going to do that, it would likely have been while Good Karma had control of the signal. Why would Emmis give them free publicity AFTER they walked away from their deal?
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Read the sequence in context. @wabc860 mentioned 31Aug. I'm responding to him, and based on that information, what I wrote made sense. More so than 30Aug. You have to wonder why, when they were paying Emmis a $Mil a month, Emmis wouldn't spot them the entire last month, especially since it's on the cusp of Labor Day holiday weekend. It's not like foregoing the last day of August would've killed them.

And as for your last sentence, because, ostensibly, Emmis is run by adults. Their biggest customer is leaving them after filling their coffers with a $Mil a month for a dozen years (or whatever it's been). I work that out to 144 million dollar over that time. (Which, by the way, is almost 3x what they're asking now for the station.) An adult would thank them for doing business with them for all this time in a mutually profitable arrangement, and expressing the hope they can work together in the future. An adult would.

There enough damn crybabies in politics. Broadcasting doesn't need them too.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
Can't wait to predict what format will come after the placeholder and who the buyer will be in the next thread. :LOL:
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I can't wait! Surely someone knows by now. Anyone heard anything? ;)

Seriously, I hope we have someone who can actually pick up this station over the air monitoring tonight, because I wouldn't be surprised if the stream is turned off when the placeholder programming starts.
 
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