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Upstate changes coming?

101tm

101tm

Looks like there’s word out there 104.9 could be flipping to sports talk through FOX Sports Radio.

Thoughts?
 
Considering how The Block has done on its trio of translators, JAMZ and its decades-long reign, plus rhythmic Hot 98.1, it makes sense, but I think they’re so hyper focused on selling 104.9 with the country stations + 102.5 that they’re not willing to try a format with a completely different demographic. It’s sadly a throw away station.

The upstate is not a sports talk market. ESPN on 1330/950 and on the FM’s has been a flop and lost most of its local airstaff. The market went forever without a sports talk station as it was other than 1440 in a dead AM market. If Fox Sports (which is sub-par to ESPN) is put on 104.9, it’s solely to clear Premiere/iHeart programming and sell it with USC sports and make an easy package sale with the two country stations and toss in 102.5. Other than sales and Ellis and Bradley, and maybe some board ops, I doubt there’s anybody really left in the BofA building.
 
Sports would be a poor choice on 104.9. But like you said, they are treating 104.9 like a throw away station. (Just as they did when 104.9 was at 96.7). It's really hard to say what WOULD work on 104.9 considering the upstate pretty much has every format covered.
 
dorm82 said:
Sports would be a poor choice on 104.9. But like you said, they are treating 104.9 like a throw away station. (Just as they did when 104.9 was at 96.7). It's really hard to say what WOULD work on 104.9 considering the upstate pretty much has every format covered.
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I wish The Lake had been put on 104.9 and CHR on 102.5. iHeart tends to have much better CHR stations than Audacy in markets of all size.

I forget there’s 105.5 The Roar in Clemson doing sports talk too. This would definitely NOT be needed.
 
Another sports station...and totally syndicated likely. Yawn.

As long as they leave the HD-2 on 104.9 alone, I'll be fine with it. 😁
 
AMRocks said:
Another sports station...and totally syndicated likely. Yawn.

As long as they leave the HD-2 on 104.9 alone, I'll be fine with it. 😁
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I wish they’d put the Real Rock format or SOMETHING on 102.5 HD-2. Maybe even BIN simulcast? Is anybody listening to lullabies?
 
If 104.9 goes mono (which most talk stations do) doesn’t that kill off the HD signal?

With USC sports this may have some sort of potential for iHeart. ESPN Upstate is languishing partly due to the fact that they don’t really have anything to draw listeners since most of the local programming was eliminated. The Roar has Clemson fans on lock. If anything I think this could harm Audacy and 97.7/97.1/1330/950 but WROQ may get a handful of rock listeners.
 
The analog and digital signals are separate and combined before the transmitting antenna, so a mono analog plus HD is fine. That's what WBT-FM 99.3 in Chester does.
 
101tm said:
If 104.9 goes mono (which most talk stations do) doesn’t that kill off the HD signal?
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No. FM stereo is part of the analog system, and not related to the digital signal which is separate.
 
listening to 97.7 tonight at 7 the nfl announcer called for the legal id. two ids played and then started espn never came back to the game iheart has a chance on 104.9 if run well
 
Flip happened at midnight: 1049 Fox Sports Upstate - The Gamecocks Play Here!


Agreed about IHeart, plus the signal is better than the 97.1/97.7 translator simulcast overall and nobody is listening to the AMs. Maybe iHeart could get a translator in eastern Spartanburg county from one of the other stations’ HD signals. Turning off the stereo carrier should help a bit as well.
 
Spartanburg already has Fox Sports on WSPG 1400/98.3, so I don't know that 104.9 will make much impact here. 104.9's signal is fine for in-car listening over here since their power increase, but doesn't get into buildings well east of I-26. The sports pie is being split pretty thin.
 
There isn't any kind of restriction on how many stations in a market can carry syndicated material like FSR?

I know Premiere syndicates FSR which in turn is owned by iHeartMedia (owners of 104.9).
 
As of today, the Real Rock 104.9 Facebook is still up and posting articles from the tool iHeart uses to automatically share news articles to Facebook page. Surprised it wasn't deactivated.

Signal sounds good down in to Laurens county - a bit of static but definitely listenable compared to 97.1/97.7 and 105.5...hopefully the closest engineer stops by the next time they're around and turns off the stereo carrier which will help.
 
101tm said:
As of today, the Real Rock 104.9 Facebook is still up and posting articles from the tool iHeart uses to automatically share news articles to Facebook page. Surprised it wasn't deactivated.
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I'm not surprised. There's likely not any local talent on the station. And I'm not sure who the program director would be, but I doubt a totally syndicated sports station on an inferior signal in the market is priority of his/hers.
 
Just bumping up, this was the original post about 104.9 Fox Sports.

Between The Roar, ESPN Upstate, and this, a market that isn’t really a big sports talk market is certainly oversaturated IMO. Maybe 104.9 will succeed having the best signal out of the group.
 
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