Virginia Tech needs a 100,000 watt flagship station!

[upstate29651]

When it's time to renegotiate the radio contracts, VT needs to insist on being on a class C stick. I'm thinking 94.5 or 99.1. The "bear" is a poor excuse for a flagship station, as you can barely get it outside of Montgomery & Pulaski counties.

A football program that consistanly is in the hunt for a national championship needs a worthy & powerful flagship station.

G

 

[TarlekInSales]

I don't see a Class C signal commiting the time and inventory to being the "flagship station," when they are not actually a home station to the market and the unviersity.

The stations you refer to are music formatted stations and a sports program takes up valuable inventory during the week for basketball, the coach's show, etc.

Besides, since it covers so much territory, stations carrying Tech in surrounding communities would have their opportunities for listeners and to sell commercials, reduced, if a big signal carries it.

I think the Bear is the flagship station because it is a "hometown station" to the university.

 

[Radio-X]

Blacksburg proper has no class C sticks in their market. All the class C's you talk about are Roanoke stations, which concentrate on Roanoke...and sometimes Lynchburg. They would pay more for the Tech game rights, sell those spots at a premium, and make as much money as if they didn't run the games and nixed the labor cost of a board op.

For a Roanoke station, it's a wash. For a Blacksburg station, it's an opportunity to reach a much larger audience than normal.

But, playing armchair OM, I'd like to see Tech football on 'YYD.

Radio-X

 

[mleach]

Blacksburg proper has no class C sticks in their market. All the class C's you talk about are Roanoke stations, which concentrate on Roanoke...and sometimes Lynchburg. They would pay more for the Tech game rights, sell those spots at a premium, and make as much money as if they didn't run the games and nixed the labor cost of a board op.

But why need a board-op? Aren't most game/sports broadcast toned now? I know of a few places that even automate their high school games.

I know that in West Virginia, the WVU and Marshall broadcasts are totally automated now and only the smallest of stations still use board-ops.

I heard a few years back that the Washington Redskins are one of the few teams that don't allow for automation. That may have since changed. Meanwhile both the Baltimore Orioles and Ravens began to automate their games years ago.

 

[vtjazy]

Blacksburg proper has no class C sticks in their market.

Actually, 105.3 is a class C - A C3, but still a C.

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/fmq?list=0&facid=5795

Things wouldn't have been so bad had they not sold 106.9 in Roanoke, thus being stuck to a 12 kW signal from Price's Mountain in Blacksburg; they at least had more coverage of the market then.

As for being a flagship, they still air ISP's heaivly compressed, artifact laden feed instead of a clean shot from the stadium itself. One would think that with the studios in Radford and a Marti repeater on their tower that they'd try and throw a higher quality signal on the air.

 

[Kent]

Part of the reason you don't have a Roanoke station airing VT sports may be because those contracts are usually very one-sided toward the university and its network. Expect to have few, if any, spots of your own during the game, and, if you have a cluster with an AM and an FM, expect a cross band simulcast to be one of the conditions of your airing the games. So, you'd have to effectively give up your inventory on at least two stations. All in all, it's a pretty tough arrangement for the stations who carry the games. They get a ton of free promotion out of the deal, but, other than that, they don't get a whole lot.