WHTK has (pre-emptively?) rebranded itself as "Sportsradio 1280 WHTK" and its website, whtk.com has been updated to reflect that.
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WHTK Rebranding
- Thread starter Ed Trefzger
- Start date
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scooterodell
Guest
I heard DiTullio refer to WHTK as "Sportsradio 1280" this morning on WHAM. Good move on their part, especially with WROC planning on using the same name. Puts Entercom on notice that CC is not taking the 950 format flip lightly.
DToTheJ said:
I'm pretty sure they were. This morning was the first I heard "Sportsradio 1280".
And they are still carrying ESPN Radio's "Mike and Mike" from 6 to 9 a.m. It will be interesting to see if WHTK switches to Fox's Steve Czaban, who, incidentally, was just dropped in D.C. -- where he lives -- for Mike and Mike after Redskins owner Dan Snyder bought WTEM from Clear Channel.
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Bob1370
Guest
It's probably about time they changed their branding...it's been more than a dozen years since they had Imus and the Don & Mike show as their drivetime bookend shows and could really be called a "hot talk" kind of station. Calling themselves "SportsRadio 1280" is just a long-delayed recognition of reality. How soon will a call letter change follow?
I don't know if they'll do it...but if they want to draw decent numbers, 1280's best bet would be to forget about a network morning show from Fox or whatever source, have a local morning show from 6 to 12 featuring John DiTullio instead, and only throw it to the satellite when Jim Rome comes on at noon (a show they'll keep because Clear Channel's Premiere Networks subsidiary syndicates it). Mike O'Meara can then carry them to 7, and a mix of the Red Wings and Amerks with network sports will handle the nights for them.
And as far as WROC/950, they'd be better off simulcasting as much of WGR as they can, carrying their morning show with Howard Simon and Jeremy White, their afternoon show with Mike Schopp (who has some history in Rochester at WHTK in the mid-90s) and Bulldog Parker, and even their night mix of Dennis Williams and Sabres play-by-play. They can't do a full simulcast because Jim Rome's Clear Channel property, but ESPN can carry the load at other times when there's no Sabres game and 'GR can't be simulcast. No disrespect to Mike and Mike, which is a good morning TV sports talk show, but on radio has the feel of an audio simulcast of a television show (which it is, on ESPN2) rather than good radio in and of itself.
I don't know if they'll do it...but if they want to draw decent numbers, 1280's best bet would be to forget about a network morning show from Fox or whatever source, have a local morning show from 6 to 12 featuring John DiTullio instead, and only throw it to the satellite when Jim Rome comes on at noon (a show they'll keep because Clear Channel's Premiere Networks subsidiary syndicates it). Mike O'Meara can then carry them to 7, and a mix of the Red Wings and Amerks with network sports will handle the nights for them.
And as far as WROC/950, they'd be better off simulcasting as much of WGR as they can, carrying their morning show with Howard Simon and Jeremy White, their afternoon show with Mike Schopp (who has some history in Rochester at WHTK in the mid-90s) and Bulldog Parker, and even their night mix of Dennis Williams and Sabres play-by-play. They can't do a full simulcast because Jim Rome's Clear Channel property, but ESPN can carry the load at other times when there's no Sabres game and 'GR can't be simulcast. No disrespect to Mike and Mike, which is a good morning TV sports talk show, but on radio has the feel of an audio simulcast of a television show (which it is, on ESPN2) rather than good radio in and of itself.
Bob1370 said:
This is starting to become a pattern with your posts man...I'm shaking my head as I type this...hopefully I avoid a headache since the Yanks are on in an hour and I need all my strength for that after last night's debacle with Girardi screwing up the bullpen! Trust me after Willie's ovation at Old Timer's Day...Joe needs to make the playoffs to keep his job!
Anyhow...to start...WHTK has never been ANYTHING but a place to dump extra commercials that are bonused to clients of WHAM, Kiss, & the Drive. No one in that building has taken that station seriously in 10 years....no one cares about, but they should have. It could have very easily been a nice mid 3 to mid 4 share station 12+ that could have made of some decent extra bucks in a town like Rochester. However, due to lack of interest in the product while not employing anyone to really oversee it...it went to crap.
Waiting this long to change from Hot Talk to Sportsradio is about 8 years too late. HTK has all the contracts since they were the only game in town. If I'm 950, I go to ESPN and force the issue giving them majority clearance. They can't be wanting to accept having an affiliate that only runs 1 show plus some weekend stuff, plus Sunday Night Baseball, and some other junk.
DiTullio WILL NOT come off WHAM before 9am to do his own show...bad deal strategy & moneywise for CC to do so. Besides they won't pump anymore money into local talent at this time with a 1 share 12+ and maybe a 2 share in some other demos in some dayparts. My guess is the CC big office will force them to take Steve Czaban and leave DiTullio where he is from 9am-Noon. Fox's "Out Of Bounds" show with Craig Sheeman and James Washington is terrible since Sheeman still thinks he's doing Top 40 radio and Washington is such a homer in defending criminal athletes and other malcontents saying they need their money too...that it would be a waste of airtime that the locals would scream!
Rome was a smart pickup after the other sports station in Rochester that American Radio Systems had in the early to mid 90's went up in smoke that Barry V ran. Funny thing is...it was one of Rome's original 4 affiliates when he went national and Barry will have his place in history since he still gets referred to as "Monkey V"...Rome's title for program directors at his affiliates. Rome shoulda came to Rochester back in the day...it probably would helped the legacy of 1280 in the beginning...but again, no one wanted to spend any money.
Having Don & Mike was a joke (being on 1280) from the beginning and I can't believe it's still there...but having something that draws half of Rome's numbers (which aren't bad) is better than something that would draw 1/3 or less by putting either of the ESPN or Fox shows on. What they should have done to grow 1280 back in the day to prevent a possible infiltration by another local group...was to give Bob Matthews a local afternoon show from 3p-6p and keep him off WHAM. We go back to the money thing again about why that never happened. Having him on WHAM as 1 hour of sports talk has never made sense.
Now Bob...here's where I have to really shake my head...950's gonna debut to serve Rochester...by simulcasting as much of Buffalo's local programming as possible? How is that gonna make Rochester listeners care about the station? They either need to run some ESPN and some local or it'll be a giant waste. An all local, all sports morning show in Rochester will never survive for a variety of reasons. They need to take Mike and Mike since they'll never get Fox from Premiere/CC in the market, hire local midday and afternoon hosts and run Yankees from April-September, then Sabres from Oct-March. Find some talented youngsters from smaller markets and give them a shot in Rochester by spending 75-100K on local talent. Live and local from 10a-1p on Saturday and fill the rest with ESPN and other games. I could turn that sucker into a moneymaker in 1 year given those things....EASILY.
Suddenly, 2 all sports stations in one market? And a market with no major league sports. Sounds a little bit when Entercom jumped the gun on WHLD by going Progressive Talk a couple years back. Now CC's doing it to Entercom here in Rochester?
The only AM station will continue to get ratings will be WHAM. No other Rochester AM will ever get decent number ever again. WHAM will only get good numbers as long as there current audience is still alive. I also miss those old days of AM dominance, but we gotta face it - it's all over.
I agree. I'm not the biggest sports fan in the world, but do Rochester sports fans want to be constantly reminded that Buffalo has 2 major league teams and they have none? Not gonnna work.
The only AM station will continue to get ratings will be WHAM. No other Rochester AM will ever get decent number ever again. WHAM will only get good numbers as long as there current audience is still alive. I also miss those old days of AM dominance, but we gotta face it - it's all over.
I have been hoping for years that WHTK would drop "Don & Mike" (now just Mike), stop whoring out to the local minor league teams (e.g., Amerks, Red Wings), and carry all of the Yankee games. The new station may be able to steal the Yankees, if they agree to carry all of the games.
It will be interesting to see what happens with WHTK's schedule when 950 starts up the sports format. Will WHTK just replace Mike and Mike with Steve Czyban or they tweak the schedule up.
one option could be to move John DiTullios show up to 6-9am and have synicated programming from 9-noon (Dan Patrick or FSR) or 6 hours of local sports talk from 6am-noon with more local personalities? Will the Mike O Meara show stay on the schedule??
one option could be to move John DiTullios show up to 6-9am and have synicated programming from 9-noon (Dan Patrick or FSR) or 6 hours of local sports talk from 6am-noon with more local personalities? Will the Mike O Meara show stay on the schedule??
ericNY said:
An important part of DiTullio's paycheck is him being part of "The Wham Morning News." He couldn't be on WHTK from 6 - 9.
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Bob1370
Guest
"Now Bob...here's where I have to really shake my head...950's gonna debut to serve Rochester...by simulcasting as much of Buffalo's local programming as possible? How is that gonna make Rochester listeners care about the station? They either need to run some ESPN and some local or it'll be a giant waste."
I've actually said, elsewhere on this board, that if they really want to make 950 viable they ought to turn it to a Latino station with local morning and afternoon drive shows, be the first choice of over 50,000 Spanish speaking people living within that constricted primary signal contour (generating at least that much cume) and enjoy a 2-3 share with up to a decade of format monopoly before the target population spreads and grows enough to attract an FM challenger.
But they clearly aren't going to do that now, and probably won't in the next year or two while the window of opportunity's likely to remain open. I also don't see them running any more local programming (next to none) than they do now, or have done since they unwisely let Allan Harris go. So if that's the case, then mixing WGR programming with ESPN at least gives them a regional flavor and covers some of what sports-oriented listeners in this market are interested in talking about (the Bills have a BIG fan base here, and the Sabres a sizable though smaller one). It gives them something to air with some local appeal for minimal additional bucks, which seems to be what they want, and gives them a little more audience and revenue potential than just hooking up to the satellite and forgetting about it.
I've actually said, elsewhere on this board, that if they really want to make 950 viable they ought to turn it to a Latino station with local morning and afternoon drive shows, be the first choice of over 50,000 Spanish speaking people living within that constricted primary signal contour (generating at least that much cume) and enjoy a 2-3 share with up to a decade of format monopoly before the target population spreads and grows enough to attract an FM challenger.
But they clearly aren't going to do that now, and probably won't in the next year or two while the window of opportunity's likely to remain open. I also don't see them running any more local programming (next to none) than they do now, or have done since they unwisely let Allan Harris go. So if that's the case, then mixing WGR programming with ESPN at least gives them a regional flavor and covers some of what sports-oriented listeners in this market are interested in talking about (the Bills have a BIG fan base here, and the Sabres a sizable though smaller one). It gives them something to air with some local appeal for minimal additional bucks, which seems to be what they want, and gives them a little more audience and revenue potential than just hooking up to the satellite and forgetting about it.
As I stated earlier, I am really going to miss WROC. I don't really get KB -a lot of static. It's just good to hear another point of view. But that said, I am not surprised by their change to sports and ESPN radio. I know Disney Radio has been after them for years. I am sure that ESPN is going to pay them enough bucks to pay the power bill. And after all, they are in it strictly for the money. It is a business. I wouldn't be surprised if Michael Doyle tried to hang on to the format as long as he could.
Now as far as two sports stations in the market go, Syracuse has two full time sports stations and Syracuse could certainly support a progressive talk format. Syracuse has S. U. basketball but no other sports that are a big deal. Plus Ed Levine has the rights to all S. U. sports and has put them on his music oriented FM stations.
Utica-Rome, at last count, has four full time all sports stations plus WIBX which dropped O'Reily and runs an afternoon drive local sports show. Certainy no major league sports in that town. They don't even have a professional hockey team or "A" league baseball teams in Utica or Little Falls anymore. Utica used to be a huge baseball and hockey town. Now on the afternoon show on WIBX they talk about American Legion baseball and high school football and basketball and they make it work! So I guess two sports stations in Rochester make sense but I'll never listen to either one of them unless they put on the Yankees or Imus. I listen to Mathews, ocasionally, and listen to the Bills when I am not near a TV but otherwise sports on the radio just doesn't work for me. It's the TV for sports.
Now as far as two sports stations in the market go, Syracuse has two full time sports stations and Syracuse could certainly support a progressive talk format. Syracuse has S. U. basketball but no other sports that are a big deal. Plus Ed Levine has the rights to all S. U. sports and has put them on his music oriented FM stations.
Utica-Rome, at last count, has four full time all sports stations plus WIBX which dropped O'Reily and runs an afternoon drive local sports show. Certainy no major league sports in that town. They don't even have a professional hockey team or "A" league baseball teams in Utica or Little Falls anymore. Utica used to be a huge baseball and hockey town. Now on the afternoon show on WIBX they talk about American Legion baseball and high school football and basketball and they make it work! So I guess two sports stations in Rochester make sense but I'll never listen to either one of them unless they put on the Yankees or Imus. I listen to Mathews, ocasionally, and listen to the Bills when I am not near a TV but otherwise sports on the radio just doesn't work for me. It's the TV for sports.
Bob...
I know what you said in another thread...but I was responding the comments you made within this one...since that's what matters in this discussion here. There's not a realistic way to pull off a Latino station in Rochester in this current economic/radio climate. There a 4% population for it...half of that is English speaking to begin with. There's never also been a strong desire by the community to have one either. Next....
So let's tackle your previous point again...new sports station in Rochester with Buffalo based programming and hosts. You think they'll start adding in talk about the Red Wings, Amerks, Knighthawks, hoops, and soccer just to give it a more regional feel? Insert the line of LOL's here. And that's gonna happen in light of what appears to be a giant ratings dump in the Spring book for WGR? The first time the P1's of WGR even sense that the content is shifting to give a more regional feel to help Rochester will be the day I begin to smell the ashes burning. Buffalo fans don't care about Rochester sports...nor do they wish to hear anything more than a mention when it's relevant (Wings vs. Bisons, Bills camp in Rochester, etc.) C'mon......think man! This isn't about Rochester fans getting to hear Bills and Sabres talk from the big city station...it's about creating a station that talks about that and Rochester sports to serve ROCHESTER LISTENERS BASED IN DOWNTOWN ROCHESTER!!!!
Jim...
Disney radio isn't a viable format either...Entercom owns the leading CHR in the market...after paying a load of cash, they're gonna risk cannibalizing PXY and losing kids plus their moms to a badly run satellite product on a crappy AM signal? As far as Syracuse...Galaxy hasn't made money on SU sports yet and it will take a while...it's never been a ratings bonus to anyone except for WSYR back in the day. Utica-Rome doesn't have 4 sports stations...it's 1 that has 3 translators to cover the market properly since all 4 have weak signals and no single one can cover Central NY. WIBX hasn't been a powerhouse in over a decade for a variety of reasons. But, yes...I'll agree they make it work to an extent.
And can we please end the discussion of DiTullio coming off WHAM to do mornings on the new 1280? When that happens, I'll also expect to see Beth & Chet do mornings on Kiss, Bob Matthews will stop his incoherent ramblings while talking over his callers, and Lonsberry won;t ever make a racist statement ever again.
I know what you said in another thread...but I was responding the comments you made within this one...since that's what matters in this discussion here. There's not a realistic way to pull off a Latino station in Rochester in this current economic/radio climate. There a 4% population for it...half of that is English speaking to begin with. There's never also been a strong desire by the community to have one either. Next....
So let's tackle your previous point again...new sports station in Rochester with Buffalo based programming and hosts. You think they'll start adding in talk about the Red Wings, Amerks, Knighthawks, hoops, and soccer just to give it a more regional feel? Insert the line of LOL's here. And that's gonna happen in light of what appears to be a giant ratings dump in the Spring book for WGR? The first time the P1's of WGR even sense that the content is shifting to give a more regional feel to help Rochester will be the day I begin to smell the ashes burning. Buffalo fans don't care about Rochester sports...nor do they wish to hear anything more than a mention when it's relevant (Wings vs. Bisons, Bills camp in Rochester, etc.) C'mon......think man! This isn't about Rochester fans getting to hear Bills and Sabres talk from the big city station...it's about creating a station that talks about that and Rochester sports to serve ROCHESTER LISTENERS BASED IN DOWNTOWN ROCHESTER!!!!
Jim...
Disney radio isn't a viable format either...Entercom owns the leading CHR in the market...after paying a load of cash, they're gonna risk cannibalizing PXY and losing kids plus their moms to a badly run satellite product on a crappy AM signal? As far as Syracuse...Galaxy hasn't made money on SU sports yet and it will take a while...it's never been a ratings bonus to anyone except for WSYR back in the day. Utica-Rome doesn't have 4 sports stations...it's 1 that has 3 translators to cover the market properly since all 4 have weak signals and no single one can cover Central NY. WIBX hasn't been a powerhouse in over a decade for a variety of reasons. But, yes...I'll agree they make it work to an extent.
And can we please end the discussion of DiTullio coming off WHAM to do mornings on the new 1280? When that happens, I'll also expect to see Beth & Chet do mornings on Kiss, Bob Matthews will stop his incoherent ramblings while talking over his callers, and Lonsberry won;t ever make a racist statement ever again.
Disney radio isn't a viable format either...Entercom owns the leading CHR in the market...after paying a load of cash, they're gonna risk cannibalizing PXY and losing kids plus their moms to a badly run satellite product on a crappy AM signal?
I didn't say Entercom was interested in Disney radio. Disney Radio has been interested in 950 since their adult standards days. Disney just wants to get into the market.
Utica-Rome doesn't have 4 sports stations...it's 1 that has 3 translators to cover the market properly since all 4 have weak signals and no single one can cover Central NY.
WTLB 1310 can not be desribed as a weak station. They have a great 5KW daytime signal. Their 500 watt night time signal may leave a little to be desired. WIXT (will always be WLFH to me) 1230 has a great 1 KW signal full time and the last I knew did split from the other stations occasionally. WRNY 1350 , well, TLB pretty much covers their signal area anyway. And with their 10 watts (or whatever) at night why bother? But you left out ESPN on 1420. I don't know their calls but they used to be WALY. They are totally independent of the other stations -different ownership. WIBX not only has their local afternoon sports show but do a lot of local sporting events. I don't know who has the Yankees, Mets, Bills, etc, in the market, but Ed, of course, has S. U. on his trio of AM's.
I didn't say Entercom was interested in Disney radio. Disney Radio has been interested in 950 since their adult standards days. Disney just wants to get into the market.
Utica-Rome doesn't have 4 sports stations...it's 1 that has 3 translators to cover the market properly since all 4 have weak signals and no single one can cover Central NY.
WTLB 1310 can not be desribed as a weak station. They have a great 5KW daytime signal. Their 500 watt night time signal may leave a little to be desired. WIXT (will always be WLFH to me) 1230 has a great 1 KW signal full time and the last I knew did split from the other stations occasionally. WRNY 1350 , well, TLB pretty much covers their signal area anyway. And with their 10 watts (or whatever) at night why bother? But you left out ESPN on 1420. I don't know their calls but they used to be WALY. They are totally independent of the other stations -different ownership. WIBX not only has their local afternoon sports show but do a lot of local sporting events. I don't know who has the Yankees, Mets, Bills, etc, in the market, but Ed, of course, has S. U. on his trio of AM's.
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