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Why Sports In Stereo on FM

J

JimTroost

Guest
Radio fan not staff so this might be a dumb question, but what's with the move to FM Stereo stations (101.5 and 97.1) broadcasting in STEREO with all talk programming? I remember 101 the river and grew up with WMRY which I think even had KSHE's Mark Close for a while.

FM Stereo for "all talk" or all sports seems like such a darn waste. You don't need STEREO high fidelity for sports or yak, yak talk shows.... let those people tune into lo-fi AM where they belong and instead put some decent music programming on FM Stereo analog or digital stations.

Why would stations waste the high fi STEREO on talk?
 
Talk is a big money maker which is why stations like Emmis which don't own any stations here in St. Louis decided to turn one of their FM stations into the self-processed conservative talk station and Fox News Radio affiliate in St. Louis.

ESPN was a different story, they've bounced around on the AM dial and were not able to find a stable AM affiliate in St. Louis, I think they last ended up on 1380 AM. This was going on when 101.1 ditched the River and went to that Movin' format that was popular for three months. Why they didn't go back to the River I don't know, but now that ship has sailed with the birth of 100.3 the Sound. My guess was they saw how popular FM sports was getting in places like Baltimore and Boston and they thought that since St. Louis was as sports crazy as those places that it could make some good money having an ESPN Radio affiliate on FM.

/just my two cents from a radio listener with no connection with the industry
 
The question wasn't "why sports on FM" but rather "why sports in stereo on FM".

I agree with the question and have wondered the same thing many times. No need for stereo FM on non-music stations.
 
landtuna said:
The question wasn't "why sports on FM" but rather "why sports in stereo on FM".

I agree with the question and have wondered the same thing many times. No need for stereo FM on non-music stations.
Click to expand...

Oops, my mistake.
 
I'm not a big fan of N/T or sports on FM, but it looks like it would make sense for them to broadcast in mono to get a clean signal out further. WWTN 99.7 is the major news/talk station in the Nashville area and unless things have changed in recent years they broadcast in mono, which makes their signal go out a lot further. I don't listen to them regularly, but I do know that there are times that they come in stronger in the Jackson/Dyersburg area stronger than WMC-FM in Memphis on the same frequency, especially in the Summer.
 
anotherguy said:
I'm not a big fan of N/T or sports on FM, but it looks like it would make sense for them to broadcast in mono to get a clean signal out further. WWTN 99.7 is the major news/talk station in the Nashville area and unless things have changed in recent years they broadcast in mono, which makes their signal go out a lot further. I don't listen to them regularly, but I do know that there are times that they come in stronger in the Jackson/Dyersburg area stronger than WMC-FM in Memphis on the same frequency, especially in the Summer.
Click to expand...

To say I'm not a big fan of n/t or sports radio ANYWHERE would be a big fan. Like some sports (soccer, basketball and hockey mainly) but HATE sports radio or news talk radio. I'd rather see either of those formats **stuck** on AM where they traditionally have been.
 
JimTroost said:
Why would stations waste the high fi STEREO ontalk?
Click to expand...
They have to do this on FM because very few people have C-QUAM AM stereo receivers.
Look up the word sarchasm and you will see my pic next to it.
 
I dunno. One thing about stereo is that you could listen on headphones, and if there's a duo doing a show, you could hear them in each speaker as if there was an actual conversation going on.

Add to that, any stereo sporting event would sound more natural with crowd noises in each ear.

My 2 centavos.

cd
 
But, south and west of the center of the metro, that can hurt reception in the ol' STEREO SWATH... 2dBU louder adn 6% more horizontal signal for taking a sports-talker to mono on FM.. Sure does not hurt WWTN in Nashville...
 
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