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Yankees on 97.9 ESPN

I hope Clear Channel doesn't lose any advertising revenue with this move. Me and a friend drove down to Trenton, NJ on Saturday to see an afternoon game with the Trenton Thunder (AA-level New York Yankees). He tuned his car's radio to 97.9, near the tunnel on CT Route 15 at the Hamden/New Haven town line. He was already getting a decent signal of 97.9 FM from New York City. There was no trace of WUCS-FM at that time.

As for the audio of the game, it's still in mono, just that the audio fidelity is a bit better, since they're on FM.

Meanwhile, the New Britain Rock Cats are on WPOP-AM 1410 of Hartford. Too bad that only a handful of those games are airing on the station. I'm fairly certain that WMRD-AM 1150 of Middletown isn't airing any of the games anymore.

On a side note, I was at the chilly season opener on Thursday evening at New Britain Stadium. Gone were any of the advertisements related to CBS Radio. Besides the ad on the outfield wall for WPOP-AM, there were ads near the concessions for WKSS-FM 95.7 and WHCN-FM 105.9. Both had the prominent I-Heart Radio logo either on the top or side of the ad.
 
KML-224 said:
Meanwhile, the New Britain Rock Cats are on WPOP-AM 1410 of Hartford. Too bad that only a handful of those games are airing on the station. I'm fairly certain that WMRD-AM 1150 of Middletown isn't airing any of the games anymore.
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Only a partial radio schedule? Pretty sure that would make the Cats the only team in the league without full coverage. Shades of the '80s! I hope the new management didn't overplay its hand and hardball itself out of a full broadcast schedule just to bail out on the floundering HD Radio.
 
I'm wondering about Trenton, NJ and the Thunder (AA-level Yankees). Their listed coverage said WTSR-FM 91.3 Trenton, from the College of New Jersey. There was an ad in the program which also mentioned WBCB-AM 1490 of Levittown, PA, but I believe that coverage is part time. As for a non-commercial station airing the games, I think it's been done before. I swear that WFCS-FM of New Britain, back when they were 97.9 FM in 1983 or 1984 (moved to 107.7 FM around 1990), carried many of the old New Britain Red Sox games.
 
For the past couple of seasons, a big league franchise, the New York Islanders, has had its games broadcast on Hofstra University's FM station -- the team must have no following in NYC proper and therefore can't find a radio home on the city's commercial AM or FM dials.
 
KML-224 said:
Meanwhile, the New Britain Rock Cats are on WPOP-AM 1410 of Hartford. Too bad that only a handful of those games are airing on the station. I'm fairly certain that WMRD-AM 1150 of Middletown isn't airing any of the games anymore.
Click to expand...

WLIS/WMRD just announced on their Facebook Page that they would be carry the road games of the Rockcats.
 
MarcB said:
KML-224 said:
Meanwhile, the New Britain Rock Cats are on WPOP-AM 1410 of Hartford. Too bad that only a handful of those games are airing on the station. I'm fairly certain that WMRD-AM 1150 of Middletown isn't airing any of the games anymore.
Click to expand...

WLIS/WMRD just announced on their Facebook Page that they would be carry the road games of the Rockcats.
Click to expand...

The Rock Cats website has further details. "Most" home games will be on 1410 and online. The rest will be on 97.9 HD-2 and online. All road games will be on WMRD/WLIS.

I caught a couple of innings of Wednesday afternoon's game on 'POP and didn't hear any voice but Jeff Dooley's. Not sure if a color man will be added at some later date.
 
By the way, I was driving on Dixwell Avenue in Hamden today, near the New Haven line, and the 97.9 signal was very scratchy. As I moved toward the center of town and turned onto Whitney, I started getting interference from WQAQ at 98.1, with splatter continuing until about the Cheshire line. The scratchy, fringe-like quality of the 97.9 signal didn't really improve until I got into Wallingford on Rt. 68. I'm guessing Yankees fans in this area are listening on WCBS or WICC or via Sirius XM.
 
newbritainradio said:
I thought 1300 WAVZ still had the Yankees this season.
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They still do.

Hartford area: 97.9 FM
Bridgeport area: 600 AM
New Haven area: 1300 AM

Are they on 800 AM in Danbury?

And you know what? With 97.9's non-existent signal in Waterbury, the Yankees need an affiliate out there again. 1240 AM dropped them a couple years ago. I don't think Buckley will pick them up again for 1240. And there's a better chance of a major 50KW FMer in Hartford going to an all Polka format than there is of WATR picking up the games.
 
newbritainradio said:
I thought 1300 WAVZ still had the Yankees this season.
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1300 is a non-player at night, when most Yankees games are played, once you get into northern Hamden and Cheshire. In Wallingford, WAVZ sounds like a low-power DX signal. WPOP's signal is no great shakes in that area at night, either, so maybe the folks there have been depending on WCBS or WICC for a while now.
 
Here in the Waterbury area, a Spanish language station often dominates 97.9 FM, and makes WUCS unreadable. It's a shame there are large portions of the state where WPOP actually has better (daytime) coverage. WPOP after sunset is a lost cause.
Perhaps WUCS can move their antenna further south, or onto the West peak site?
 
Pete Miller said:
Here in the Waterbury area, a Spanish language station often dominates 97.9 FM, and makes WUCS unreadable. It's a shame there are large portions of the state where WPOP actually has better (daytime) coverage. WPOP after sunset is a lost cause.
Perhaps WUCS can move their antenna further south, or onto the West peak site?
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Can't be done, short-spaced to 97.9 WSKQ-FM New York (Mega 97.9) and a whole host of other radio stations.
 
Although it was down when I went to submit it last night 97.9 ESPN has a link on their website to submit interference complaints. After I filled out the information and clicked submit it brought me to A Page Not Found page. They hope to work with the FCC to eliminate the interference.

http://www.979espn.com/

The problem in Waterbury (and to a lesser extant Wolcott) is translator 97.9 W250AA licensed to Naugatuck//WFAR 93.3 Danbury. It's a Portuguese station. If that translator went away I'm sure WUCS's reception would be much improved in Waterbury and Wolcott. W250AA also caused the same reception issues with 97.9 back when their antenna was in Massachusetts. (Also certain areas of Southington).
 
Somewhere in the article, they hinted at WFME-FM 94.7 of Newark, NJ. Man I hope they don't end up there, because that signal in Midtown Manhattan is crap.
 
http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/story/_/id/7857507/espn-new-york-1050-moving-987-fm-dial

ESPN moves from 1050 to 98.7, with WRKS (Kiss) merging formats with longtime rival WBLS and moving to the upper end of the dial. 1050 will go all-Spanish (ESPN Deportes). The Yankees are expected to follow at the expiration of their current contract.

The AM-ization of FM continues to gather steam, as does the ghettoization of AM -- on the road, IMO, to abandonment. Apparently, the coverage gaps that the move to FM will create in places like Waterbury don't matter. All the Yankees want is a solid signal covering the team's central market area that sellable demographics will listen to. Everyone else can go satellite, smartphone or internet.
 
The Yankees definately winding up on 98.7 in New York is just speculation at this point. There is no question in my mind ESPN will make a serious bid to try to obtain the rights to the games. But who knows for sure if they will bid enough to make it worth it for the Yankees considering many less people would be able to pick up the games than they do now. Sure the Yankees can make sure they have a strong lineup of affiliate stations to fill in the gaps of coverage. I know in some parts of CT, people listen to the games on WCBS because they have trouble picking up one of the stations in CT that carries the Yankees. If the Yankees do move to 98.7, some people in CT and other areas outside of the New York City area may be shut out from listening to the games on the radio. Yes they can purchase the MLB package and get the games that way but there are still people, especially the elderly, that don't have a computer or a mobile device so that wouldn't even be an option for those people. But maybe the Yankees don't care anymore and will take the biggest offer even though less people would be able to listen to the games. But I am not so sure the Yankees will wind there because in the past it seemed to be important for the Yankees to be on a 50,000 watt clear channel station. I can see a scenerio where the Mets wind up on 98.7 and the Yankees on WFAN. This is a guess on my part so we will have to wait and see what happens.
 
mikedorb said:
Yes they can purchase the MLB package and get the games that way but there are still people, especially the elderly, that don't have a computer or a mobile device so that wouldn't even be an option for those people. But maybe the Yankees don't care anymore and will take the biggest offer even though less people would be able to listen to the games.
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It's not the Yankees that don't care. It's radio, or more specifically, radio advertisers.
 
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