Soxless Boss

[John Francini]

At 16:22 -0400 5/5/06, Scott Fybush wrote:
>Dan Strassberg wrote:
>>There is no doubt whatever that, compared with 850, 680 has the better
>>coverage--except in MetroWest, where a slight edge goes to 680 by day and
>>850 by night but neither station has acceptable coverage at night. WRKO is
>>near local on Cape Cod and southern NH in a lot of places where WEEI is
>>barely audible.
>
>And while that's nice from an ego point of view for Entercom, it 
>doesn't do much for either ratings or Sox fans. Listeners on the 
>Cape are already well served by WXTK's big FM signal, and southern 
>NH has overlapping coverage from WBOQ and the WGIR network of AMs. 
>(Do either of the Nashua AMs have the Sox this year? I can't 
>remember!)

WGAM AM 900 has the games in Nashua, which is a godsend when WEEI's 
signal goes into the weeds after sunset.  I just wish the FCC didn't 
feel like it had to protect whatever Canadian 850 AM station its 
protecting with WEEI's massively curtailed night pattern.

>
>In reality, there is no single AM solution for the entire market 
>absent a deal with WBZ that's not going to happen. If the team's 
>going to be heard in MetroWest, it pretty much HAS to be on an FM 
>signal. It's too bad - sort of - that MetroWest never really had a 
>"local" class A FM to call its own, a la WBOQ or WATD. WKOX-FM once 
>filled that role, but it was moved into Boston as soon as it could 
>be.

Growing up in the 60s, weren't all four teams at one point on WBZ-AM 
1030, with overflow onto WBZ-FM 106.7?  Those were the days.  There 
was but one source for radio coverage of ALL Boston teams.

>
>If I were Entercom, I'd have long since moved WAAF to 93.7 and put 
>WEEI-FM on 103.7. Entercom has plenty of room under the ownership 
>cap to add 99.5 to its stable, if it's determined to keep "Mike" on 
>the air somewhere. (That, of course, assumes that the WCRB deal is 
>still on track, which opens up a whole new avenue for speculation 
>and rumor...)

You mean WEEI-FM on 107.3, right?  Wonder what sort of calls 103.7 
would get, unless it was one of those multi-transmitter simulcasts. 
(I remember such a thing in the San Francisco Bay Area--IIRC, there 
was a single station, with a single set of calls, on 98.9 and 99.1 -- 
98.9 was in San Jose, 99.1 in San Francisco.  But I could be wrong!)

john francini

-- 
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John Francini <mailto:francini@mac.com>
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