WEEI-FM transmitting in Mono

[Don]

> "...I honestly believe a great part of 98.5 the Sports Hub's success is
> derived from producing Patriots and Bruins games in stereo, combined with
> there use of music to create what I believe is a superior production
> value."
>
> There is not one single shred of evidence that stereo makes any difference
> at all to the ratings in primarily spoken-word formats.  OTOH, stereo
> somewhat
>  reduces fringe-area coverage and increases multipath distortion, so for a
> format where music is not the prime ingredient mono makes much more sense.

There is not a shred of evidence for a lot of programming decisions.

However, it doesn't stop programmers from deciding if something "helps" or
"hinders" attracting audience...

Keep in mind that up to 20% of every hour is not the content you would think
of when listening to a spoken word station......it's jingles, beds, spots,
etc.  So making that 20% of the programming sound better is probably more
important than worrying about fringe-area coverage.

I would vote that having the stereo ligh illuminate is on the plus side of
the ledger.

Also keep in mind that most fringe area listening does nothing for ratings.

>> Maybe when stereo was a novelty, but it hasn't been a novelty for decades 
>> now.

No, it's no longer a novelty...it an expected standard.