Radio Disney and remote appearances

[Matthew Osborne]

Yesterday my wife and stopped by the Fourth of July carnival/fireworks in Clifton Park NY (15 miles north of Albany) and I was shocked to see a van for Radio Disney AM 1460 doing an appearance there.  To clarify for those of you outside the Capital District of NY, Radio Disney shut down and sold off AM 1460 (formerly WDDY, now WOPG Albany) in January of this year.  It has carried a Catholic religious format since...

Does anyone know why Disney even bothers doing remote appearances like this in places where it doesn't even have a local affiliate?  I know of another instance of them doing an appearance like this; they were at the Lilac Festival in Rochester NY a year or two ago, and Rochester has never had a local Radio Disney affiliate.  I talked to one of the promotions assistants working the event, and they told me they had been sent up from New York City for yesterday's event.  Is this a case of the event being booked and reserved before the local shutdown/sale, or does Disney have some other marketing plan at work here?  Sending people up and back from NYC for something like this cannot be cheap...

Matthew Osborne
Rotterdam, NY