KDKA Loses Pirates Baseball Contract

[AB3L]

Over 50 years of history ends as the Pittsburgh Pirates moves to Clear Channel FM. Old audience and lack of education cited as reason to move on.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06256/721380-63.stm

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

I love how the reporter refers to Clear Channel as an empire, but not CBS.

Speaking of empires....

On May 17, 1992, a chain of events was set into motion that would change the newspaper business in Pittsburgh forever. A strike was called by unions working for the Pittsburgh Press Company that effectively shut down The Press for eight long months. Because of the Joint Operating Agreement, that also meant the Post-Gazette was unable to publish.

By October of 1992, Scripps Howard decided to sell the Press Company. On December 31, 1992, the sale became effective, and the Block family owned both Pittsburgh newspapers.

Soon the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette roared back to life, better than ever, on January 13, 1993. The Blocks opted not to print The Press and began publishing the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette seven days a week in the morning.

Now, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is headed by Publisher John Robinson Block, son of Paul Block Jr. Allan Block serves as chairman and David Beihoff as president. The Block family's other holdings, under the corporate name of Block Communications Inc., or BCI, include the Blade (Toledo, Ohio), cable TV systems, a telephone company, broadcast television stations and a home security company.

--- http://www.post-gazette.com/aboutpg/history.asp

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Gee, I never knew you needed to have a college degree to listen to a baseball game on the radio. The same marketing wonks who killed the oldies, standards, and smooth jazz formats in many markets because they feel older people don't buy products also think that older people don't listen to ball games.

You are correct; it's about buying power or likelihood of buying. That's the instant gratification generations or 25-50 year olds. Those older may actually have more money but are less likely to part with it. But, it’s still a good approach for sustaining the fan base. After all, if CC wants to keep the Pirates for the next 10-20 years, who better to market to than younger people? Makes sense.

The Pirates may have shot themselves in the foot. With its nondirectional 50 kW AM signal, KDKA reached Pirates fans in distant cities. While those listeners don't count much for local advertising revenue, they do count for fan loyalty. On FM, even with its powerful Class B signal, WPGB can't do that.

In an absolute technical sense, you are right. But in reality, the FM will cover the main fan base much better than KDKA could. I grew up 60 mile from Pittsburgh. KDKA was very PW at night due to extremely bad interaction between the groundwave and skywave signals. Add in noise, EMI, powerline and such, and the AM signal got nailed a lot. Not so for FM. The 104.7 station was full quieting at my childhood home, day, night during any WX. Not so for KDKA.

If Clear Channel plans to stream the games on the Internet, they could reach listeners at home...but those people could get the games on cable TV. Why should they listen to a radio feed when they can watch the game?

Because they don't have cable or they don't want to be stuck in front of the TV. Radio allow one to move around and do other things, be portable. TV is a ball and chain. Further, many people prefer the radio announcers to the ones on TV. It was true for decades that many Steeler fans will turn down the TV audio while watching football game, and replace it with the radio audio.

Neither the FM coverage nor the Web stream can reach mobile listeners...that's still the strength of the large clear channel (the kind of channel, not the company) AM stations.

FM can reach mobile listeners just as well as AM. More car radios are tuned to FM than AM. That is an industry maxim. Further, web streams are or will soon be available to cell phones, PDAs, Pocket PCs, and other portable battery operated devices.

But let's get serious here. What did KDKA actually lose? Not much really. The Pirates haven't fielded a winning team since the early 90's. The product they've put on the field since is about at the minor league level. KDKA is probably better off.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Exactly my point Phil. So why then does the reporter only call Clear Channel an empire? Sounds like another brain dead reporter just spewing a line he's heard from others. Garbage.

Quote from: Steve - WB3HUZ on Today at 12:22:03
I love how the reporter refers to Clear Channel as an empire, but not CBS.


Both companies are huge media conglomerates and formidable empires. CBS owns more TV stations than does Clear Channel, as well as its radio and TV networks (radio network operations come under Westwood One, a CBS subsidiary), but Clear Channel has more radio stations, even in such tiny communities as Shamokin, PA. Both CBS and Clear Channel have a large outdoor advertising (billboard) business.

[c. mac neill w8znx]

not new
about 4 years ago WJR did not bother
to renew their contract with the Detroit Tigers

WJR had been the radio outlet for Detroit Tigers games
since the 40's

but WJR aint the station it use to be
now its all right wing talk

they must have wanted Dr. Laura and Rush more than
Tigers Baseball

now the games are on a graveyard channel 5 kw station

lets not get on the joint operaiting news papers
the local JOA broke
the newspaper unions here in Detroit about 10 years ago

Mac

[Bacon, WA3WDR]

Here in the Washington DC area, we recently had a big AM outlet go to FM, and they switched to mono for better range.  Whatever works, I guess.  Stations managers are going to go for the best coverage of the audience that advertisers want.

Radio is changing with technology, population and financial demographics.  And terrestrial broadcasters are now competing with satellite offerings like XM and Sirius.  That's Sirius competition!  (ducks)

[W1RKW]

I'm not a big baseball fan and never really got into watching it on TV but listening to a game on the radio or any other sport or program I found more enjoyable than TV.  I found listening to things on the radio more interesting and mind intriguing than TV by a million miles.  For some reason radio programs make the mind work.  I guess it's imagination stimulation. 

[Bacon, WA3WDR]

Switching to mono and turning the stereo pilot off gains an FM station 23 dB in increased signal to noise ratio. When WWDB was an FM talk station in Philadelphia, it stayed in mono during the talk shows. On Friday nights and Sunday mornings, when WWDB ran specialty music programs (nostalgia on Friday nights and Frank Sinatra on Sunday mornings), they would switch to stereo. Eventually, they kept the stereo pilot on all the time, as many receivers will mute in the absence of a stereo pilot. The old Heathkit FM tuners were notorious for that, but many current receivers also mute. The FCC did away with the rule prohibiting transmission of a stereo pilot during monaural programming some 25 years ago.

WWDB brings back memories.  I used to service radio stuff that was in the WWDB transmitter room on the Roxborough side of Philly.  They had a 25KW FM transmitter in there back then (early 80s).  They had a receiver and a loud monitor system with huge speakers in there; I liked to listen to rock while I worked there.  One day I went in there, and the AC had failed and it was like 115 degrees inside.  I called the engineer, but he didn't do anything until the transmitter overheated and went off the air.  Oh well, I told him.

Arrgh, muting receivers?  They'll have to forget about those, because if the stereo pilot is on, then the receiver would run the stereo decoder, and the 23dB advantage would be lost.

[Bill, KD0HG]

The new KDKA tower is too tall for the operating frequency, being 218.8 meters tall. At 1020 kHz, this represents 268 degrees. At that height, the radiation angle is too high and distortion zone fading, caused by skywave and groundwave cancellation, now occurs within the Pittsburgh city limits at night.

During critical hours and at night, I can hear KDKA very well in Wilkes-Barre. But the reception in some sections of Pittsburgh and out in the suburbs leaves much to be desired at night. For the local Pirates fans, the move to WPGB and FM is an improvement. Distant listeners will be tethered to a computer or TV set, unless Sirius or XM offer Pirates games on a subscription basis. Since many teams do not allow stations to stream their games on the Web, the computer may not be an option for distant fans.

Wow, Phil, a 268 degree tower? What a blunder. Are they using it to support an FM antenna? What's the deal with that?

We use a 208º (665') tower on Denver's 850 KOA for that very reason, to keep selective fading at bay. It was once over 700' tall, about as tall as the KDKA tower, or close to 5/8 λ and the top was bobbed off (well before my time). The closest I've ever heard any sunset selective fading is about 75-80 miles out from the tower, well outside the Denver metro area. One debateable issue is that the ground conductivity in the mountains here is so poor, skywave is seemingly the best way to get an AM signal to cover the state.

When I lived in Northern Illinois, I could receive 50KW ND stations out to 300 miles or so during the day on a big loop and the R-390. No problem receiving WLW, WJR and WHO/ Des Moines. Here in the dry, rough Colorado terrain, not so. 50 KW outlets at 300 miles during the day don't make it on the same sort of setup. Can't hear 50 KW ND KTWO on 1030 from Casper, WY, or 50 KW KOB on 770 out of Albuquerque, both about 300 miles away during the day. Conversely, can't hear 850 KOA Denver in Albuquerque during the day, but what a smokin' signal at night.
Skywave can be a good thing around here.
Our 100 KW class C mountaintop FMs can cover 150 miles, very competitive with the big AMs.