Outta Left Field
DCRTV:
UPDATE--Z 104's press release
Nationals To Z104, WFED - 2/17 - This just in. All night and evening Nationals baseball games will be heard on Bonneville's hot adult contemporary Z104 (104.1 FM/103.9 FM). All daytime games will be heard on Bonneville's federal news talker WFED (1050 AM). The announcement was made on Bonneville all-newser WTOP's airwaves at 4:04 PM Thursday by Joel Oxley, who heads Bonneville's DC radio cluster, which includes Z104, WFED, WTOP, and WGMS. This is a surprise because it was widely reported that the Nats' play-by-play finalists were Clear Channel's WTEM and Infinity's WJFK-FM. The games will be difficult to hear on the Baltimore area airwaves because of Clear Channel smooth jazzer WSMJ at 104.3, which is adjacent to Z104's 104.1 frequency. That full-powered signal, however, originates from southern Prince George's County, and has some weak coverage areas in DC's northern and western suburbs. Z104's 103.9 FM Frederick area outlet is relatively low-powered, as is WFED, which runs only 1,000-watts by day.....
UPDATE--Z 104's press release
posted by Chris Needham at
4:20 PM
3 Comments:
For radio, I don't imagine it's that uncommon--though that's just a guess.
I do know that the Orioles contract to broadcast in DC was set up that way. But I don't know if you'd count that as a home market, prior to this year.
By
Chris Needham, at 2/17/2005 8:40 PM
The Nationals buy the full block of programming time. They keep all the advertising revenue, both in-game and mid-inning.
By
Chris Needham, at 2/18/2005 10:59 AM
Not every team does it that way. And I'd suspect that the Nationals agreement next year won't work that way either. I think the timing of the situation, more than anything, forced their hand.
I would assume that the payments they're giving the station for the broadcast team result in some in-kind contributions on 104, but also on the other Bonneville stations, such as WTOP--which will be worth the price. Combine that with the cross-promotional abilities, and they'll do ok.
No, 104s core audience probably won't like it, but they'll probably have an increased audience for the games, some of whom might keep the station on even when the games aren't on.
By
Chris Needham, at 2/18/2005 11:45 AM
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