WEPN's Cume Already Higher Than WFAN's

[ai4i]

There is no way CBS will unload 660 AM and it's 50 kW blaster signal.

They would if they could trade old Betsy in for a set of shiney wheels on the FM dial 

[radioguy39nj]

Should be interesting to see how 98.7 does after the Stanley Cup when both WFAN and WCBS-AM have baseball play by play.

It'll be even more interesting at the end of this baseball season when both the Mets and Yankees radio deals are up with WFAN and WCBS-AM.  If WEPN-FM wants the Yankees, are they prepared to cater to them?  The Yankees have never been on a sports talk station.  IINM, they are not willing to be moved to another station for any Giants or Jets game, pre-season or regular season.  The same would apply to Knicks and Rangers playoff games early in baseball season.

If WEPN-FM really wants the Yankees, they will have to risk losing the Jets, Knicks and Rangers.

[TheBigA]

The other thing is that the ESPN Radio Network has national deals with the NBA and MLB for regular packages.  Would the corporate folks be willing to lose a NYC clear on their national package so the local station can air a local game?  That's not as easy as it sounds.  It works tonight because tonight's game is the Mets & Cardinals.  But next week it's the Indians and Cardinals.  How much liberty will the network give the local station over 165 game schedule?  That leads me to believe that ESPN might prefer to get a limited package of local games rather than the entire schedule, and split the teams (and the cost) with CBS.

[radioguy39nj]

ESPN might prefer to get a limited package of local games rather than the entire schedule, and split the teams (and the cost) with CBS.

I don't think the Yankees or the Mets will agree to that, especially the Yankees!  Also, WCBS-AM is losing $$$$ on Yankee games, incredible as it may seem!  The Yankees get $13MM per season from CBS.  The Boston Red Sox get $18MM from Entercom.  Whoever gets the Yankees in 2013 is going to have to overpay for those rights.

[TheBigA]

I don't think the Yankees or the Mets will agree to that, especially the Yankees! 

The goal for any rights holder is to get multiple outlets for your content.  And the goal for content users is to minimize the rights fee.   That's why I think either team would agree to split the rights between both ESPN and CBS Radio.  That way, the team makes more money and reaches more people, and the stations each get content on certain days of the week to sell without the commitment for the entire season.  The teams have already agreed to split the rights for national TV coverage on Fox, ESPN, TBS, and MLB.  So it makes sense to do the same for radio.

[reelyreal]

I don't think the Yankees or the Mets will agree to that, especially the Yankees! 

The goal for any rights holder is to get multiple outlets for your content.  And the goal for content users is to minimize the rights fee.   That's why I think either team would agree to split the rights between both ESPN and CBS Radio.  That way, the team makes more money and reaches more people, and the stations each get content on certain days of the week to sell without the commitment for the entire season.  The teams have already agreed to split the rights for national TV coverage on Fox, ESPN, TBS, and MLB.  So it makes sense to do the same for radio.

It's never been done that way for any of the major league teams on radio.  Not to say it couldn't be done, but it'd be really interesting if it were.

[TheBigA]

It's never been done that way for any of the major league teams on radio.  Not to say it couldn't be done, but it'd be really interesting if it were.

If anyone is going to do things differently, it's probably going to be one of these two teams.  And I think once they do, everyone will see why it makes sense.  Rights fees are too expensive to be absorbed by one station.   They won't be getting cheaper, and in this marketplace, it's unlikely that advertisers will pick up the expense.

[TimeIsTight]

>>>Rights fees are too expensive to be absorbed by one station.   They won't be getting cheaper, and in this marketplace, it's unlikely that advertisers will pick up the expense.<<<

Like every other price in a free market, rights fees are determined by what a buyer is willing to pay, and what a seller is willing to accept.

If CBS is losing millions a year on baseball broadcasts in the New York market, it's hard to understand why they would want to pay more and lose more by bidding even higher, or why competitors would bid big so they could lose big money too.  At some point there has to be an equilibrium price that makes some kind of sense for the broadcasters.

Some other professional sports teams buy their own radio time and sell their own spots, which guarantees a profit for the radio stations.  And look at the problems the NY Islanders have had finding a good radio signal for game coverage, at different times in recent seasons they have been heard on a daytime AM, a low power local commercial FM, and an even lower power non-commercial college station.

At some point, the teams have to realize that while the prestige of being a particular team's radio affiliate may help promote the station brand, if the stations consistently wind up losing millions as a result that, kind of, defeats the station's reason for existing.  You can't eat "prestige" or pay your bills with it either, and radio stations have bills to pay from electricity to employee salaries.   

Splitting the "pain" of losing money on game coverage across multiple outlets in a market doesn't make sense.  It's hard to imagine Bloomberg Radio 1130, or Salem's WNYM caring a bit about carrying sports if they can't be paid up front with a guaranteed profit on the coverage.  Both stations provide backup sports coverage, and neither station relies on Arbitron ratings to sell advertising on its regular programs.

It will be interesting to see how much of a cume boost WEPN gets from being on FM when the numbers come out soon.  If the FM numbers are large WFAN might have more incentive to go after the cume boost that being the Yankees affiliate could provide next year.  However, looking at the WCBS numbers, it appears the Yankees provide a boost of only about 500,000 listeners to station cume, and that may not be near the size of the boost that being on FM could bring. Remember the top music stations have a weekly audience that is ten times that size.  It's going to be an interesting few months for sports radio in New York.

[TheBigA]

Splitting the "pain" of losing money on game coverage across multiple outlets in a market doesn't make sense. 

Sure it does.  As I pointed out, baseball and football already split rights fees among TV outlets.  It's a system that works well for both the teams and the stations.  Why can't radio do the same?  The teams won't be cutting the rights fees, especially in NYC, and to be honest, there are too many baseball games for any one station to air.  It's logical, and I expect it to happen. 

[TimeIsTight]

Would you really expect big-time rivals WFAN and WEPN to be willing to "share" the Yankees coverage?  It would not only be confusing to the listeners, it would require CBS and ESPN to each send out sales teams to compete against each other for spot sales. If the Yankees broadcasts are a money losing proposition now, what would they be then?  And the stations would lose any exclusive brand identification with the team.

TV is a totally different animal, since the Yankees own their primary network and produce their own TV coverage of the games even when they are carried over-the-air on WWOR-TV.  They could do the same thing with radio, and just lease air-time on radio stations, while producing their own coverage and selling their own spots like the Devils.  Then the games could be carried on as many stations as the Yankees want, the radio stations would be guaranteed a profit, and the Yankees could make as much money as the advertising market has to offer.  That might work best for all concerned but I don't expect that to happen either.  We'll see.