Detroit Radio News

[ynkeesfn82]

3 station groups are going after the 2016 radio rights for the Tigers and Redwings Radio Contract.

News/Talk 760 WJR are making a big for the team. The 50KW station is owned by Atlanta based Cumulus. WJR previous carried The Tigers from 1964-2000.

Also making a bid for the teams are the combo of CBS Sports 1270 WXYT and it's FM sister Station Sports Radio 97.1 The Ticket. This would be a contract renewal for them.

The third station making the bid for the teams is Greater Media Inc. The New Jersey based company owns 94.7 WCSX, 101 FM The Riff WRIF, and Detroit Sports Radio 105.1 WMGC. WMGC already carry The Pistons.

[TheFugitive]

Would the Tigers want to go back to an AM flagship?

Though I liked when WJR carried the games, as even after I left Michigan
the signal carried throughout most of Ohio and even here to Pittsburgh.
Since then a local station has switched frequencies to 770, so I can't get
WJR anymore.

[Hudsons81]

I knew Marc would go around and make this eventually. :D

I can't believe it looks like the Tigers will be returning to WJR, as we listened to them on there during almost the entire first half of my life.

I happen to live within a couple miles of WJR's transmitter.

[Hudsons81]

CBS will lay off 13 people across it's five Detroit radio outlets. These cuts will be especially hard on WWJ AM 950, where the newscasts will now be done by "less experienced people."

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/neal-rubin/2015/07/16/radio-silence-wwj-quietly-cuts-staff-live-newscast/30217235/

[TheFugitive]

That's too bad.  WWJ was a much appreciated source for breaking news when I lived in Michigan.

Fortunately KQV here in Pittsburgh is under local ownership and does not have these stockholder-driven
concerns.

[ynkeesfn82]

The new head of CBS Radio is  new douche-boogie. He's not a radio guy and it's been a bloodbath (I know bad pun considering what happened in Tennessee yesterday) and CBS Radio all week long. So far 300 people have been axed across the country from on-air talent to sales weasels to management to secretaries to board operators. One guy let go from KYW NEWS RADIO 1060 in Philly was ousted after 36 years! On top of that CBS Hartford CT appears to be on the market again. (It's reportedly been on and off the market for 5 years). That would be WTIC 1080 (News/Talk) WZMX 93.7 (hip-Hop), WTIC-FM 96.5 (Adult Top 40), and WRCH 100.5 (Adult Contemporary)

[TheFugitive]

My greatest memory of WWJ is from the night the Gulf War started in 1990.

I had the day off from my job at Ames.  I was sitting around my apartment shortly before dinner time when the first reports of cruise missiles being fired into Iraq came on CNN.  The tensions had been building for a number of weeks.   I decided that if a major war was going to break out, I at least wanted to have some beer in the fridge.  I put on my parka and boots and hiked up to a local grocery store about a mile away.  It was snowing very intensely.  Like being inside a snow globe.  The kind of snow coming so fast and heavy it drowns out all the sound around you.  I was carrying a little pocket transistor radio tuned to WWJ an listening to the news bulletins as I walked.  When I got to the store a large crowd of other customers stood around me to listen to these reports coming in on my little transistor radio.  After about twenty minutes or so I walked back to my place in the blizzard and watched that now legendary coverage from CNN.

[Hudsons81]

Just two days after Halloween, WNIC 100.3 starts the 2015 edition of their annual 100% Christmas playlist. The switch was thrown at around 8:30 AM today by Jay Towers, who is also a fill-in morning anchor at Fox owned-and-operated station WJBK. The first song after the switch was thrown was Andy Williams' "It's the Most Wondeful Time of the Year".

[TheFugitive]

Just two days after Halloween, WNIC 100.3 starts the 2015 edition of their annual 100% Christmas playlist. The switch was thrown at around 8:30 AM today by Jay Towers, who is also a fill-in morning anchor at Fox owned-and-operated station WJBK. The first song after the switch was thrown was Andy Williams' "It's the Most Wondeful Time of the Year".

Swell.  I have a horrible aversion to Christmas music.  A holdover from my career in retail management.
I break into cold sweats and have heart-racing flashbacks to Black Fridays past.

Can only tolerate it for about a week before we get to the actual holiday.