Houston to get third sports talk station
The Chronicle's David Barron reports that Houston is about to get a third sports talk radio station:
KFNC (97.5 FM) will become ESPN Radio's Houston affiliate in January, giving the city three all-sports radio stations, the general manager of the Cumulus Media-owned station said Tuesday.
Pat Fant, the longtime Houston radio executive who is Cumulus' Houston market manager, said the station will mix ESPN Radio programming with one or more local shows and, if the opportunity presents itself, local sports play-by-play.
"This opportunity presented itself to us, and it was a clear fit for the goals of our company and for ESPN to leverage that big brand name on an FM station in this market," Fant said. "We're excited about the talent we're going to put front and center on the FM version of ESPN Radio."
ESPN Radio will switch from KBME (790 AM), which signed on as Houston's second all-sports station in late 2004, in early January.
[snip]
Fant said [KFNC] "has a number of options and is talking to some great talent right now" about local talk shows.
Most national sports talk is a total bore, with the exception of Jim Rome. It's cheap enough for a station that nobody listens to (97.5) to pump in sports satellite feeds of radio snores like Dan Patrick, but my guess would be that people want to hear local sports talk. Afternoons are pretty well covered (the 610 crew has the ratings despite the drag of Rich Lord, and 790's Palillo has his appeal), mornings are still up for grabs (610 is entrenched, and 790's morning show is truly awful), and afternoons are Rome's. Since ESPN is switching affiliations because they want their national show on instead of 790's truly awful morning show, they don't seem likely to gain a local sports talk following.
A Ticket-like station might still be a hit in Houston, but no programmer seems inclined to do that. So, instead we'll have three so-so sports talk stations in Houston.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/11/06 10:23 AM | Technorati | Comments (3)
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