Time to go back to Radio 66
and do sports? 
Heâs 71 years old - Iâd be retiring. Heâs too old to do be doing his schtick.
Are you listening Kyle?
(what remained of) VOA has stopped broadcasting due to the US government shutdown. They werenât affected in previous shutdowns, as they were deemed âessentialâ to national security.
Nearly all the 80 or so remaining employees at the agency, which broadcast news to countries with limited press freedom, are furloughed. Mass furloughs and the suspension of news programming did not occur during past shutdowns, as providing news coverage to authoritarian countries like Russia, China and Iran was considered essential to national security.
âVoice of America broadcasts have been suspended due to a funding cut from the United States government, which has led to a government shutdown,â reads a recent notice posted on the website for the news networkâs Persian-language service. Similar notices appeared on the networkâs websites for other language services, including Mandarin, Dari and Pashto.
Whatâs even left of VOA to shut down? Iâm pretty sure everyone got sacked months ago when Lake came in.
Itâs that time of the year again. Clear Channel layoff season.
You could say it lives up to its name.
Always a good sign when radio gets stripped of its local identity and is voicetracked by DJs from thousand miles away.
Or a Reddit comment can say it better.
Thereâs like 6 companies that own every radio station in this country. There are no independent radio stations at all. You canât take your song down to the local radio station and ask them to play it, because they have no say on what gets played. That decision is made by corporate curators in some obscure office somewhere, and all stations of that particular genre all play the same thing. All the DJs tell the same stories all day, like itâs scripted for them. The only thing that changes is the delivery. I donât think the DJs in my local station are local at all, if theyâre even real people at all. Nothing feels organic anymore. I travel across the country listening to radio stations, and they all say the same things, with inflections being their only distinction. The worst part is, the writing is on the wall. Free air radio is dying, and I donât know what we can do as enthusiasts to save it.
You know where the localness belongs to now? News/talk/sports, or a mixture of them.
On-air personnel for 2025 World Series has been announced.
On call for ESPN - the exclusive English national broadcaster - are Jon Sciambi, Eduardo PĂŠrez, Jessica Mendoza, Buster Olney.
AM570 LA Sports has the Dodgers call. And due to special circumstance (Blue Jays appearance), the team will also have a âlive and freeâ homer call on Sportsnet stations in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary.
(Needless to say one of these two will have the parade covered.)
All of them can be heard online worldwide. Coverage starts 6.30pm ET/9.30am AEDT on game days and continues through at least one hour following the conclusion.
(For the teams involved? Probably 12 hours before that.)
Meanwhile, sports out, news in.
The countdown to MLB championship game is on, first of this magnitude since 2019.
Nothing simultaneously screams more âweâre rooting for our team!â and âwe donât have much sports rightsâ than going 11 straight hours of pregame coverage.
But itâs what Sportsnet 590 has done.
On the other side, nothing of this scale from AM570. Still just their usual â2 hours pre, 2 hours postâ like always.
ESPN actually has CFB to do so their coverage starts one hour prior.
US radio ratings in big cities released Wednesday.
Very happy with 1010 WINS hitting a 53-year high, and K-EARTH hitting an all-time high. All sports stations down barely or significantly up.
Some great results there.
Gee WXRT is No. 2 in Chicago. Itâs a fantastic station with a mainstream/alternative adult format.
The rest of ratings.
The nationâs capital really loves news, and sport gains vary on the local teamâs postseason run.
Not exactly impressive considering that was because two other stations shot themselves in the foot.
I still think they have impressive ratings given the unique music format.
Typically, XRT and KINK in Portland, OR have the largest ratings for commercial Adult Alternative outlets - both are legendary in the format with massive heritage. The only other Adult Alternatives with such large ratings are non-commercial: KCMP/Minneapolis and WXPN/Philadelphia.
Thatâs the third regionally syndicated sports network in America. (The others come from Boston WEEI and Milwaukee WSSP.)
Pretty sure itâs the only U.S. sports station which can claim flagship status to all 4 professional local teams and the football/basketball portion of the college team.
Filling in gaps is pretty easy as a result. Whichever plays first goes first.
Iheart also have 2, Fan Radio Network out of KFXN/Minneapolis that serves Minnesota and parts of Wisconsin and North Dakota, and The Game which used to be done out of WNRW/Milwaukee (now AC due to a few other flips in Milwaukee) and is now from WTSO/Madison which serves a few overlapping stations in Wisconsin that canât join the WSSP network.
Yep, forget about that. And that is another station with as many flagships as WXYT.
Just there now. Parts of its programming also on WBIZ/Eau Claire.
WOKY/Milwaukee a bit of a lost cause now, still with VSiN in primetime and Fox the rest of the time.
The entire lot of overlappers now with WSSP, so with Detroitâs launch, there will really only be four regionally syndicated sports networks.
