Good Karma is moving ESPN New York to 880, New York's equivalent of WBBM, which ends one of the longest-running AM stations in America. Audacy is broke.

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I remember as a kid listening to the Yankees on 880, Frank Messer and Bill White on the call. I always liked the west coast games, sneaking my walkman radio into bed and listening late into the night. Great memories, sorry to see this station is no more.

At least NYC Metro still has 1010 WINS…right?


I could look it up, but have better things to do.


EDIT: OK, so I looked it up. 1010 WINS is also owned by Audacy…


Oy.

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Not a mult.

Yeah, it's a little like what happened here with WBBM and WMAQ, except here it was the tight-clock format that died while the more longform WBBM prevailed (but then basically became that anyway). 1010 WINS pioneered "give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world" for MAQ and all the other Group W newsers.

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Actually, 880 was my first introduction to sports talk radio as well. Art Rust Jr. had an evening sports talk show back then where he interviewed all kinds of sports celebrities, national and local. He was a sports talk pioneer.

I love these tidbits from CH and others, but I'm always curious how Midwestern guys know these things exist.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

My knowledge of New York radio is extremely limited: just barely enough to be dangerous on the subject of WFAN and related stations, plus WNEW when they were doing progressive stuff. (FM by Richard Neer is an okay book.) I don't think I know anything about Los Angeles.

Good Karma is a Milwaukee company made good (well, Beaver Dam), so it's been interesting to note their growth, even when it comes at the expense of the station that had been the flagship of CBS.

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I grew up in northern jersey.

Is WBBM safe for now or are they next?

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

Spent three one/two week stints for work out that way 10/11 years ago.

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Not a mult.

BBM is still one of the top billers in the country, as far as I know, but if they can part with WCBS, gotta believe anything's on the table.

I do know that they're trying to move the stick again, this time to the 1160 array at Dempster and the Tri-State, so they can sell the Bloomingdale land with the WSCR mast (which WBBM has been piggybacking on) to developers. That's really the value of AM these days, cashing out the suburban real estate. WAIT out of Crystal Lake is dead because the land under the masts was more valuable than the station.

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I just found out that last month, CHML 900 in Hamilton went dark abruptly and permanently. This was a 50,000-watt news/talk station like WTMJ that had been covering Hamilton, Toronto, and Buffalo for almost 100 years. And ownership said it was losing too much money, so one day they just fired everyone and turned it off.

I can't find where I said it before, but AM radio in Canada is really on its last legs, far more so than even here. Outside of Toronto and Montreal, there's only a small handful left, most of which are either CBC or sports stations that carry NHL teams. I want to be sentimental but I can't; it's just a technological dinosaur at this point.

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There must be some value still in it because the government and big business still don’t want to regular people entering the space. They’re shutting it down, but are they letting someone else fill the frequency?

I haven't seen anything about surrendering the license yet, so for now they're just sitting on it.

I looked up their transmitter site and it's just a Christmas tree farm in the middle of nowhere. I know the Canadian real estate market is a horror show but it's too remote for even Canadians to build luxury condos on.

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