Another fine job by 97.1!

Occurrence · April-10-12, 10:27 PM

Did anyone else notice they cut out the Tigers games that went into extra innings for the Pistons broadcast?

Seriously?

**dtowncitylover** · April-10-12, 10:45 PM

I just tuned into 1270. Problem solved.

**Thruster315** · April-10-12, 10:52 PM

Originally Posted by dtowncitylover

I just tuned into 1270. Problem solved.

Same here.

I get it. 97.1 has got the Pistons as their higher masted big ship. It's not like there was a blackout of the Tigers game and if one truly listened to 97.1 enough they tell you where their sister stations are and who's broadcasting what if they conflict with Pistons basketball.

Now if one wants to bitch and moan about the quality of the signal from FM to AM, that's legit but beyond that- not finding the Tigers game is just lazy.

Occurrence · April-10-12, 11:09 PM

The only radio I had access to at the time didn't have AM, it only does FM. There is no reason to cut the Tigers out during the middle of a broadcast. What are they thinking?

**Big Dog** · April-10-12, 11:16 PM

Contract money.

Occurrence · April-10-12, 11:30 PM

Why don't they just put them on a different FM station if there in a conflict? The quality of AM is horrible. They really need to come up with some new ideas and solve this problem.

**JROLLA** · April-11-12, 07:02 AM

Originally Posted by Occurrence

Why don't they just put them on a different FM station if there in a conflict? The quality of AM is horrible. They really need to come up with some new ideas and solve this problem.

Why would 97.1 give up that contract? This won't be an issue all year and they aren't the only station that does this in the Country. Blame WDFN for never keeping up and getting buried by the Ticket.

**Lowell** · April-11-12, 07:24 AM

Am I the only one who misses the days when WJR was the Tiger's broadcast station with its powerful signal. One could get it anywhere in the metro with no static or drop out, unlike the current stations. Depending on the electro-magnetic fields, one could even occasionally pick it up hundreds of miles away. Now it just another festering pool of political blather. 'Oh how the mighty have fallen.'

**drjeff** · April-11-12, 08:51 AM

Originally Posted by Lowell

Am I the only one who misses the days when WJR was the Tiger's broadcast station with its powerful signal. One could get it anywhere in the metro with no static or drop out, unlike the current stations. Depending on the electro-magnetic fields, one could even occasionally pick it up hundreds of miles away. Now it just another festering pool of political blather. 'Oh how the mighty have fallen.'

I completely agree. Back when I lived in Baltimore I could even get WJR sometimes at night- from 500+ miles away! Now you can't even get a decent signal in Ann Arbor.

**Baselinepunk** · April-11-12, 10:16 AM

This past weekend, my travels took me to the UP. On our way back, we were able to listen to that great game from starting from about Munising. The game lasted the whole trip back to D-Town and we were able to pull it in with very little problems, you just have to used that great "seek" feature on the radio and *poof*, Bob's yer uncle.

**EastsideAl** · April-11-12, 10:28 AM

Originally Posted by Lowell

Am I the only one who misses the days when WJR was the Tiger's broadcast station with its powerful signal. One could get it anywhere in the metro with no static or drop out, unlike the current stations. Depending on the electro-magnetic fields, one could even occasionally pick it up hundreds of miles away. Now it just another festering pool of political blather. 'Oh how the mighty have fallen.'

The mighty have fallen indeed. This all came about because of the slippage of two great local institutions.

The Tigers spent over a decade wandering in the wilderness of the bottom reaches of the American League, to the point that few people seemed to care about them in this once-baseball-mad town. With the team went the media ratings, and so, where the voice of Ernie Harwell could once be heard coming from homes and cars all over the area, committing to broadcasting baseball 162 days per summer suddenly did not seem like such a great deal.

WJR, once the clear-channel "great voice of the great lakes," and the radio home of most of our local sports teams, suffered the same fate as AM radio across the country of diminished ratings and slipping ad sales. Eventually, like so many others in AM radio, they sold themselves out completely to seemingly endless hours of blather pandering to the foaming nutball conspiracy crowd.

The Tigers, as we all know, have come back wonderfully in the last few years and have again become a major draw.

WJR, on the other hand, remains a blight on the airwaves, and looks like it will be so for the foreseeable future.

**Switchmanjim** · April-11-12, 12:25 PM

Originally Posted by Lowell

Am I the only one who misses the days when WJR was the Tiger's broadcast station with its powerful signal. One could get it anywhere in the metro with no static or drop out, unlike the current stations. Depending on the electro-magnetic fields, one could even occasionally pick it up hundreds of miles away. Now it just another festering pool of political blather. 'Oh how the mighty have fallen.'

I miss the days of GOOD announcers as well.

I can listen to no more than five minutes of Price.

"Absolutely!"

**xphillipjrx** · April-11-12, 01:05 PM

Originally Posted by JROLLA

This won't be an issue all year and they aren't the only station that does this in the Country.

I live in Chicago. DePaul basketball bumped the NFC Championship Game because both are on the lone Chicago Westwood One station. NBA Finals games also get bounced when they have to honor a local contract.

**Detroitrobert** · April-12-12, 04:08 PM

Originally Posted by Occurrence

The only radio I had access to at the time didn't have AM, it only does FM. There is no reason to cut the Tigers out during the middle of a broadcast. What are they thinking?

Apparently you have no idea how media contracts work. If you signed a contract with someone, would you want them to honor their commitment to you, or would you be okay with them breaking it to satisfy some disgruntled dipshit that has no connection to said contract?

**douglasm** · April-12-12, 04:41 PM

If there's one advantage to group ownership [[and it's the only one I can think of) of radio stations, it's that they have the ability to move a game from one station to another. The fact that you didn't have an AM radio with you is your problem. CBS fulfilled their contract with the Tigers by making the game available locally on a "common" broadcast band. If they'd shoved the game to a HD sideband, then I'd be upset.....as would the Tigers.

Moving games is a fairly common practice. In '96, we got called by a competing station in our market asking if we'd broadcast the opening 2 games of the Mariner's season that year because they had a conflict with the Sonics. The M's OKed the move, we made some money off the deal, the listeners got the games and everyone was happy.

**Meddle** · April-12-12, 05:59 PM

Originally Posted by Detroitrobert

Apparently you have no idea how media contracts work.

In all fairness, one station should not have both contracts.

But I don't really see the difference. You've still got a bunch of guys playing with their balls. Just bigger balls is all.