High School Hockey on Local Radio

Yes, I’m a sports fan, I enjoy ice hockey, and I go to the state high school tournament often. Now time for the whining.  Why are two local sports stations broadcasting the same high school hockey game live (e.g., Jan. 29)? This is not the first time. Both 560 and 1490 have it and 1490 is the “home of the Minnesota Wild” in these parts. The Wild have a game this evening, which would be on 1490, that I assume will be preempted or joined in progress. One station for the high school game tonight is enough. My suggestion: Trade off or put Wild game on another station owned by whatever radio group. Looking forward to reading comments and other views on this situation.

1 Comment

Paul Lundgren

about 9 years ago

It's easy enough to understand how this happened. There is no contract involved for exclusive rights to broadcast high school games, and the two sports stations are under separate ownership (560 AM WEBC is owned by Town Square Media; 1490 AM KQDS by Red Rock Radio) . But there is still the valid point that you'd think the two stations would communicate and not broadcast the same games, because that is not only in the best interest of the audience, but also the stations.

Keep in mind that the intentions of both stations are good -- to serve the community by airing local games. It's also possible there is more ad money involved if local businesses are more inclined to have that sense of supporting youth sports by advertising during high school games instead of professional ones, but the cost of doing the broadcast probably eats most of that up. 

So much radio is not local that it's tough to hear complaints of there being too much local. But, as stated above, you are right, all they have to do is talk to each other. Two broadcasts of the same game isn't better than one.

I assume the game in reference here was Denfeld vs. Marshall. For what it's worth, the KQDS schedule indicates the Wild game was to be joined in progress after the high school game. I'm not sure how that timed out in terms of allowing anyone to hear much of the end of the game.

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