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ESPN Deportes Radio Network to Close in September

G

Gregg.

ESPN is closing down its Spanish-language radio network. There are about a dozen ESPN Deportes affiliates around the U.S., as well as some in Northern Mexico. All will have to find another option in September. Univision continues its Spanish language sports network. AM stations in all of Univision's American markets are affiliates, except for San Antonio, which switched to Tejano music a few months ago.

NYC: 1050 WEPN (Will switch to the English language ESPN Network.)
LA: 1330 KWKW
Chicago: 1200 WRTO
Dallas: 1540 KZMP
Las Vegas: 1460 KENO
Miami: 990 WMYM
San Diego-Tijuana: 620 XESS and 1030 XESDD
Las Vegas: 710 KBMB
Denver: 1090 KMXA
Philadelphia: 1680 WTTM
Fresno: 1600 KGST
Bakersfield: 1490 KWAC
Stockton-Modesto: 1570 KCVR

Here's the article from Radio Insight:

https://radioinsight.com/headlines/177686/espn-deportes-radio-to-cease-operations-in-september/
 
710 KBMB should be Phoenix, not Las Vegas. And add to the ESPN Deportes affiliate list:

Washington: 1580 WJFK
San Antonio: 720 KSAH
Albuquerque: 1450 KRZY
El Paso-Ciudad Juarez: 1420 XEF
Atlantic City: 1450 WENJ
Syracuse: 1070 WSCP (That's an odd affiliate. How many Spanish speaking soccer fans are there in Syracuse?)

Former Affiliates:
Atlanta: 640 WGST
Reno: 1450 KHIT
Allentown: 1470 WSAN
 
That must be an old list, since most of those stations are former affiliates. WJFK, WENJ and WSCP have all flipped to other formats, and the latter two don't even use those calls anymore.
 
fybush said:
That must be an old list, since most of those stations are former affiliates. WJFK, WENJ and WSCP have all flipped to other formats, and the latter two don't even use those calls anymore.
Click to expand...

And WRTO is a Univision station!
 
980 KTCR Yakima is ESPN Deportes. Maybe they'll finally get a hold of that station and flip it back to The Tractor Classic Country, perhaps flipping one of the KHHK-HD2/3 translators as well.
 
For XESS (XESDD is La Tremenda, the PSN flagship and news/talk), the solution is gonna be obvious: go all in on serving Tecate. They're already a time-share of ESPN programs and "PSN Radio Tecate" programming.
 
After doing some research, it seems 1580 WJFK Washington still is ESPN Deportes, sold in combination with co-owned 107.9 WLZL, a Tropical station. I think Entercom would keep its websites up to date and WJFK still says it's Deportes. I listened to the live streaming to be sure, unless it's now feeding an HD subchannel.

1070 in Syracuse is WZUN, simulcasting WZUN-FM, a classic hits station. No more ESPN Deportes in Syracuse. As if it ever belonged there.

1450 in Atlantic City is WPGG with a conservative talk format. So no more ESPN Deportes on the Jersey Shore.

I wonder if some of these stations will simply plug in Univision Deportes when ESPN comes to an end.
 
Gregg. said:
After doing some research, it seems 1580 WJFK Washington still is ESPN Deportes, sold in combination with co-owned 107.9 WLZL, a Tropical station. I think Entercom would keep its websites up to date and WJFK still says it's Deportes. I listened to the live streaming to be sure, unless it's now feeding an HD subchannel.

1070 in Syracuse is WZUN, simulcasting WZUN-FM, a classic hits station. No more ESPN Deportes in Syracuse. As if it ever belonged there.

1450 in Atlantic City is WPGG with a conservative talk format. So no more ESPN Deportes on the Jersey Shore.

I wonder if some of these stations will simply plug in Univision Deportes when ESPN comes to an end.
Click to expand...

The UVN sports format is not getting much in the way of ratings, either. This is a format for very high population Hispanic markets, not for Syracuse and the like.
 
DavidEduardo said:


The UVN sports format is not getting much in the way of ratings, either. This is a format for very high population Hispanic markets, not for Syracuse and the like.
Click to expand...

According to radio-locator, Syracuse (7% Hispanic) has no Spanish-language stations in any format, which makes it very strange that until recently it had one doing Spanish-language sports. Hard to imagine the station was selling much advertising for the local breaks in the satellite-delivered format.
 
CTListener said:
According to radio-locator, Syracuse (7% Hispanic) has no Spanish-language stations in any format, which makes it very strange that until recently it had one doing Spanish-language sports. Hard to imagine the station was selling much advertising for the local breaks in the satellite-delivered format.
Click to expand...

It was a giveaway to ESPN - Ed Levine cleared Deportes on the throwaway 1070 signal as part of the larger deal to keep ESPN Radio in English on his WTLA/WSGO.
 
It's too bad Deportes is leaving the air. Not much of a vote of confidence for OTA radio when one of the only Spanish language sports networks gives up on it.
 
boombox4 said:
It's too bad Deportes is leaving the air. Not much of a vote of confidence for OTA radio when one of the only Spanish language sports networks gives up on it.
Click to expand...

The issue is the programming concept, not the medium. There is no commonality and consensus among Hispanics across the US about teams and various sports, and there are huge language differences among people from different countries.

As one person said, "seventeen countries separated by a single language" referring to all the nations of Latin America that speak Spanish.

The ESPN Deportes network never got traction, did not have much advertising and local stations could not make much money. On the other hand, using target web streams they can reach each group with the sports they like with the dialect and accent they understand.

The idea was stupid from the beginning. But they kept throwing money at it hoping it would work. Finally, they learned.
 
boombox4 said:
It's too bad Deportes is leaving the air. Not much of a vote of confidence for OTA radio when one of the only Spanish language sports networks gives up on it.
Click to expand...

Ot is only too bad if you only listen to the station and two understand Spanish, otherwise how would you know what they are talking about?
 
Well, I think it really was mostly about Mexican-born listeners keeping up with the soccer teams in Mexico and international soccer teams they were interested in, plus a bit of U.S. baseball and basketball. So I guess it caught an audience of some sort in California, Texas and other communities where much of the Spanish-speaking audience is recently from Mexico. Most of the ESPN Deportes hosts were broadcasting from Mexico, or in the U.S., speaking with Mexican accents.

But putting it in NYC, Miami, Washington, etc. really was not logical, since there aren't enough Mexican-born sports fans east of the Mississippi. As I've said before, it would be like syndicating 1089 TalkSport from London and putting it in American cities, figuring all English-language discussion of sports is the same.

Yet Univision followed ESPN Deportes all the way. The Univision AM stations were all converted to affiliates of the Univision Deportes Network, including

KTNQ Los Angeles
WADO New York
WRTO Chicago
KLAT Houston
KFLC Dallas

and others. Univision Deportes continues, with no word of its demise.

 
Gregg. said:
Well, I think it really was mostly about Mexican-born listeners keeping up with the soccer teams in Mexico and international soccer teams they were interested in, plus a bit of U.S. baseball and basketball. So I guess it caught an audience of some sort in California, Texas and other communities where much of the Spanish-speaking audience is recently from Mexico. Most of the ESPN Deportes hosts were broadcasting from Mexico, or in the U.S., speaking with Mexican accents.

But putting it in NYC, Miami, Washington, etc. really was not logical, since there aren't enough Mexican-born sports fans east of the Mississippi. As I've said before, it would be like syndicating 1089 TalkSport from London and putting it in American cities, figuring all English-language discussion of sports is the same.

Yet Univision followed ESPN Deportes all the way. The Univision AM stations were all converted to affiliates of the Univision Deportes Network, including

KTNQ Los Angeles
WADO New York
WRTO Chicago
KLAT Houston
KFLC Dallas

and others. Univision Deportes continues, with no word of its demise.
Click to expand...

Wrong on a number of accounts.

The sport of about 85% Spanish speaking Hispanics in the US is soccer. ESPN Deportes en Español followed soccer quite extensively, but the comment I heard most often was that there was too much about US baseball, basketball and even football.

The largest growth population elements in the US, including NY, DC, and Miami are Mexican, Central and South American. Only Dominicans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans are not from soccer-focused nations. The interest in US teams and sports comes in the second generation and beyond, and is mostly found among English speakers.

But even in Miami today, more than half the Hispanics in 25-54 are not Cuban... they are from Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Central America and other soccer-following nations.

The issue is that all-sports radio is not popular anywhere in Latin America. Attempts at all sports in places ranging from Puerto Rico to Chile have failed, or are very small audience attractions, such as in Argentina and Mexico City.

Univision has a complete staff of Spanish speaking sports talent from TV, and understands the interests of the majority of Spanish dominant sports fans. It still remains to be seen if any national sports format can work because of the diverse interest in the teams of different nations or even different areas of Mexico. And if they localize the programming, there are very increased costs in each market and then we got back to the fact that the format has much more limited appeal in Spanish. So even though Univision has much better depth in Spanish language sports coverage, the jury is still out on whether sports as a format will work; it sure does not in most places of Latin America.

WADO only carries a couple of the radio network shows and some play by play of local teams. Most of the day it has local talk programming, not the sports net. Even KTNQ is off the sports network to do the morning show and some other programming.
 
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staggmovie said:
Ot is only too bad if you only listen to the station and two understand Spanish, otherwise how would you know what they are talking about?
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There are over 40 million people in the US who speak Spanish. And there are others, like myself, that took the language in college and understand some of it.
 
DavidEduardo said:


The issue is the programming concept, not the medium. There is no commonality and consensus among Hispanics across the US about teams and various sports, and there are huge language differences among people from different countries.

As one person said, "seventeen countries separated by a single language" referring to all the nations of Latin America that speak Spanish.

The ESPN Deportes network never got traction, did not have much advertising and local stations could not make much money. On the other hand, using target web streams they can reach each group with the sports they like with the dialect and accent they understand.

The idea was stupid from the beginning. But they kept throwing money at it hoping it would work. Finally, they learned.
Click to expand...

If the language / dialect is such an issue, how does Univision TV survive? I knew there were Spanish accents and dialects, but I wasn't aware they were such a huge issue for the media.
 
boombox4 said:
If the language / dialect is such an issue, how does Univision TV survive? I knew there were Spanish accents and dialects, but I wasn't aware they were such a huge issue for the media.
Click to expand...

I'd imagine that broadcasters on national networks like Univision are told to standardize their accents as much as possible and ditch the regional slang in favor of words and phrases understood by all Spanish speakers in this hemisphere. Much as the major English-language networks require their anchors and other announcers to speak "standard" English with a geography-neutral accent -- a national anchor might be from Boston or Brooklyn or Birmingham, but before getting that job he or she will have had to get rid of as much of their native accents as possible. And, of course, should the Brooklyn guy have to introduce a story about people waiting to get into a sporting event, he will have to say they are "waiting IN line," which is what most of the country says, even though New Yorkers say "waiting ON line," Likewise, Ms. Boston will have to call that drinking fountain a drinking fountain, not a bubbler, and our Alabama anchor will have to pronounce "Massachusetts" with a "ch" sound, not the "t" that many folks in the Deep South put in the word.
 
staggmovie said:
But they doesn't mean everybody
Click to expand...

40 million is over a tenth of the population of the country. It's more than the number of people who watch the three major cable news TV networks every night.

And either way, it's still sad when a national, Spanish sports radio network yanks its programming off the airwaves.
 
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