Just saw an announcement a few minutes ago that the radio coverage for the Texas Rangers is changing for 2009. All Rangers games have been on AM KRLD 1080 since 1995. That’s not going to be the case starting this season.
Effective with the 2009 season, all weekday Texas Rangers games will be on 105.3 FM (aka “The Fan”. According to the press release on the Rangers site, it is only weekday games (Monday through Friday) that are here. Saturday and Sunday games will continue to be on KRLD 1080 AM as they have been since 1995. The reason for this is unspecified “anticipated schedule conflicts”. The schedule lists 110 games on 105.3, and 52 on 1080.
This probably isn’t a big deal in the long run when you compare it to the confusion of TV coverage (given all the possible channel choices there), but it does take away that tagline KRLD has used for ages… “All the games, all the time”. Still, it does seem easy enough to wrap one’s head around. “OK, M-F is 105.3 FM, and Sat-Sun is 1080 AM – Got it”. I will be curious to see how the better fidelity plays out. On top of that, I wonder if the broadcasts will be geared towards HD-Radio, as KRLD-FM is an HD-Radio channel, from what I’ve read today.
One other bonus is that this will really increase the radio schedule for spring training games. Generally, spring training games were only on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I asked aout that a few years ago, and was told that KRLD didn’t want to piss off the “Dr. Laura” audience by replacing that show with Rangers games. This apparently will bypass that limitation. The number of spring training games is now 18, versus the 12 it has been for awhile now. 16 of the 18 are on 105.3. Check out the Rangers press release for a list of the dates of the Spring Training games (I’ll have my site’s schedule page updated shortly).
UPDATE: I’ve updated my site’s schedule pages with the radio dates during spring training.
It means I can listen to the games in my hometown in Ardmore (Oklahoma) and hear a homerun even when going underneath power lines!!!
Yeah… but, if you’re any further than Ardmore, you won’t hear anything. 105.3 won’t reach as far as 1080 which is much less than 820 was. What’s needed now are a few of mid-range stations (Wichita Falls, OKC, Tyler, Killeen/Bryan/Collij Stashin to pick up the broadcasts, then, maybe we can find them as we drive thru on the way away to and from the MetroPlex.
There’s also XM Radio. :)
Is 820 where they were before 1995? That’s before I started paying attention to the team (which was the start of the 1996 season).
Yeah… I listened to them starting in 1982 on WBAP/820…
I remember one night, I was listening to a game against the Minnesota Twins… I had a particularly difficult time keeping the station where I could hear it (lots of static and signal wandering), but finally got in the entire game.
During the post game, the guys doing the wrap-up kept talking about how “our guys” didn’t play as well as they could, about how they blew several opportunities to get back into the game and how pitching against this other team can sometimes be a nightmare. They never really specifically mentioned how their comments applied to whom so it was really confusing.
Finally, they went to a commercial. When they came back, they continued to lament how the team could have done this and that and how much better they could have played. Never in all that time did they mention we were listening to WBAP or 820…
Finally, the wrap-up of the post game wrap-up – “You’ve been listening to Twins Radio: WTC 830 in the Twin Cities…” Wow. Both were clear channel and they were just a tick off from each other on the dial. I could get WTC that night, but I couldn’t get WBAP.
…oh yeah… the sTRangers won that game like 5-2…
…and XM is still too expensive – check back with me on that one in 5 years or so…