WFAN AM/FM Simulcast To Start In November

New York’s WFAN, the radio station where sports talk was born 25 years ago, is moving to the FM dial.

WFAN’s owner CBS Radio announced Monday it has purchased WRXP (101.9 FM) from Merlin Media, for a reported $75 million, and will begin simulcasting WFAN’s 660 AM programming there “in late fall.”

The call letters will be WFAN-FM.

CBS Radio’s primary national sports-talk rival, ESPN Radio, recently moved its New York sign from 1050 AM to 98.7 FM

But Don Bouloukos, senior vice president and market manager for CBS Radio New York, told David Hinckley at NYDailyNews.com  the WFAN simulcast “had nothing to do with ESPN moving to FM here.

“CBS first put sports programming onFM in Detroit in 2007, and has moved a dozen stations since then.”

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CBS Radio President and CEO Dan Mason said the move is simply good business.

“This is an extremely exciting opportunity to expand our radio presence in the nation’s largest market,” he said. “Sports is a very popular format and a huge growth category.”

Bouloukos declined to speculate on whether most talk radio programming will eventually migrate from AM to FM, saying individual market factors vary widely.

He did agree that “some younger listeners are more attuned to FM,” though he noted New York remains a strong AM market, with WFAN, WINS, WCBS-AM, WOR, WABC and others.

ESPN Radio has added listeners since it moved to FM in New York, but WFAN has remained comfortably ahead in the ratings — including among the 25- to 54-year-old men who form the core of the sport-talk audience.

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