ESPN Radio drains “The River”

A great tip from our friends at Fybush.com. The folks at Cumulus Youngstown flipped WLLF 96.7 in nearby Mercer from Adult Contemporary as “The River” to Sports with the ESPN Radio affiliation. Cumulus already had an ESPN Radio affiliate in Youngstown itself with WBBW 1240 but the FM side is running separate from the AM with more focus on the Pennsylvania side of the border since WLLF does not cover parts of Youngstown very well. The new station is now also simulcasting “Pic Sports” which is an afternoon sports talk program that has been on sister station WPIC 790 in nearby Sharon. They are also carrying Pittsburgh Pirates games this season as well as local sports which the station has carried in its AC days. I wouldn’t be surprised if national sports carried on ESPN Radio is also carried on 96.7. This format should gain some traction with an FM presence in parts of the Youngstown market. The unlimited day and night signal would be a plus for baseball as well as NFL games offered by Westwood One. I imagine that WBBW has the NFL games in the market but it’s hard to verify this since the station is not very strong at my location. If this is the case, WLLF would also be free to carry such a package. You can check out the website at www.espn967.com/