WATERTOWN -- From the better late than never file, good news for C. Lee Hinkleman, Sr.; the local snowmobiling enthusiast's weekly IROC and Beyond Snowmobile Show is picking up plenty of steam. Reports say the show's affiliate base recently expanded to six stations, and that number will soon double.
According to a Watertown Daily Times report we just stumbled upon by chance, the show, which started airing on Utica's Big Frog 104 (WFRG) in 2002, is now being carried on Watertown's ESPN Radio 1410 (WNER), along with stations in Albany, Rochester, Plattsburgh and Lake Placid. The article says six more affiliates are pending.
Hinkleman, who recently moved from Westmoreland (near Utica) to Lewis County, told the paper he now records his show in the North Country -- either at WNER's studios or along various snowmobiling trails -- but still sends the raw audio back to Utica every week for post-production and distribution.
No word from the paper or on the show's official website about other affiliates (in fact, the latter displays logos WNER and WFRG only).
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Lee fails to mention that the "raw" audio goes to WIBX and is produced for air on WIBX, Saturday at 7am. The show is also posted on bigfrog104.com, and HelloCNY.com, it is not aired on Big Frog. WIBX and Big Frog send the completed show to Watertown to air on Froggy.
I wouldn't necessarily blame Lee; it could have been the newspaper reporter who chose to mention "a Utica station" instead of WIBX. (And as mentioned in my second paragraph, this article is just a summary of the Watertown paper's article.)
However, I still appreciate you taking the time to clarify this for everyone, as I had been wondering myself but my internet access at the moment is somewhat limited, so it's hard to do a lot of digging around.