ITHACA/CORTLAND -- For some, it might seem like football season just ended, but there's less than two months until preseason NFL action begins, and there's a new place to catch football on the radio in Ithaca. Progressive Talk AM 1470 WNYY says it has signed with the Buffalo Bills Radio Network for the 2012 season.
For fans who prefer FM-quality audio, the station is simulcast on the HD-2 subchannel of sister station Q-Country 103.7 (WQNY). In addition to the games called by John Murphy and Mark Kelso, the station will also carry pre- and post-game programming from the Buffalo Bills Network.
VP/GM Chet Osadchey, who arrived in his current post in March after a 7-year stint as a GM in Buffalo, said in a statement, "we are excited to bring the Bills back to Ithaca on the radio. There is a very large following of Bills fans in our region." He said broadcasters Murphy and Kelso "bring entertainment and insight to a game that you cannot get on television."
Although WNYY usually doesn't carry sports programming, Osadchey says, "NFL football has a large and diverse audience." He added, "the Bills offer regional appeal to many listeners that had not had access to it for several years."
Preseason coverage begins August 9th as the Bills welcome the Washington Redskins to Western New York for a 7:00pm kickoff. Subsequent preseason games are slated for August 17, 25 and 30.
The Bills regular season schedule begins September 9th, on the road against the New York Jets -- who also have been building a local following in recent years by establishing summer training camp at nearby SUNY Cortland. Once the regular season gets underway, parts of WNYY's Sunday afternoon lineup will be pre-empted for all but two weeks of the regular season.
Those two Sundays with normal programming are October 28, when the Bills have a "bye" week, and November 18, because the Bills will have already played their game for that week on Thursday the 15th. Osadchey says the regular lineup will be back in place every Sunday after the season ends.
Thanks to Connie at the Cayuga Radio Group for including cnyradio@cnyradio.com on the cluster's distribution list for media announcements. If you're a station manager, sure you've do the same so we can cover the latest happenings at your stations, too! Whether it's something you'd just send to the national broadcast trades, or to other local media, we're always interested in what's happening in local broadcasting in CNY.