NorthEast Radio Watch 12/4/2023: WEEI Loses the Cape

In this week’s issue… WEEI to lose Cape Cod outlet – More ATSC 3 in NYC – Buffalo TV’s talent drain – Jays drop radio voice – Remembering NYC’s Guzman, Philly’s Fennessy

By SCOTT FYBUSH

Jump to: ME – NH – VT – MA – RI – CT – NY – NJ – PA – Canada

*It’s long been a bit of an oddity out there at the tip of MASSACHUSETTS – the WEEI sports radio network that originates with Audacy’s cluster in Boston at WEEI-FM (93.7) is heard on Cape Cod over a station owned by competitor iHeart, WEII (96.3 Hyannis).

iHeart acquired the WEEI affiliation when it bought what was then the Qantum Communications cluster in 2014, and for almost a decade it’s continued to carry the Boston-based sports programming, including Red Sox baseball.

That, however, appears to be about to change, based on a rather overly-informative (and now deleted) iHeart job posting first spotted by our colleague Lance Venta’s RadioInsight.

The posting, for a sports talk co-host/producer/programming assistant at $40,000 a year – and good luck living on that on the Cape – included what was apparently intended to be internal-only information, noting that the budget for that salary will come from dropping the WEEI network contract ($350,000 a year) and Red Sox contract ($65,000) that are expiring soon.

What happens next? It appears iHeart intends to keep 96.3 as a sports station, since it has that format to itself on the Cape, and we’d expect most of the programming to come from corporate sister Fox Sports Radio whenever the WEEI network deal runs out.

Parts of the Cape can hear WEEI over its Rhode Island affiliate, WVEI-FM (103.7), or directly from Boston, and it may well be that the Sox end up without a Cape Cod outlet next summer. As for Audacy’s WEEI network, it continues to be heard on Audacy’s own stations in Providence, Worcester and Springfield, as well as affiliates in the Upper Valley of New Hampshire and Vermont and in the Portland, Maine market.

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