NorthEast Radio Watch 2/9/2026: New Era for Bills Radio

In this week’s issue… Bills split from WGR – WNED-FM files for commercial operation – Morning shifts in Maine, PA – Remembering Syracuse’s McElvein, Ockert – New leadership at WNYC

By SCOTT FYBUSH

*In an ideal world, say one with higher-quality officiating in playoff games, we’d be over the moon right now about the Buffalo Bills appearing in the Super Bowl.

This, alas, is an imperfect world, and so while we’re writing a Bills story as our lead, it’s not about all the extensive coverage from western New York broadcasters of Josh Allen and company. (Sigh.)

Instead, the Bills are in the news this week because of team owner Terry Pegula’s decision to move radio broadcast rights for his teams (including the Sabres) away from longtime partner Audacy and WGR (550) after 14 years together.

For the 2026 Bills season and the 2026-27 Sabres season, the Pegulas will take radio play-by-play production in-house, working with Good Karma Brands on what they say will be an expansion of radio coverage across a larger swath of western New York and southern Ontario. Despite some initial misguided coverage in Buffalo that suggested Bills and Sabres games would end up being available only on streaming, that doesn’t appear to be the plan, and with no new broadcast outlets announced, it’s entirely possible that the teams’ games could even remain on WGR under the new arrangement, though it’s more likely that there will be new Buffalo radio homes for both teams.

(It’s also not clear whether the new deal will include the Pegulas’ third Buffalo team, the Buffalo Bandits, whose lacrosse games air on WGR’s Audacy sister station, WWKB 1520.)

What is changing, starting this week, is the Bills’ “One Bills Live” daily talk show with Chris Brown and Steve Tasker. Instead of airing on WGR and Rochester’s WROC (950/95.7), it will stream on the Bills’ website and will continue its TV simulcast on MSG Network.

We’ll be following this story closely to see how WGR and WROC make up for the loss of “One Bills Live” and the Bills and Sabres, and possibly even more big changes coming soon to WGR.