740 The Team - College Footbal Preview Top 25

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As many of you know a lot has been going on at
our station of late. I wanted to take a chance to try and answer some questions a lot
of our listeners have asked about things going on. So here we go:

WHY DID WE MOVE FROM 540AM TO 740 AM?

Our corporate office made the decision based on a
few things. For starters, Clear Channel owns the rights to the Rush Limbaugh and
Dr. Laura shows. In the past year or so, the company has tried to move those
shows from all non-Clear Channel stations to stations the company owns. One of
those markets was Orlando. When the opportunity to move those shows to one of
our stations came about, the company decided to do it. The decision to move
those shows to 540 was done by folks in our corporate office. It was not
something we at the station had much say in at all. In fact, we were notified
about the plan to move our programming to 740 about six weeks before the actual
date.

It is not something we like and at the same time,
it isn’t something we can change. The company has their reasons for moving the
station and that’s about all I can say. Our people stressed our position but in
the end, they made the decision they made.

We certainly know, after hearing from many of
you, that you do not pick up our station as well as you did when we were on 540.
The issue of power on 740 is not the reason. 740 is 50,000 watts, just like 540.
But the signal is a directional signal and therefore it has problems. It’s also
related to our tower location for 740. The land it sits on is not as good as the
land of the 540 tower.

Our engineering staff did what is called
processing on the signal on 740. It has increased the quality of the signal, but
not the power of it. There really isn’t anything else, within FCC rules, that
they can do with the signal situation.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO ALL THE TEAMS AND GAMES THAT
AIRED ON THE SECOND STATION?

We are trying to keep as much of the teams and
events we have had in the past. However, we do not have a second AM station to
run sports now. The only team staying on 540 is the Florida Gators and one of
our NFL teams. There may a game that appears on the station is we have a
conflict based on existing contracts. But we do not have the ability of using
the second station like we have had in the past. Our plan is to keep all of our
football teams as we have had in the past. Once those schedules and contracts
are finalized, we will announce where all of our NFL teams can be found.

WILL WE CARRYING THE BRAVES THIS SEASON?

Unfortunately no. Here’s the deal on the Braves.
As many of you know, we have carried the Braves for several years on both
stations. Because of the decision to not use the second AM station for sports,
it cut down the number of games we could carry. We did make an offer to the
Braves that would have cleared about 50-60 games on 740. We would air games
starting after 8pm during the week and clear weekend games when we could clear
them around our NASCAR and football games. At first, the offer was accepted, but
then rejected by the Braves. Without being able to use a second station to clear
games, we cannot carry as many games as we have been able to carry in the past.
Unfortunately this is one of those things affected by the move of the station
and the inability to use the second station to air as much sports as the past.

HOW MUCH NASCAR-MRN RACES ARE WE CARRYING?

A lot of race fans have inquired about the
coverage of MRN this season on the Team. First off, we are thrilled to be part
of the MRN family. For a number of years, MRN has aired on another station in
town. That station recently changed formats. It was in mid-January when the MRN
people contacted us about becoming their Orlando affiliate. We were interested
but also let them know that because of our station change and decreased
flexibility of a second station and existing contracts, we would not be able to
clear all MRN races. We proceeded in discussions and gave them a clearance
schedule which was accepted. We do not carry all races because we had already
committed to other events prior to becoming an MRN affiliate. For example,
because of the NCAA Basketball Tournament we will not be airing any Winston Cup
races in March. While I know that is not what race fans want to hear, I also
wanted to let everyone know the reasoning is not because we don’t want to let
you hear the races, but because we had other commitments in place before getting
this MRN deal. For a complete list of the MRN races we are carrying, please
check the website for our clearance schedule.

In the future, we will try to get more What’s Up
letters like this out to keep you informed of some of the things going on. I
hear and understand the frustration of a lot of you that do not hear our station
as well. Unfortunately, I can’t change the decision made.

Thanks for listening and we appreciate all of you
being a part of the Team everyday.

Marc Daniels
Program Director



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