Another Major-League Broadcasting Tradition Ends

One more long-time flagship radio station has lost its major league broadcasting rights. This time it’s KDKA, the station that has broadcasted Pittsburgh Pirates games for 51 years. KDKA also carried the first live broadcast of a big-league game in 1921.

This development follows similar news in Minnesota and St. Louis, where revenue opportunities outweighed loyalties to the long-time rights-holders.

In Pittsburgh, the Pirates will shift to an FM news/talk station owned by Clear Channel that already holds a variety of local professional and college sports coverage. Clear Channel’s muscle and reach is clearly a factor here, since it owns six stations in the market and distributes the games among them. It doesn’t hurt that the FM station reaches much younger demographics compared to KDKA.

Radio is clearly evolving; more accurately, it’s being forced to evolve. And while the revenue pressures of big-time sports are well-documented, it’s hard to not be sentimental when storied call letters like WCCO, KMOX and KDKA are no longer are associated with their traditional teams.