A long-standing partnership between N.C. State and radio station 680 WPTF is coming to an end. The Athletics Department announced Monday that NCSU football and men’s basketball games will be aired on Mix 101.5 FM starting in the fall.
WPTF general manager David Stuckey deferred questions about why the switch was made to NCSU officials. But he indicated his disappointment with the decision that ended a partnership of almost 50 years.
“We’re very disappointed that we no longer are the flagship station of N.C. State sports,” Stuckey said. “We felt like we were a good partner.”
Brian Asbill, general manager of Wolfpack Sports Marketing, said WPTF was a good partner, but the school needed to move in a new direction.
“We’re very appreciative and respectful of everything PTF has done for us over the years. They’ve been a great partner. They’ve been there through a lot of big Wolfpack moments,” Asbill said. “But really what this boils down to us is a strategic move. It enables us to better control our programming, our marketing platforms in this region of the state.”
He noted the inability of some Wolfpack fans in areas near North Raleigh to hear the broadcasts at night also factored into the decision, stating as an AM station WPTF had to use a directional signal at night.
Ed Funkhouser, associate professor of communication, said this problem with signal has to do with the frequency of AM stations. Because of AM stations’ frequency and cooling of the atmosphere at night, using a normal signal would cause interference among the stations because the signal would bounce off the ionosphere.
To avoid this interference, especially with other more dominant stations on the 680 frequency such as San Francisco’s KNBR, Funkhouser said East Coast stations have directional signals bounced away from the West Coast at night. This accounts for how some listeners in North Raleigh and some surrounding areas such as Wake Forest may not get the station at night while some people in Florida can.
Asbill also said having Mix 101.5 as the Athletic Department’s new flagship station will help NCSU financially.
“Certainly, it’s going to enhance the financial situation for everyone involved because you’re bringing more value to the advertisers, because you’re offering a bigger signal and you’re covering a much larger coverage area than what we had with PTF,” Asbill said.
Stuckey said he understood the University did what it felt it needed to financially.
“We understand that it’s part of big-time college athletics,” Stuckey said.
In addition to losing the chance to air the games, WPTF is also losing the men’s basketball and football coaches’ shows, but 99.9 WCMC is picking up the coach shows. WCMC will also air all non-N.C. State games on Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the men’s ACC Tournament, keeping up a tradition Wolfpack sports marketing’s announcers covering the tournament.
“It really didn’t fit for us or for them to be able to carve out basically an entire weekend and carry the entire tournament when N.C. State’s only playing in a certain percentage of those games,” Asbill said.
The post-game call-in show after football games that included Terry Harvey will not remain, as it was a WPTF program.
Gary Hahn, the voice of the Wolfpack, said the change won’t affect how he does his job. But he said the new station is a plus for him as a game commentator.
“You always want to have as many people listening as possible and hold them as long as possible,” Hahn said.
Meanwhile, though, a partnership Stuckey compared to that between TV station WGN and the Chicago Cubs will come to an end.
“We didn’t want to see 50 years of heritage go that way,” Stuckey said.
