Dallas Market Gets New Sports Talk Station as IHeart Flips KEGL

Listeners of Dallas Rock station 97.1 The Eagle were wondering what was going on at the first of this month as something was about to happen with the format soon. The owner of the station IHeart Media began to hint at upcoming changes during the middle of September as a result of the former PD stepping down and staff being shuffled around timeslots. According to RadioInsight KEGL had a ratings share of 1.3 ranking 28th in the market among other stations in the Dallas market. During the weekend of September 30th stunting began with the station playing a four song loop with freak in the lyrics including "Super Freak" by Rick James among others stating "What's going on with 97.1" while also directing listeners to sister station KZPS "Lonestar 92.5" or the station's HD2 signal that now carries a continuation of the "Eagle" brand. In general this format change was only a move for one format while debuting another versus ending a brand all together which puts HD listeners in a good spot although regular FM listeners may have to invest in an HD Radio to get Rock music that was on the terrestrial broadcast originally. The website had a splash page stating "Where My Freaks At" before launching the new site following the launch of "97.1 The Freak" with a hybrid format of both Sports and Hot Talk shows creating a unique experience for the DFW community in regards to your average Sports Station. This station will serve as the Dallas Mavericks flagship station for games throughout the season. It will be interesting to see what the outcome of this station will be throughout the months ahead with the lineup gradually expanding to include other local and syndicated content.

Credit:Radio Insight

The above image is the new logo for the hybrid station that was revealed the weekend before the format launched to give the audience a glimpse at what's to come. The lineup consists of a suite of sports shows including Dallas Cowboys affiliated content from AT&T stadium in Arlington and other talk shows that deliver hot topics in the city of Dallas and the surrounding areas in general. I started streaming the station on IHeart Radio on the last days of September to be met with a loop of songs that obviously weren't a part of the original Rock format that was previously on this station. Below you will find the previous logo that was used up until recently when the format flipped at 3PM October 3rd.

When the ratings come out for this new station I wonder what the turnout will be because I looked at the Facebook feed for the station and people were wanting the format to return to Rock on the terrestrial frequency where it was instead of exclusively broadcasting on HD Radio. Some people had comments saying that this was only a temporary move for KEGL and will only last for so long before the previous format returns. Radio stations depend on ratings for success as a brand so if next year's numbers come out and the share status is down management will have to reconsider something and possibly change to a different format again.

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-Tristan