ALL-SPORTS RADIO A NEW ADDITION TO THE AREA

Good news for area sports junkies in need of an ESPN fix but not within access of cable television: All-sports radio has come to Southeast Missouri.

Beginning last Friday, KCGQ-AM 1220 in Cape Girardeau switched to an all-sports format. According to station president and general manager Tom Stine, the new format is "a CNN Headline News approach to sports."

In other words, the goal of the station is to keep the listeners updated on game scores and other sports related happenings.

"We're not trying to position it for continual listening," Stine said. "You can listen for 15 minutes, find out what happened in the world of sports during the last two hours and then go back to whatever you were doing on the dial."

The station, known as Talk Sports 1220, previously carried a simulcast of KCGQ-99.3 FM which programs popular music.

The all-sports format officially kicked off Tuesday with the debut of Prime Sports Radio, a round-the-clock national sports information network. The network features continual updates as well as feature segments and analysis. PSR is owned by Liberty Sports Inc. which also owns cable television's Prime Network and other sports properties.

Since the format change is just getting underway, a number of programming aspects are being considered but Stine did not wish to publicly comment on what those might be.

The station is planning sometime in the future to launch a two-hour long, locally produced and hosted live show featuring guests involved in the area sports scene as well as calls from listeners with questions or comments.

Prior to the decision to take KCGQ-AM all-sports, Stine said he had been approached about the possibility of carrying local college and high school games. But he said there are no immediate plans to do so, especially considering that the games of most of the major teams whose seasons are currently underway are already being broadcast on other area stations. However, after the new format gets fully in place and begins to develop, such programming may later be added.

"We will gauge the response and if it is good there are additional ideas that we'll bring off the table and put on the air," Stine said.

Talk Sports-1220 AM can be heard in a radius of approximately 35 miles from Cape Girardeau.