"I think our expertise is in sports programming, production, how to get it on the air, and how to deliver the product. Our relationship is very much an in-kind one."
Even though West Virginia Radio Corp. does not get any money out of the deal, Miller says it's good for business because it gives him a unique product lineup to market to affiliates as part of the MetroNews network.
"As a radio network operator, I'm constantly looking at things to make my network more valuable to people," Miller said.
The West Virginia Radio Corp.; the West Virginia Newspaper Publishing Co., publisher of The Dominion Post; and Greer Industries Inc. are owned by John Raese and David Raese.
MetroNews offers affiliates 39 newscasts a day, a news department, sportscasts, and feature programs such as the "Gold and Blue Report" in the morning, the Hoppy Kercheval show "Talkline," "Statewide Sportsline," the "Mountaineer Countdown" and the "Point After."
The West Virginia Radio Corp. pays the WVU coaches to appear as guests on the "Statewide Sportsline" show.
Miller said he pays the university "several thousand dollars per show" for appearances by WVU head football coach Bill Stewart and WVU basketball coach Bob Huggins.
The assistant football and basketball coaches are also paid to appear on the show. The only difference is that Miller pays the assistant coaches directly, as opposed to paying WVU for their services, like he does with the head football and basketball coaches.
Miller declined to disclose the amount paid to the assistant coaches, but said "it's decent money."
Because the fee paid to the assistants does not go through WVU, it is not available for public review.
Programming like this draws thousands of listeners and makes the MetroNews network more marketable, Miller said.
"It's like the Olympics on NBC," Miller said. "You know how much they made on the Olympics? No money. But they got a ton of prime-time viewership, and half the time they were promoting their shows for the fall."
MetroNews affiliates can also get the Mountaineers games as long as they have permission from MSN to run the games in their particular area.
Miller emphasizes that West Virginia Radio Corp.'s other stations throughout the state do not automatically gain rights to broadcast Mountaineers games simply by virtue of their connection to the parent company.
"The Mountaineers bid out the games," Miller said. "In Summersville, for instance, our competitors won the bid."
WCWV holds the rights to Mountaineers games in Summersville.
"Each station that runs the games has to have an agreement with MSN," Miller said. "We are not blocking anybody out. We're not getting exclusive rights to games here in Morgantown. In this metro itself, there are two stations in Fairmont and two in Kingwood that I don't own or operate that are running the Mountaineers games."
Depending on the amount of interest in each county of license, MSN awards broadcast rights to the most qualified bidder.
"If there's more than one radio station [in a county of license], we'll look at whether they'll pay any money to us, what their promotional value is to us, and probably the most important point is their strength of signal," Parsons said. "Where do they rank in that county? Is it a big FM station? Or a small little AM station?
"That makes a big difference."
Most stations have a barter agreement with MSN, but some stations also pay varying amounts of rights fees. Delawarebased company Burbach LLC owns the Parkersburg stations WHBR and WADC, and pays an $18,000 rights fee. WFSP, the Kingwood station, pays a $2,000 rights fee, WVOW in Logan pays a $1,500 rights fee, and the Summersville station, WCWV, pays $20,949.
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