Radio waves from WEEI

Boston sports radio station WEEI (850 AM) dramatically expanded its broadcast footprint yesterday when corporate parent Entercom bought Providence's WWRX (103.7 FM) for an announced $14.5 million from FNX Broadcasting.

WEEI immediately announced plans to simulcast its Boston programming on the station, which has a signal that reaches from Bristol County in Massachusetts across Rhode Island and Eastern Connecticut.

Red Sox games, already heard on WPRO (630 AM) in the Providence market, will be the only exception to the simulcasting, which is scheduled to start May 3. WEEI program director Jason Wolfe said the Providence station almost certainly would get new call letters to reflect the WEEI brand. It has been an alternative rock format as part of an FNX New England network.

WEEI's market analysis shows that most New Englanders (with the exception of Yankee territory in Southern Connecticut) are interested in Boston's pro sports teams. Afternoon host Glenn Ordway's decision to renew his contract was based in part on the understanding that the station would pursue plans to syndicate his show. With Entercom buying a station in Providence and providing it with a ready-made format and programming, the theory gets an immediate test.

Providence already has a sports radio establishment, owned by Citadel Broadcasting and led by WSKO-AM and -FM, and WPRO. WSKO program director David Bernstein, a veteran of WBZ, WRKO, and WHDH radio in the Boston market, said, "WEEI already comes into this market on its own signal so I don't see major changes. Our listeners are proud to be Rhode Islanders and we give them Red Sox, Bruins [both Boston and Providence], Patriots, Brown University football and basketball, and Providence College sports." WSKO-FM (99.7) also carries Yankees games in the market.

Bernstein recently hired Amy Lawrence to co-host the morning drive show on WSKO-AM with the established "Coach" John Colletto and paired Andy Gresh with Scott Cordeschi in afternoon drive. "We hire local people who can talk sports, instead of doing `guy radio,' " he said when asked how the WSKO format differed from WEEI's.

WEEI's Wolfe said ratings research from the WWRX listening area indicates a large part of the WEEI target audience (25- to 54-year-old males) doesn't currently listen to sports radio. WEEI plans to open a sales office in Rhode Island to work that market but it will report to Julie Kahn, WEEI's Boston-based general manager.

"It's fair to say we'll be planning to enter the market with our usual big splash," said Wolfe. "People will know we're coming."

"I hope and believe this will extend our tentacles through New England as time goes on," Ordway said in making the announcement on his show yesterday. "This is the type of move that has been a concept on our drawing board dating back to the mid 1990s."

College plans

CBS's Thursday night NCAA lineup has Boston getting the Phoenix Regional semifinal doubleheader: Connecticut-Vanderbilt (Channel 4, 7:10 p.m.), followed by Syracuse-Alabama. That means Boston misses the 10 p.m. Saint Joseph's-Wake Forest telecast, with analyst Billy Packer and Jim Nantz calling the action. Rest assured CBS will do its best to have Packer and Saint Joseph's coach Phil Martelli on camera to rekindle their pretournament contretemps. CBS is encouraged by the tournament's national ratings, which are up 53 percent from last year (Iraq war) and 6 percent from 2002. Sunday's mid-afternoon window, with Boston College-Georgia Tech and Vanderbilt-North Carolina State, did a 6.4 preliminary national rating, a higher national number than it did in Boston (6.1), where BC was the sole game in the window . . . Tonight's Connecticut-Auburn women's game (ESPN, 9 p.m.) in the Massachusetts market won't be subject to ESPN's "whiparound" coverage . . . ESPN is producing TV coverage of all games in the NCAA men's hockey tournament, with NESN scrambling to fit this weekend's regional coverage of local teams around Bruins and Red Sox commitments. So far, it plans to do Friday's 5 p.m. Maine-Harvard game from Albany and is hoping to follow that with the Holy Cross-North Dakota matchup from Colorado Springs and the Denver-Miami (Ohio) game that follows HC. Channel 56 plans to pick up Saturday's BC-Niagara game at noon with NESN planning to pick up the UNH-Michigan game that follows, after Sox-Phillies at 1 p.m. . . . The folks at Comcast are taking full advantage of the opportunity to pick up some Red Sox broadcasts on CN8 next month any time there is a conflict with Bruins playoff games. Comcast yesterday began an advertising campaign called, "When your teams play at the same time."

Bill Griffith's e-mail address is griffith@globe.com