ESPN New York Radio moving to 880 AM in place of WCBS

ESPN New York will move to 880 AM on Aug. 26, a dramatic twist in its decades-long local sports talk radio battle with WFAN, whose parent company owns 880 AM.

Audacy and Good Karma Brands, which owns ESPN New York, announced on Monday a local marketing agreement that paves the way for the surprising deal.

The move is good news for ESPN New York, which will leave its 98.7 FM signal on Aug. 23 and had been slated to be relegated to 1050 AM.

The 880 AM signal is far stronger than 1050 AM and thus will provide a bigger stage for the station, which also is shifting focus to its digital presence.

The Mets will continue to be heard on 880 AM.

The station’s new call letters will be WHSQ-AM (pending FCC approval), ending WCBS-AM’s run as a news station that began in 1967 and evolved into a round-the-clock operation in 1972. The station’s first sports director was Pat Summerall.

Audacy also owns all-news WINS, which debuted as such in 1965. Having two such stations was redundant. It will keep ownership of 880 AM’s frequency while Good Karma controls the programming.

ESPN New York carries Knicks and Rangers games, so those, too, now will get a stronger signal than 1050 AM alone would provide. The Jets this season will move from their longtime radio home on ESPN New York to Q104.3-FM.

“New York has always been proudly unique in supporting two all-news radio brands, but the news business has gone through significant changes,” Chris Oliviero, Audacy’s New York market president, said in a news release.

“The headwinds facing local journalism nationwide made it essential to strategically reimagine how we deliver the news for the most impact. WCBS-880 has been one of the most respected radio stations in history, with a legacy cemented by the hundreds of world-class journalists, on and off the air, who willed it into existence over the decades.”