It's another example of how COVID-19 has changed the way many of us do our jobs, including broadcasting high school sports.
While 94 Country WKKJ has been denied permission to do in-person broadcasting for most of the football playoff games on October 10th, we have received permission to use the New Lexington High School live video stream in order to broadcast the game to our Scioto Valley Conference listeners.
WKKJ was denied in-person broadcast permission at most other sites due to space limitations.
Unioto did grant permission for WKKJ to broadcast their game with Hillsboro, but only one radio station was being permitted in the press box. Our iHeart Media Southern Ohio operation needed to defer to our affiliate WSRW 101.5FM/1590AM to broadcast that game, as they are the Voice of Hillsboro Sports.
Anyone outside the WSRW listening area, can still hear Hillsboro at Unioto on Saturday night, through WSRW's free iHeart Radio stream app. Airtime with Stew Gardner and Aric Fiscus will be 6:40pm.
Other SVC teams playing Saturday include Zane Trace at Coshocton, Piketon at Minford and Southeastern at Symmes Valley.
Coshocton said "no" and Piketon's "home town" radio station has the leg-up there. WKKJ did not get a response from Symmes Valley about broadcasting their game with Southeastern.
OHSAA tournament protocol calls for visiting schools to be allowed at least "one radio station" to cover their game. However, due to space limits at some of the host press boxes, it comes down to host managers having to make difficult decisions to leave some stations on the outside- looking in.
Mike Smith and B.Jay Dailey will have the call of Westfall at New Lexington, with airtime 6:40pm, Saturday on WKKJ and our free iHeart Radio app.