No, at least not any time soon, Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III said in addressing rumblings that the team is exploring a departure from KTRS (550 AM). That's the station in which the team bought a 50 percent interest and where it moved its broadcasts in 2006, in a highly controversial move, after 51 consecutive seasons at KMOX (1120 AM).

"We're locked in at KTRS through next season at least, and there are frameworks in place to extend beyond that," DeWitt said Thursday. "These rumors of us leaving as early as next year, I just have no idea where they are coming from."

The parties are in the fourth season of an eight-year deal, in which the Cards have final say if there is a dispute. The arrangement contains a possible out after five years, so a move could be explored for 2011.

"There's some flexibility, but we haven't gotten into whether anybody would want to do anything different beyond next year,'' he said. "It's too early to tell.''

The foundation of the move was that the Cardinals thought they could make more money by going on their own and selling their product instead of taking KMOX's offer of a rights fee (which was significantly smaller than the club wanted) in addition to a revenue-sharing deal.

By rolling the dice, the Cards cut off their broadcasts to thousands of fans beyond the reach of the team's radio network, people who can hear KMOX's booming nighttime signal but don't come close to receiving the comparative KTRS popgun that doesn't even cover the entire market at night. That made it necessary to utilize a station in Litchfield, Ill., to fill gaps. But complaints still exist about coverage problems.

Since the move, the economy has tanked and media outlets in particular have been rocked.

"It's hard to say what would have occurred if we had stayed where we were, because everybody has experienced some tough times,'' DeWitt said. "Would it have been less bad (at KMOX)? It's hard to answer that.''

He said the team's decision to take full control of advertising at KTRS this year has been important in part because it packages commercials with other products such as ballpark signage.

"It's a learning process for us, but something I think we're happy we did,'' DeWitt said.

DOWN THE LINE

If a move eventually is considered, there would be two logical contenders — KMOX, which has remained No. 1 in the market despite the Cards' departure, and WXOS (101.1 FM), the upstart sports-talk station. To wit:

— The initial natural bitterness from KMOX toward the Cards has subsided, as key management at the local and corporate levels have changed. And one of the team's key figures in the move, president Mark Lamping, also is gone. Relations have improved between the sides. John Sheehan, who oversees KMOX and the other CBS Radio stations in town, wasn't even in the market when the station lost the Cards and did not want to discuss the possibility of pursuing the club again.

— WXOS has been doing much chest-pounding about wanting to gobble up local play-by-play. It already has landed the Rams and St. Louis University basketball and its parent company, Bonneville International, airs a significant amount of teams, including baseball, in other markets.

"Of course we would be interested in the play-by-play rights but at this time we have not talked with the Cardinals,'' WXOS general manager John Kijowski said. "Play-by-play on FM sounds better with no static due to obstructions with telephone wires and bridges. And our signal strength would be a plus.''

THE BACKGROUND

When the team made the move, KTRS founder and former KMOX executive Tim Dorsey was hoping to realize his dream of supplanting his old employer for supremacy in local radio ratings.

But that never happened, thanks in part to a series of ridiculous programming decisions as the Cardinals era began. There was a massive dumbing-down of the station as the management brought in from out of town fired most of the on-air personnel, broadcasters who took a relatively middle-of-the-road approach instead of the in-your-face style the station adopted. It was the polar opposite of the audience associated with a family-oriented baseball organization. Also ruffling feathers was the brusque dismissal of broadcaster Wayne Hagin in favor of John Rooney.

With all the turmoil, KTRS' ratings fell in the period after the move was announced late in the 2005 season. Although baseball helped it rise 62 percent in its first spring with the Cards over the previous year, boosting it from 16th in the market to fifth, KMOX stayed in the lead — as it has for decades. KTRS eventually cleaned up its act, but has been flat in the ratings since gaining baseball. It was No. 5 in the market that first spring, it's No. 6 now.

"We had some false starts at the beginning, some trial and error at the beginning,'' DeWitt said. "We've been pleased with the product at KTRS. (Cards announcers Mike) Shannon and Rooney have been great, and we're happy where the station is now from a content and programming standpoint. I think we've been pleased with how it's all worked out. We're making the best of the situation."