Water is wet.

The grass is green.

The sky is blue.

And 94 WIP continues to roll in the ratings, via Brandon Contes at Barrett Sports Media:

Philadelphia’s Sports Radio 94 WIP posted big audience numbers for the first ratings period of 2020.

Beginning with their morning show featuring the iconic Angelo Cataldi, WIP did a 14.9 among men 25-54, finishing second overall. Their midday show hosted by Joe DeCamara and Jon Ritchie finished second in the targeted demo with an 11.7.

In afternoon drive, Jon Marks and Ike Reese finished first with a 10.9, topping their sports radio rival The Mike Missanelli Show, which was third in the market at 9.1. Missanelli and 97.5 The Fanatic topped WIP in afternoon drive in the fall book, but the audience tilted back in favor of Marks and Reese during the winter ratings period. In the evening window, WIP’s Joe Giglio continued to post strong numbers, finishing first in the market with an 8.5.

I don’t have the numbers for this book, but Angelo typically finishes second behind Preston and Steve while trouncing the Fanatic. Preston and Steve put up monolithic, Howard Stern-like numbers on the reg. They are pretty much untouchable.

The WIP midday show beat Anthony Gargano and Jason Myrtetus in the fall, though The Cuz made up some ground in November when he started hosting solo. I’ve been told via a source that Gargano finished fourth this time around while 102.9 WMGK was first.

And afternoons shouldn’t really surprise anybody. Mike, Natalie, and Tyrone had been going back and forth with Jon Marks and Ike Reese for a few books now. Missanelli used to win regularly in that time slot, but WIP started closing the gap a few years ago and has now defeated Mike on multiple occasions. 2-6 p.m. is now up for grabs during every book. It’s like Florida in the 2000 election, without the hanging chads. (Update: I went back through emails/texts/old stories/etc and it looks like there have been nine books since Jon Marks took over for Chris Carlin. The unofficial count looks to be five wins for WIP and four wins for the Fanatic, on Nielsen numbers solely).

No streaming data here, nor do we have the Mikey Miss TV simulcast data, which is par for the course. WIP doesn’t participate in the Nielsen streaming program, but logs their digital numbers separately, so that’s something only they have access to. It’s always been an incomplete picture.

I’ve also been on the record a million times saying that the Nielsen PPM program is a total scam, but it doesn’t matter what I think, because this is the system we have and WIP continues to rule with an iron fist. They have sports radio hegemony in the Delaware Valley.

Very strong wins for WIP, and nice morale boost perhaps during a time when Entercom had to make some major cuts during the COVID-19 pandemic.