“The times they are a changin‘,” as Bob Dylan once said. He wasn’t talking about 94 WIP’s new lineup, or Philadelphia sports talk radio at all, but we are, and we’ve got the numbers for the winter book, which runs from January 5th to March 29th.

At last check, 94 WIP was winning a lopsided battle against 97.5 the Fanatic, dominating the uber-important fall book through all day parts and into the evening as well. From mid-September to mid-December, WIP finished in a first-place tie with 93.3 WMMR, while the Fanatic was tied for 8th.

Obviously the big talking point with this book is the WIP shuffle that saw Angelo Cataldi retire and Joe DeCamara move to mornings. Joe Giglio and Hugh Douglas started their midday show at the same time in mid-February, and therefore this book includes portions of both the old lineup and new lineup.

As a reminder, we’re going with Nielsen meters plus streaming, using the demographic of men aged 25 to 54. Other demos are sometimes used, but ad rates are set on M25-54, which is the main focus when parsing the data. When you look through the numbers below, note that we have separate streaming and over the air numbers for WIP, while the Fanatic’s stream and air are wrapped into one singular number, known as “total line reporting” or TLR in industry terms.

 

Mornings

  • 94 WIP: 17.9 (9.8 on the stream, 8.1 over the air)
  • 97.5 the Fanatic: 3.1

WIP was #1 overall in the morning, defeating Preston and Steve by the smallest of margins, while John Kincade and company finished 10th.

Notably, there was negligible ratings movement when Angelo Cataldi retired in mid-February, handing the reins to Joe DeCamara and Jon Ritchie. The new show continued the trend of WIP morning dominance, running neck-and-neck with WMMR for top dog in the market. That’s been the pattern for some time now, and continues in the post-Angelo era.

 

Midday

  • 94 WIP: 15.2 (4.3 on the stream, 10.9 over the air)
  • 97.5 the Fanatic: 3.8

The combination of DeCamara/Ritchie and Giglio/Douglas finished #1 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., while Anthony Gargano posted the Fanatic’s highest day part number and finished 9th.

Similar to the morning show, the transition to Giglio and Douglas saw a mostly insignificant change in the ratings. It was another strong finish for WIP, which widened the gap over the Fanatic to about 11 ratings point, up from the eight-point cushion from the fall book.

 

Afternoons

  • 94 WIP: 17.5 (1.1 on the stream, 16.4 over the air)
  • 97.5 the Fanatic: 3.0

Continued dominance from Jon Marks and Ike Reese, who finished #1 in the time slot. The Best Show Ever? finished 11th.

Interestingly, there’s a huge dip in the WIP stream as the day goes on, which results in Marks and Reese pulling a massive over the air number instead. TBSE? benefits from the simulcast on NBC Sports Philadelphia, but it looks as though the Fanatic lost a significant portion of the PM drive audience that once tuned in for Mike Missanelli.

 

Evenings

  • 94 WIP: 14.4 (0.8 stream, 13.6 over the air)
  • 97.5 the Fanatic: 4.0

#1 for WIP and #10 for the Fanatic.

Evenings are always a little funky depending on the timing of the book. In this case, WIP had some Phillies spring training games and March Madness, while the Fanatic had Sixers and Flyers on the air. That 4.0 number is not bad at all for the Fanatic, though once again WIP dominates.

 

Prime

Across all time slots, WIP finished in a first-place with a 17.0 number, which includes a 12.1 over the air and 4.9 streaming split. The Fanatic was 10th with a 3.3.

Takeaways?

Well it’s more of the same for WIP, which had a MASSIVE fall book and continued that domination through the winter. As for the Fanatic, slight dips across the board, falling from 3.2/4.4/3.3 to 3.1/3.8/3.0 in the men 25-54 demo. Nothing has trended below 3.0, however, and with football being over, we’ll see if the Sixers can go on a run here and help give rights holder 97.5 a shot in the arm through the spring. Keep in mind, the early portion of this book included the Eagles’ playoff run and Super Bowl appearance, while Angelo’s retirement festivities put eyeballs on WIP as well, so it really should not surprise anyone that 94.1 absolutely crushed the last 5-6 months. They’ve been on an incredible run lately.

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