Summertime and the living’s easy, if you’re Sublime* or 94 WIP.

It was another clean sweep of the Nielsen ratings for the time period running from June through the first week of the Eagles season. Summer is not a very important book in sports talk radio, with fewer listeners tuning in during the vacation season and football lull. You typically see a drop in numbers for all demos between both stations, which is once again the case in 2023.

That said, the summer period does butt into training camp and WIP holds the Phillies rights, which helps bridge the gap between the spring book and all-important fall book.

Now to our typical disclaimer:

We’re going with Nielsen meters plus streaming, using the demographic of men aged 25 to 54. In Q3 2023, advertising rates are still based on M25-54, which is always our main focus. When you look at 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.


To the ratings:

Mornings

  • 94 WIP: 10.0 (8.3 over the air, 1.7 stream)
  • 97.5 the Fanatic: 2.2

WIP was #2 in the market, with Joe DeCamara and Jon Ritchie once again defeating everybody not named Preston and Steve. At the Fanatic, John Kincade, Bob Cooney, and Pat Egan finished #14 overall.

One thing to point out is that DeCamara and Ritchie are a few months out from their one-year anniversary. When the winter book comes out, we’ll have a full year’s worth of data to compare and contrast with Angelo Cataldi’s final year. So far, there hasn’t been any drop off. The new WIP morning show is doing very well.

Midday

  • 94 WIP: 6.3  (6.1 over the air, 0.2 stream)
  • 97.5 the Fanatic: 2.2

Joe Giglio and Hugh Douglas finished 4th overall while Anthony Gargano’s now kaput midday show was tied for 15th. Once the highest-performing time slot at 97.5, Beasley is going to have to figure out what to do with middays in the post-Cuz era.

Afternoons

  • 94 WIP: 10.2 (9.9 over the air, 0.3 stream)
  • 97.5 the Fanatic: 3.2

Jon Marks and Ike Reese continue their dominant run, finishing in a first-place tie in the M25-54 demographic. They’re consistently battling with the WIP morning show for the largest share in Philadelphia sports radio.

Interestingly enough, Marks’ contract expires at the end of the year and the two sides have not agreed to an extension. It would be something else if Marks walked away from a P.M. drive show that has been consistently crushing the ratings for several years now.

Meantime, at the Fanatic, The Best Show Ever? finished #12 with that 3.2 number. A full point ahead of mornings and middays, TBSE is the top-performing show at WPEN.

The last time I wrote a ratings post, people were up my ass because they thought I was being a TBSE apologist. THAT’S NOT TRUE, as Mike Gundy once said. If you look simply at the numbers, TBSE is the best-performing Fanatic daypart in the M25-54 demo for the second straight book. And while a 3.2 number and 12th place is nothing to write home about, there’s no disputing that Tyrone Johnson, Ricky Bottalico, and Jen Scordo continue to pull a better number than the other two time slots. That is simply a fact.

Evenings

  • 94 WIP: 10.5 (9.8 over the air, 0.7 stream)
  • 97.5 the Fanatic: 1.4

WIP enjoyed a strong evening run on the strength of the Phillies. Zero surprises there.

Prime

Across all time slots, WIP finished #2 with an 8.9 number and The Fanatic was 14th with a 2.6.

Takeaways?

Not much has changed since the spring book. WIP continues to roll, posting 10 shares in two dayparts during the slowest part of the year. Their numbers will skyrocket again with the Eagles season underway, likely pushing to the 17-18 range for drive time and again reaching double digits for the Joe Giglio and Hugh Douglas show.

There’s quite a bit going on at the Fanatic, with the departures of Mike Missanelli, Gargano, Devon Givens, Jamie Lynch, and Hunter Brody. Program Director Chuck Damico is heading back to WMMR and they’ll have a new PD running the show soon. That person will have a tough task in front of them, and quite a bit of work to do.

 

*Sublime’s version is a cover. George Gershwin wrote the original for Porgy and Bess. Lyrics from DuBose Heyward.