All News format out, ESPN Radio takes over

WINS FM is drawing a 4.3 share in the latest Nielsen book, and a 0.5 streaming. The AM didn't even make a 0.1. So I'm guessing advertisers are buying time on the simulcast, knowing the original station is drawing flies.

Surprisingly, WABC AM had a huge jump in July. It's the only AM in town with a better than 2.0 share.

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The Old Man loved WBBM, News radio 78. I hope they don't go the way of WBCS. Not that I ever listen to it.

 

I listen to former WPLJer Carol Miller, now on Q104.3, if I'm near a radio. She can always be counted on for an historical rock anecdote complemented by a completely inane comment.

 

I am flying into Chicago in a couple weeks to visit family there and in downstate Illinois. I will have to briefly turn to 780 AM to make sure Newsradio Ssssseventy-eight is still on the air.

 

I listened to him when he was first in Boston and I liked it. Mike Breen was funny. It was a Northeastern sense of ethnic humor that doesn't age well without some sense of how things have changed. And then he did just talking about his camp and new wife. Everything people complain about Stern, Imus already did it.

 

I love that every beloved personality-driven radio ensemble show has the exact same lifecycle once it is on the air for so long. Eventually they get their head so far in their navel they cannot extricate it. It will be funny to watch podcasts that now are nearing 15-20 years old reaching this stage. I’ve been listening to the LeBatard show for 20 years now and they reached that stage where you’re listening just because you’ve always listened— something Imus and Stern show listeners mused 20 years ago.

 

You knew you were in good with Imus if he threatened to hang up on you……called you a fat bastard or a son of a bitch or something like that.

 

I think with a lot of shows like his, there is something about being part of the family of listeners. I tried to listen to Imus a few times and thought it was terrible, but I’m guessing that people who did the same with Stern or Kornheiser might feel the same way.

 

+1 Breen.
Rob Bartlett was a key contributor in several ways.
Wasn't the same for me after Charles McCord retired.
Imus knew he had gems in Bartlett and McCord.

 

Well put. This describes me and PTI, which I watch religiously while on the Peloton. Tony and Mike are the literal definition of phoning it in, now that neither are in the studio. I can’t remember the last time one had an interesting take or made me laugh.
Pablo and Mina hosted together a few days recently and they at least had some energy and had done some homework.

 

WBBM is the only commercial all-news station in Chicago (WBEZ-FM, the local NPR outlet, is news-talk and very popular) and billed $30 million in 2023. Audacy is in the catbird seat in Chicago with the two highest-billing AM stations, the other being WSCR 670, formerly all-news WMAQ (though WBBM is simulcast on FM).

 

Yeah, since WSCR is already all sports, I imagine that's WBBM's insurance policy. Unless they go for the right-wing rant format.