Thanks to Anonymous 718 for passing along the latest ratings in a comment to the last post:
October Sports Radio Ratings
The Ticket is still comfortably ahead overall in prime time in the prime demo. Cat should give The Musers a nice gift card to All-Pro Foundation Repair, as they seem to be shouldering the burden of keeping The Ticket on top when everything is averaged out.
I don't know if there is much to be made about the rest of it. I think it's fair to say that over the last several ratings periods, The Hardline and Ben & Skin are in a pretty close battle.
All of this must be viewed against the backdrop of continuing controversy nationwide over the accuracy of radio ratings since Nielsen switched to the personal people meters. (What other kind of a meter would a personal meter be?) (I wrote about the controversy in this post.) As I also wrote in that post, The Musers' steady dominance tends to undercut the argument that the methods for measuring ratings are seriously flawed -- although I think that its much broader appeal means that it will tend to weather random ratings variations better than the other shows that don't offer as much variety.
I find The Hardline/Ben & Skin race less interesting than Norm & Donovan + Bad Radio's struggles against G-Bag Nation. Norm & Donovan are significantly behind, while this time around the delta with BaD is about the same as between The Hardline and Ben & Skin. I guess the jump in The Ticket's ratings at noon means some people are switching from G-Bag to BaD -- but not enough to vault BaD into the lead.
 |
I've been thinking about auditing Ben & Skin and G-Bag to see if I can discern its appeal. My very hit-and-miss listening to Ben & Skin hasn't impressed me, but I haven't really given it a fair shot. Maybe I'll take that up.
In the meantime, your views always welcome.
* * *
A few readers need to revisit The Rules of the Confessional. I've rejected several comments lately that were fine with the exception of entirely unnecessary shots or insults of other Confessors. That's a deletin'.
Craig Rosengarden can't win.
ReplyDeleteThis morning on The Teebox he and Rick Arnett were discussing Halloween trick-or-treating practices.
Rick said (or so I heard it): "Do you ever have kids bust in?"
Craig seemed puzzled (as was I). Then they both realized at the same time (as did I) what Rick was talking about -- kids arriving on buses from out of the neighborhood.
Craig said, "Oh, you mean b-u-s-s-e-d."
They had a laugh over the misunderstanding.
Except that "bused," meaning "being transported by bus," is spelled "b-u-s-e-d." "Bussed" is a word, but it means "kissed."
I am probably being unfair to Craig, because a lot of people misspell "bused" as in "forced integration," and don't even know the "kiss" meaning of "buss". But I figure -- if anyone's going to be caught in a niggly error by the niggly-error police at MTC, it had to be Craig.
Your Plainsman has been known to let some niggly and not-so-niggly errors slip through into his posts and comments. Fortunately, I don't broadcast to millions.
There is some instability in writing, but if I had been listening to the show I would have known exactly what he meant.
ReplyDelete*Cues the Dick Van Dyke "whoa" drop at Plainsmans repeated use of the word niggly*
ReplyDeleteThat's just a niggardly criticism.
ReplyDeletei have listened to Gbag a little bit more often than usual because since its one show they tend to stay on point and talk about the things i want to hear. Cause the show day for the ticket is a little to all over the map. Norm and donnie are great but toward the end of their show its a screw around segment which then hands off to the mix with bad then long commercial then the longest and i have always hated that long intro then screw around and then a commercial. Its just takes i think once i clocked it an hour or 45 min to get 12 show started. Whereas gbag has been broadcasting for about 2 hours already.
ReplyDeleteI cant listen to gbag or any fan show for that long because the quality is little lower then on the ticket but it helps that i dont have to wait almost an hour to hear content. I am also not a listener that needs constant sports and i would hate it if ticket switched to that but i dont want to hear clips from movies or shows for 2 min for your intro im sorry it never make me laugh or interests me.
Another complaint about bad, which i do really like, is their game show format is way to overdone and i tune out often. The other day Jake interviewed atheletes jeopardy style questions asked the same question to 3 players and it was the most boring radio in existence. When they did it with their fans i found that funny but i wish they would use that segment sparingly but i feel they pull out jeopardy all the time. And please dont blame Jake i had this complaint for years when donnie did it as well.
The fan segments when they veer off the sports into bits or pop culture are still pretty awful and unlistenable. Ben and skin funny voice segment has got to be the most unfunny thing on the planet. Gbag has 1 kinda funny segment in coach ballsack with Mike bascik. Bascik is proably in my opinion their best talent only because i feel he as well thought out sports opinions and usually doesnt just speak from his heart on the radio. For example when he talks about the rangers he doesnt automatically assume they will be good because they get darvish and hamels all year he talked out how they need to improve their lineup and all the massive holes they had
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI tried to understand what you wrote but your run-on sentence ruined any chance of me taking anything from it. I'm not an English major but a little common sense goes a long way.
DeleteI think the Ticket was way too quick to pull the trigger on Bacsik. Considering that this is the station that plays with regularity drops of Corby's stereotypical Mexican interpretations. And then we all laugh.
ReplyDeleteI guess this demonstrates that what is written is taken much more seriously than what is spoken.
Cat strikes me as a pretty intelligent fellow, so I find it hard to believe he's not addressing or comprehending mid-days continually declining ratings. When you're losing to spares, it's time to look in the mirror and realize why these shows are struggling and what they have in common.
ReplyDeleteArticle on Cumulus:
ReplyDeletehttp://nypost.com/2015/11/01/cumulus-medias-new-ceo-cant-stop-companys-slide/
"The static is getting louder at slumping radio station giant Cumulus Media.
After months of watching the stock sink, Cumulus’s biggest shareholder, Crestview’s Jeffrey Marcus, pushed out founder Lew Dickey as CEO and drafted publishing veteran Mary Berner to replace him atop the No. 2 radio broadcaster.
But the management shakeup in late September has failed to stem the stock slide. Cumulus shares, which had lost 80 percent of their value this year before the CEO turnover, dropped nearly 39 percent last week, closing at 46 cents Friday."
"There’s growing speculation that Berner could sell Westwood One, its program syndication service, and major market stations to pay down some $2.5 billion of debt as Dickey aggressively bought up stations.
Atlanta-based Cumulus owns 450 stations in 90 markets, including talk radio’s WABC-AM, contemporary WPLJ-FM and country WNSH in New York. It also has a stake in music streaming service Rdio.
Then there’s the fate of its country music brand, Nash. Under Dickey, Cumulus made a big bet on Nash, which it extended to radio stations, television and even a record label.
So far, Berner seems more focused on morale-boosting than cost-cutting, sources said. Her efforts in this department also seem offbeat, such as giving staffers sweaters bearing a “Ghostbusters”-like logo with the phrase “Focus Buster,” insiders said.
The company, which is moving to New York, earned two downgrades last week from Macquarie Capital and RBC Capital. The Street is increasingly concerned that third-quarter results on Nov. 5 will be abysmal.
“Berner has only been on the job a few weeks, and the revenue news that comes out this week doesn’t reflect her leadership,” Gene McKay, publisher of Inside Radio, told The Post. “But she does need to give investors clear details on what changes she plans to make to grow revenue and ratings.”"
I think BaD has stepped up their game since Donnie left. That is no shot at Donnie, but the show flows better. Jake and TC let the game come to them more than they did before. Of course we still have some bogging issues, and as Justin said the Mix/Commercial/Open/penalty kill/commercial to open BaD is way too long without real content. I personally like the Open/penalty kill, but I know that some don't and new listeners might punch out during that time and not come back.
ReplyDeleteI can't listen to the Norm and Donnie show. It just doesn't work for me. Seems forced and seems like Donnie Doo is trying too hard. I love Donovan, and I think he is very talented, but this new pairing is not working IMO, and I think that reflects in the ratings.
I love Donnie as well, but to use a hockey analogy, he is a 3rd line center being asked to play wing on the 1st line... I too find it harder to listen 10-noon - in part because I want Donnie to do well and it gives me an ice cream headache when he doesn't. The depressing thing is that there is really no way to fix it -- Norm and Donnie are who they are - which are two great guys that I would love to live next door to, but do not provide enough compelling radio for me to hang around for more than a segment or two.
ReplyDeleteI am a huge Bob/Jake/IJB P1, which probably explains why I feel this way.
From the forced, unfitting name to the forced segments that MUST have a silly name, the Norm and Donnie experiment is failed. I too think Donnie is talented. I would like to see him paired with Sirois or *gasp* another African-American host or *gasp* a female host. If Sirois, it'd be familiar for the listener, and yet could make for some differently entertaining radio; if another African-American, a much much needed perspective could be given voice in what is an extremely homogenized format; and a female, I think that not only would it be interesting, also a much needed perspective, and entertaining, but also I believe Donnie would be more himself with a female; that he'd stop the obvious bulsh "I've never seen boobs before" sort of persona he far too often gets into. Plus, The Ticket sorely needs a female voice whose sole purpose is to tell us where an accident has occurred.
ReplyDeleteI think someone else made this comment already, but to be honest, after 2-3+ hours of Cowboys postgame talk, I've more than had my fill of the Norm and Donnie pairing for a week. Norm by himself can be exhausting to listen to. Donnie can also be exhausting. Both take one or two opinions and drive them into the ground--and with them, the listener into submission. Taken together, it's too much to take on a daily basis. I know they're good buds and all, but in some ways they're too much alike to be good co-hosts. Norm needs to be solo. Donnie needs a proper pairing.
I've never been a big Donnie fan so I'm not surprised he isn't doing great as co-host with Norm. However, I still think this was the right move to make and overall will be better for both shows.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that's becoming evident is Norm is massively out of touch. The segment on Dez and Twitter really showed how old and out of touch he is compared to Donnie and Sirois. I know a lot of people have been saying this about Norm but his pairing with Donnie has made it more obvious the last two months.
Good thing about G-Bag Nation is you don't have to listen to IJB. BaD Radio ratings will continue to struggle as long as that is the case.
ReplyDeleteAnother great weekend for the Anti-Cowboy Faction.
Corby's claim that he GUARANTEES that Romo would've driven the ball downfield and won the game against the Seattle defense is just another example of how he can't be objective when he's talking about his little buddy Romo.
Go Eagles.
@8:53 Honest question here. Have you listened to BaD in the last few weeks? Jake talks about as much as Gribble did now and TC very rarely breaks in lately. I realize there are some that won't be happy until they never hear Jake or TCs voices again, but they really have reined it in here lately, IMHO.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone else find the new "I'm a P1, Too" commercial by the host off-putting? While I don't doubt they occasionally punch in a listen, I've heard on multiple times (and brought it up here) that later shows would bring up an issue, have a question about a detail with no answer when the Musers already talked about it and had the answer. Plus, Norm has gone out of his way the last month or two to talk about listening to other sports stations. Maybe that's what prompted this commercial.
ReplyDeleteBoy that decision not to franchise DeMarco Murray just keeps getting better and better.
ReplyDeleteSTAY HARD JOSEPH RANDLE!!!