NYC Radio: WFAN, WEPN Tie During PM Drive

Sports stations WFAN 660 AM / 101.9 FM and WEPN ESPN 98.7 FM New York finished the April 2-18 PPMs tied with an average of 4.9 percent of the radio audience among men ages 25-54 from 3 to 6:30 p.m., according to Newsday citing data from Nielsen Audio.

What is significant about that monthly period, which covers March 29 to April 25, is that it was the final full month for the afternoon drive time show featuring Chris Carlin, Maggie Gray and Bart Scott.

Mike Francesa returned to that time slot on May 1 after having left the station on Dec. 15.

ESPN’s “The Michael Kay Show” had narrowly beaten “CMB” in the quarterly winter ratings book, 4.4 to 4.2.

Overall, WFAN and ESPN finished tied for fifth in the market among men 25-54 from 3 to 6:30 in April.

WFAN’s ratings were helped by Yankees afternoon games, but the final tally represented a relatively positive finish for Carlin, Gray and Scott before they moved from 2 to 6:30 p.m. to 1 to 3 p.m.

WFAN’s morning show of Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti averaged a 4.8 rating for April, ninth overall, down significantly from that time slot’s performance in 2017, when Esiason was paired with Craig Carton and later Jerry Recco.

But the local stations judge their ratings on full quarterly books, so the morning show still has May and June to be tallied before its current period can be assessed fully.

During Total Week 25-54 Persons: iHM's AC WLTW maintained its commanding lead. The station was over three shares ahead of its cluster mate CHR WHTZ, which moved up to #2 with a small increase. Entercom's Classic Hits WCBS-FM slipped back to #3.  Emmis R/CHR WQHT HOT97 had its best performance since July '17 to move up to #4. WBLS stepped back to #5.