NYC Radio: WEPN's Michael Kay Beats WFAN's Carton & Roberts

The Michael Kay Show

The full fall ratings-book numbers are in, and the NY Post reports they spell victory for “The Michael Kay Show” and WEPN 98.7 FM ESPN New York over WFAN 660 AM / 101.9 FM's “Carton & Roberts” in afternoon drive in the fall ratings quarter.

In the time slot of 3-6:30 p.m., when both shows overlap, Kay’s show, which features Don La Greca and Peter Rosenberg, bested Craig Carton and Evan Roberts with a 5.7 share in the Nielsen Audio ratings compared to 4.6 amongst men 25-54, the demographic in which sports talk radio advertising is sold against.

In this time slot, Kay finished fourth overall in the New York market, and “Carton & Roberts” seventh.

The numbers include terrestrial radio and streaming.

Newsday reports WFAN was closer from 2 to 6:30 p.m., which includes the entirety of the Carton and Roberts show, but ESPN still won in that time period, 5.1-5.0.

WFAN’s Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti won handily from 6 to 10 a.m., finishing second overall at 6.5 to ESPN’s 10th at 3.9. WFAN finished behind only the Spanish-language station WSKQ-FM.

WFAN’s former midday show featuring Maggie Gary and Marc Malusis ranked sixth from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 4.4% of the audience and ESPN was 15th at 2.9.

After winning the winter and spring books — the first full books since Carton’s return to the station — WFAN got off to a horrendous start in October (5.8-3.7) before recovering in the last two months of the book to make things closer.

The two afternoon shows were tied during the last month of the quarterly period.

Kay finished fourth behind two Spanish-language stations and WLTW-FM, which played its popular holiday music starting on Nov. 19.

Malusis and Gray are getting replaced by Tiki Barber and Brandon Tierney in mid-days at WFAN in 2022. Gray left the station to host a national show on CBS Sports Radio with former “Dan Patrick Show” producer Andrew Perloff, and Malusis will remain in a utility role.

6+ December 2021 PPMs