Mike Francesa stays ahead of Michael Kay in latest radio ratings
WFAN host Mike Francesa hosts his football radio show from Mulcahy's every Sunday during the season, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2015. Credit: Steve Pfost
WFAN maintained its long-held leads over ESPN New York in Arbitron’s autumn ratings book, which was released Monday and covered the period from Sept. 10 through Dec. 2.
Mike Francesa finished first among men ages 25-54 when going head-to-head against ESPN’s Michael Kay in the most closely watched ongoing competition, with Francesa averaging 6.8 percent of the New York radio audience from 3 to 6:30 p.m. and Kay 4.2.
But Kay continued to outperform the other shows on his station, finishing eighth among all stations in the market in the key demographic.
For the entirety of Francesa’s show, from 1 to 6:30 p.m., he ranked second with a 7.2 share, slightly behind WCBS-FM’s 7.3.
ESPN did not close the gap against Francesa from 1 to 3 p.m. after replacing Mike Lupica with Alan Hahn and Rick DiPietro. Francesa won that period with a 7.9 share to 2.5 for ESPN. But Hahn and DiPietro improved significantly on Lupica’s most recent rating of 1.8.
In the morning, WFAN’s Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton ranked third among men 25-54 with a 6.2 share compared to ESPN’s national “Mike and Mike” show, which was 11th in New York at 3.6.
The WFAN midday show of Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts finished fifth from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. with a 6.1 share, compared with ESPN’s 2.3, which ranked 15th during that time slot.
WFAN’s ratings include both its AM and FM outlets.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
