ESPN's 'Michael Kay Show' beats WFAN's 'Carton & Roberts' in autumn radio ratings
ESPN New York Radio's "The Michael Kay Show," featuring, from left, Peter Rosenberg, Michael Kay and Don LaGreca. Credit: ESPN Images/Lorenzo Bevilaqua
ESPN New York’s "The Michael Kay Show" won the autumn radio ratings book head-to-head against WFAN’s Carton and Roberts, rebounding from two consecutive quarterly losses to the FAN.
From 3 to 6:30 p.m., the period during which the shows overlap, ESPN ranked fourth overall in the New York market with an average of 5.7% of the listening audience among the key demographic of men ages 25-54.
WFAN was seventh at 4.6, according to Nielsen Audio data obtained from an industry source for the period Sept. 16 through Dec. 8.
The numbers were a reversal from the spring book, when WFAN averaged 5.7% of the audience while head-to-head against Kay, compared to 4.1 for ESPN.
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.
All data includes both over-the-air and streaming numbers but not the shows’ TV simulcasts.
The men 25-54 demographic traditionally has been the one the stations judge themselves on, but WFAN’s afternoon show has a larger overall listenership thanks mostly to its edge among listeners 55 and over.
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.
