The winter months have been hard on the ratings for our local sports radio stations, and this February’s ratings show that the trend of depressed ratings continues. I am sure the guys were happy to set the clocks forward and that the first official day of Spring is here — meaning the start of near-daily baseball games is just a matter of weeks away.
Here are the numbers updated through February (numbers on demographics aren’t available to the general public):
San Francisco |
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|
Holiday |
January |
February |
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| Station |
AQH% |
Reach |
AQH% |
Reach |
AQH% |
Reach |
Owner |
| KNBR-AM | 2.8 | 656,800 | 3.7 | 744,400 | 2.5 | 484,700 | Cumulus |
| KGMZ-FM | 0.8 | 170,600 | 1.0 | 197,000 | 0.7 | 161,700 | Entercom |
| KTCT-AM | 0.9 | 312,000 | 0.7 | 257,600 | 0.5 | 135,400 | Cumulus |
San Jose |
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|
Holiday |
January |
February |
|||||
| Station |
AQH% |
Reach |
AQH% |
Reach |
AQH% |
Reach |
Owner |
| KNBR-AM | 3.2 | 159,900 | 3.8 | 168,300 | 2.3 | 116,900 | Cumulus |
| KGMZ-FM | 0.9 | 42,100 | 1.1 | 41,000 | 0.9 | 37,300 | Entercom |
| KTCT-AM | 1.0 | 70,500 | 0.8 | 56,700 | 0.4 | 36,100 | Cumulus |
February was a harsh month for all three stations. KNBR is at its lowest level since we started watching the ratings numbers (going back to June of last year). The total listeners is off 52 percent from the highs saw in July and off 26 percent from the previous low, during the holiday period when many of the regular hosts were taking vacations.
Things for “The Game” aren’t nearly as bad as they are at KNBR (but they also have far fewer listeners to lose) but a rating of 0.7 is the lowest Arbitron rating for San Francisco that they have posted in seven months. The bright side for “The Game”: for the first time since their switch to an all-sports format they had more listeners and a higher rating than KNBR 1050, which has been pushed into third place in the radio wars. (Has the “Damon Bruce effect” worn off? Maybe it’s because not that many people care for the syndicated stuff.)
The FM station seems to have weathered the winter months the best among the three stations. The “Lucky Break” contest, which kicked off in February, didn’t create a ratings bonanza. However, that plus everything else they have been doing seems to have spared them from the ratings crash seen on the other stations.
March will be an interesting month to take a look at — KNBR has baseball on the radio again with Spring Training and 95.7 bought the exclusive rights to Westwood One’s broadcasts of March Madness and also the rights to the prime time NFL games including the playoffs and the Super Bowl.
With winter behind us, it will be interesting to watch if there are some green shoots springing up again in the ratings.
