I hope everyone had a safe and fun New Year’s celebration and that everyone survived the crazy sports weekend without any bed sores from not leaving the couch.
Enough with that, the real news is it’s that time of the month (no not that time, you people with dirty minds). The Arbitron ratings for December are out and it’s time again to take a look at how the warring factions of Bay Area sports radio are doing.
Here are the numbers updated through December (numbers on demographics aren’t available to the general public):
San Francisco |
|||||||
|
October |
November |
December |
|||||
| Station |
AQH% |
Reach |
AQH% |
Reach |
AQH% |
Reach |
Owner |
| KNBR-AM | 3.5 | 694,000 | 3.4 | 775,400 | 2.9 | 684,300 | Cumulus |
| KGMZ-FM | 0.8 | 176,300 | 0.8 | 162,900 | 0.9 | 164,700 | Entercom |
| KTCT-AM | 1.2 | 409,300 | 1.1 | 359,300 | 0.9 | 312,000 | Cumulus |
San Jose |
|||||||
|
October |
November |
December |
|||||
| Station |
AQH% |
Reach |
AQH% |
Reach |
AQH% |
Reach |
Owner |
| KNBR-AM | 3.9 | 173,000 | 3.8 | 172,400 | 3.7 | 165,000 | Cumulus |
| KGMZ-FM | 0.9 | 37,800 | 1.4 | 51,300 | 1.2 | 41,500 | Entercom |
| KTCT-AM | 1.1 | 94,400 | 0.9 | 90,200 | 1.1 | 87,800 | Cumulus |
If you ever doubted that KNBR was heavily dependent on the Giants for ratings, the last three months of data should be enough to convince you otherwise. The ratings have fallen nearly 35 percent since the end of the baseball season in September and are off 43 percent from the highs KNBR saw in July when the Giants were riding high in first place.
When compared to KNBR 1050 and “The Game” the fall looks even worse, as both other stations have gained ratings share as each has nearly doubled the ratings they were pulling in the middle of the summer (although with such small starting points, it didn’t take much).
To help hammer home the point, here are the ratings numbers going back to June of this year for all three stations:
San Francisco Ratings
While it doesn’t look like all the listeners lost by KNBR are moving to the competition, “The Game” has managed to hold steady during the post baseball season. According to our survey it seems like they’ve even managed to persuade a good portion of people to give them a chance, with 71 percent of people saying that they at least occasionally listen to the FM station.
Now the task will be to turn these people into regular listeners and with KNBR down this is probably the best opportunity to gain a larger foothold.
The next few months should be entertaining to watch. “The Sports Leader” is hemorrhaging listeners at an alarming pace, at the same time its once impressive lead on the new upstart is shrinking. Maybe with the return of a near daily live sporting event to broadcast in the Warriors will help to right the ship, if not Spring Training probably can’t get here fast enough for KNBR.
Whatever happens, keep checking back because I can’t get enough of this.
—
I’m Scott Willis you can catch my Giants writing at Crazy Crabbers and follow me on twitter @BAStatsGuy and @CrazyCrabbers
