Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Cubs Bring Incredible Ratings to the Score

WGN still insists they did the right thing by letting the Cubs go. This story makes me believe maybe they didn't. From Tom Taylor's NOW column...

The Cubs lead their radio flagship WSCR to record ratings. Could Hollywood have scripted it any better? Game 7 of the Chicago Cubs-Cleveland Indians World Series was November 2 – literally the last day of Nielsen’s “November-book” PPMs. “Score” programmer Mitch Rosen shares these stats with the NOW Newsletter – “More than a million people listened to WSCR on the day of Game 7. There were times during the game itself that half of all Chicago radio listeners were tuned in to the Score, to hear the home-town call of Pat Hughes and Ron Coomer.” Ratings record-keeper Chris Huff says the station’s 6.1 with age 6+ AQH total-week share marks “the largest share for the 670 facility since January/February 1979, when it was WMAQ.” Daypart-wise, in this latest set of PPMs the Score was #1 both nights and weekends, powered by the Cubs. What a sweet season for the champs, with their first World Series rings since 1908, and in their first year of an association with CBS-owned sports “670 the Score.” The team came over from co-owned news WBBM, in a one-time-only window, and the result is what Mitch Rosen calls “an epic season.” As you’ll see in the upcoming analysis of the dozen Day 1 Nielsen PPM markets, there was also some glory for the Score’s format rival, Disney-owned/ESPN-managed WMVP. (It had the national ESPN Radio feed of the Cubs in the Series.)

My Illinois Entertainer column next week will be an interview with one of the men who covered them all season, Josh Liss from WBBM-AM.