Chicago Radio Ratings

Looks like that Christmas format was even more golden this year. From this morning's NOW Newsletter...

Before we get to the story about all-Christmas WLIT, let’s set the scene for the country battle that just began. CBS Radio’s country “US 99.5” WUSN slides 4.1-3.5-2.6. That certainly could be the effect of WLIT and we’ve seen country stations quickly rebound from a love-tap from Santa Claus. But it’s a period of possible vulnerability, because iHeart just blew up regional Mexican WNUA to go country as “Big 95.5” – so WUSN faces real competition for the first time in many years. Back to the Christmas story - iHeart’s hot AC WLIT soars 3.7-7.7-14.2. Second is urban AC sister “V103” WVAZ (5.9-7.3-6.7) and third is CBS all-newser WBBM and its FM partner (5.7-6.2-5.7). Hubbard’s hot AC “Mix” WTMX runs fourth (5.2-4.9-4.1) and iHeart’s urban WGCI is fifth (3.4-3.6-3.9). Things get colder for top 40 sister “Kiss” WKSC (4.3-4.3-3.8). But this is a vexing time for Tribune’s talk WGN, 4.0-3.5-2.8. Cumulus talker WLS dips 1.4-1.4-1.2. The recent morning-show uncertainty involving Jack Diamond isn’t helping iHeart’s classic hits WLS-FM (3.4-3.1-2.6). Riding Santa’s sleigh, all-Christmas WLIT grows its cume more than 50% in just a month, from 2,427,500 in the December book to 3,772,100 now.