RADIO WARS: Impressive Gains for Joe Giglio and Hugh Douglas as 94 WIP Sweeps Summer Ratings Book

Starting to sound like a broken record on here, but 94 WIP put together another strong ratings period, this time in the summer Nielsen book that stretches from July to mid-September.

WIP once again thumped 97.5 the Fanatic to maintain the significant gap between the two Philadelphia stations.

This time around, WIP saw increased gains from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., while the morning and afternoon shows held their consistently strong numbers as well. The summer book takes place during the middle of the Phillies season and incorporates all of Eagles training camp, so there’s leverage for WIP with high interest in the two teams for which they hold the broadcast rights. At the Fanatic, Mike Missanelli returned midway through August, so this period includes about two months of Bob Cooney and company on middays, while Mike’s first full book will be the next one.

As a reminder, these posts always focus on Nielsen meters plus streaming, using the ad-rate dependent men 25-54 demographic. When you look at the below numbers, note that we have separate streaming and over the air numbers for WIP, while the Fanatic’s stream and air are wrapped into one singular number, known as “total line reporting” or “TLR” in industry terms.

Mornings

• 94 WIP: 11.5 (1.9 stream, 9.6 over the air)
• 97.5 the Fanatic: 4.4

Joe DeCamara and Jon Ritchie continue to find success in the post-Angelo Cataldi era. They finished #2 in the time slot, behind Preston and Steve at WMMR (who posted a whopper of a 22 share). At the Fanatic, Andrew Salciunas and John Kincade improved on the 3.7 number posted in the spring, finishing 5th.

Midday

• 94 WIP: 14.0 (3.2 stream, 10.8 over the air)
• 97.5 the Fanatic: 4.4

This is one of the highest numbers that Joe Giglio and Hugh Douglas have posted since they began working together. They finished #1 in the time slot and have added six full ratings points since the spring of 2023. In years past, middays would win consistently for WIP, but now Joe and Hugh are putting up numbers similar to what the morning and afternoon show are posting.

At the Fanatic, the 4.4 number was good for 8th place, a 1.3 improvement from last quarter, which was handled by Cooney and a rotating set of co-hosts. The Fanatic is up 1.8 ratings points in this time slot since Salciunas was thrown into the chair after Anthony Gargano’s messy departure.

As mentioned earlier, Mike Missanelli started his second WPEN stint on August 12th, so only about one month of this ratings period includes the Missanelli/Bill Colarulo pairing. You’d have to break out the week-by-week numbers to get an idea of how much he moved the needle, so I’ll “effort” that while we look to fall to see how his first full book compares to what Giglio and Douglas are doing.

Afternoons

• 94 WIP: 14.1 (3.3 stream, 10.8 over the air)
• 97.5 the Fanatic: 4.5

Tyrone Johnson and Ricky Bottalico finished #6 overall, down -0.1 from last quarter, but with a 4.5 number they continue to be the best-performing daypart at the Fanatic, even if just by a hair this time. That’s after Hunter Brody and Jen Scordo’s departures, with Sylvana Kelleher joining the show. The Best Show Ever? is the most stable and consistent show 97.5 currently broadcasts.

At WIP, Spike Eskin, Ike Reese, and Jack Fritz finished #1 for the second-straight book, improving on the 13.3 they posted in the spring. This time, they had the best WIP number across the three major dayparts.

Evenings

• 94 WIP: 17.5 (3.6 stream, 13.9 over the air)
• 97.5 the Fanatic: 3.0

The strength of the Phillies partnership always results in huge numbers for WIP, who finished first in the evening. Fanatic finished 9th.

Prime

• 94 WIP: 13.1 (3.1 stream, 10.1 over the air)
• 97.5 the Fanatic: 4.4

WIP finished second behind WMMR while the Fanatic was 6th.

Takeaways?

WIP continues to romp, and the midday show is improving rapidly. Those are really impressive numbers for Joe and Hugh.

For the Fanatic, they’re above 4.0 in every slot for the first time in a couple of years. That’s honestly pretty good for them considering how the last two years have gone. They aren’t competitive with WIP but they’re doing slightly better than they were in 2023 and 2022, so it seems like the changes made by program director Scott Masteller have brought some needed stability. Finishing 5th and 6th in some of those main dayparts isn’t bad at all.

And across both stations, numbers were way up from the summer of 2023, so more Nielsen listeners were tuned in to sports talk radio this year in July, August, and the first part of September.

Obviously everyone wants to know how Mike Missanelli is doing, and we’ll have that full picture soon enough. I’d assume there was a bit of a bump starting in mid-August, but football season is the big ratings period, and the next numbers we get will tell the story.

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