News and talk stations are notorious for taking a long time to develop an audience, so we need to have some patience before making a judgment about the performance of WWWN or - for that matter - the new FM simulcast of WBBM. Going forward, both will improve.
Having said that, WWWN starts out in one heck of a hole. A 0.5 rating for a downtown, full-market stick is abysmal. Granted, they have yet to promote themselves, but so far they seem to have repelled even casual listeners. Merlin Media has a lot of work to do.
Meanwhile, at CBS, I am sure that nobody is losing sleep over the 1.4 that "WCFS" got last month. That is just a function of Fresh listeners having gone elsewhere while only a few non-WBBM listeners have found the 105.9 signal yet. The AM hasn't skipped a beat, which tells me that the 105.9 simulcast is still not known to a lot of people. That will change when the Bears regular season starts. This AM/FM combo will do just fine. That said, I still think that the audio on the FM side requires some tweaking. I have to crank the volume waaaaay up to hear what they're saying when in the car, yet the spots are so loud that they send me out through the sunroof!! The AM is more pleasantly balanced and, from my home in the far N suburbs, it comes in more dependably too.
Another good book for WLS-FM, as discussed in another thread. I am always delighted to see that.
