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Wilmington Fall Ratings 12+

M

MikefromDelaware

WJBR-FM and WDAS-FM tied for #1 with WSTW #2.

WXCY in 4th, but appeared to lose listeners to #10 WDSD which doubled their number of listeners with their country format since the last book.

#5 WDEL (live and local talk) is only 0.3 above #6 WILM (Rush/Hannity) as the two news/talkers keep battling it out for news/talk supremacy in Wilmington. WILM's numbers did grow a bit closing the gap between the two. It would be interesting to find out the specifics: Al Messetti vs John Watson (both live and local liberal talk in morning). Allan Loudell's News at noon and afternoon drive with Rick Jensen's live and local conservative talk sandwiched inbetween vs Rush/Hannity in afternoon. Also morning drive newscasts WDEL vs WILM.

Near the bottom, but at least showing is Newark's the little AM that could, WNWK with Mexican Regional Music. It was the only Hispanic station to show in the Wilmington 12+ rankings. WJKS (Urban) at #15 with neither WFAI (Urban Gospel) or WWTX (Fox Sports) showing at all.

It would be interesting to hear where the non-comms WXHL, WVUD, WHYY-FM, and WRTI-FM (with their Wilmington translator at 107.7) rank.
 
MikefromDelaware, I don't have the exact numbers, but I know that John Watson beat Messetti and Rick Jensen got crushed by Rush (no surprise there). WDEL won the morning's by a landslide and just barley got by WILM in the 6 o'clock hour. I am just as surprised as you are with the ratings between WDEL and WILM. You would think that a 5-thousand watt station that carries the Phillies and Eagles would beat the heck out of WILM with only 1-thousand watts. It says alot for the news team at WILM.
 
As a former part timer at WILM, I agree completely. The news staff at WILM is a very professional group, I've worked with that group and they know their stuff. Many former WILM'ers over the years have gone on the places like CBS radio (the latest WILM alumi to move to the "Tiffany Network" - Sharon Middleman who you can hear regularly doing CBS hourly and update newscasts), also CNN, etc, as well as numerous major market stations like KYW, WTOP, etc. Not to mention that a number of former WILM'ers are now at WDEL, so in some sense, it could be said that some of WDEL's success, especially in news is due in part to WILM.

If what you said is true, with Watson beating out Messetti and Rush beating out Jensen, it might make more sense for WDEL to switch their time slots. Have the conservative Jensen opposite liberal Watson and liberal Messetti opposite conservative Limbaugh.

Luckily for WILM their tower is more centrally located than WDEL's. WILM's tower is located just off of Walnut Street near the new Shop Rite supermarket. With WILM's 1000w non directional pattern, they cover the metro area quite well during the daytime hours. Interestingly, WDEL's 5000w towers are up on Shipley Road, practically in PA. Even so, their signal blankets the metro area as well.

Both stations have their strengths and weaknesses. Sort of like Philly's channels 3,6, 10, newscasts. All are good newscasts, the style of each stations newscast is different which seems to attract different viewers. I believe the same could be said of WDEL and WILM. Both have excellent newscasts, both have excellent news professionals on staff. It gets down to style and presentation. Some prefer the faster paced more rapid fire approach of WDEL's morning newscast where as others prefer the less hyped delivery of WILM's (and in Dover on WDOV) Delaware This Morning Newscast. Some prefer CBS radio news over Fox radio news. Conservative listeners, which WILM appeals to with Rush/Hannity probably prefer Fox radio news over CBS radio, etc. Granted WDEL's coverage of Phillies/Eagles probably do help them ratings wise as Rush/Hannity do for WILM. Wilmington is fortunate to have two very good news/talk stations to choose from. It will be interesting to see in the next book in July how this neck and neck ratings battle continues between WDEL and WILM.
 
Hello all.

In the 12+ ratings, Al Mascitti (note spelling) beat John Watson.

Yes, Rush beat Rick Jensen in the last book (no surprise there, since we were in the middle of a major national election), but the ratings for Rick's show were UP 15% from the previous book.

The Eagles did not perform as well as we would've liked. I am sure that's due in part because the games are also now on WIP.

I'd also like to point out that our overall 12+ number is UP (that seems to have been lost in this discussion).

Finally, Mike, other than Allan Loudell, I'm not sure whom you're talking about regarding former WILM'ers who are now at WDEL, unless you mean John Lewis (who anchors Sunday nights), Lee St. John (who works in video production and doesn't to much for the on-air product) and Carl Kanefsky (who worked at WILM in the late 80's).
 
Chris Carl wrote: Finally, Mike, other than Allan Loudell, I'm not sure whom you're talking about regarding former WILM'ers who are now at WDEL, unless you mean John Lewis (who anchors Sunday nights), Lee St. John (who works in video production and doesn't to much for the on-air product) and Carl Kanefsky (who worked at WILM in the late 80's).

Yes I mean John Lewis, who left WILM and took a fulltime gig at Baltimore's WCBM and works part time at WDEL. John is an excellent reporter and broadcaster and I'm sure WDEL would have liked to have had John's services fulltime. Carl Kanefsky got some of his news background at WILM back then which yes WDEL has benefited by Carl's quality work. I hear his reports almost daily. Carl did work at Channel 12 also after WILM adding to his news resume and experience.

However Chris, you'd be in real denial if you try to claim that Wilmington's best known newsman, Allan Loudell hasn't greatly affected the product of WDEL. Essentially, WDEL today is what WILM was prior to the Clear Channel takeover from the Hawkins. The only difference I see is that WDEL has better equipment, studios, etc, more money available, etc, than the old WILM had while at 12th and French Sts under the Hawkins. WDEL even now has CBS radio news, which if I recall correctly Allan preferred over Fox. Two of your major newscasts are anchored by Allan. So yes I stand by my statement that in some sense, it could be said that some of WDEL's success, especially in news is due in part to WILM. Your station spent plenty of money on billboards advertising that Allan Loudell is now at WDEL when Allan jump ship and left WILM for WDEL. That doesn't take anything away from the rest of your find newsteam at WDEL, but like it or not, WILM and its years as the major news station during the Hawkins years has had something to do with some of your stations success today.


 
I believe I started my statement by saying "other than Allan Loudell." Maybe you missed that. Of course Allan has made us better. Why would we have hired him if we didn't expect that? But let's not lose sight of the fact that Peter & Mellany were winning best newscast awards when they were going head-to-head with Allan.

But really I was just trying to clarify your statement. You made it sound like half our staff came from WILM, when the number is really four - one who anchors once a week and one who spent a short time at WILM. Just making sure I wasn't missing something.

Allan had nothing to do with WDEL picking up CBS, by the way. CBS came to us when WILM dropped them for FOX because they wanted to keep a station in the Wilmington market. We (and when I say that, I mean mostly Rick Jensen, along with Pete Booker and me) were looking at ABC at the time and decided to go with CBS because we got a better deal from CBS. It was a no lose situation for us, since both networks are excellent.
 
John Lewis, Carl Kanefsky, Allan Loudell and Lee St. John sure sounds like half a staff to me, but WDEL has lost some good news people to WILM. Ted Efaw, who was at WILM first, then at WHYY, and Jim Hubmaster. Both do an excellent job for WILM.
 
Mattjon,

WDEL has 14 full- and part-time people on our newstaff.

As for Ted and Jim, they DO do an excellent job at WILM, but I think both would admit that they barely made a contribution at WDEL -- that's offered with all due respect, and they know what I'm talking about. With that said, I offer nothing but continued success for them at WILM.
 
Chris Carl wrote: WDEL has 14 full- and part-time people on our newstaff.

That is just another example how WDEL has become what WILM had been. When I went to work for WILM, about 10 years ago, WDEL had a far smaller staff of news people than you have today. At that time WILM had the largest radio newsteam between Philly and Washington, meaning WILM's staff was larger than WDEL's, WDOV's, WBAL's, WCBM's. Today, my guess is WDEL now holds that title unless WBAL ramped up their newsteam since then.

As far as the CBS radio conversion to WDEL, Allan was at WILM for some time after the switch to Fox. As I recall, WDEL didn't make the change to CBS until after Loudell was working at WDEL. Now I realize Allan isn't in management so he didn't get to make the actual decision, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if Allan let his feelings be known as to the benefits to having CBS radio news over your then AP radio news, or even ABC radio news as Allan really liked and seemed to prefer CBS over the others. Allan has a great deal of experience and expertise, so it would make sense for you and the others in your management team to "pick his brain" and use the ideas that your management team believe would be good for WDEL. The end result has been to make WDEL a real top notch news/talk station, even more so than it was prior to Allan's arrival. Allan's thumb prints are very evident in your station's news product, certainly at noon and evening drive. Again, that doesn't take away any of the great stuff that Peter, Mellany, and the rest of the WDEL team were doing prior to Allan's arrival. It's simply gotten better.

Oh by the way, something you and Rick Jensen might enjoy hearing, I saw on the Talkers magazine top 250 radio talkers, Rick is listed in the second tier from 101-250. It didn't rank that group, simply listed them alphabetically. Rick, however, was the only Wilmington talker, actually I should say Delaware talker, to make the list. I'm not sure how they determine the rankings, if by ratings, or what, but thought you and Rick would want to know, if you didn't already know. Congrats to Rick.

I could see Al Mascitti's name being eventually added to that list in Talker's Magazine as he has a great show that's very entertaining and informative.
 
it wouldn't surprise me at all if Allan let his feelings be known
[/quote]

You can say that again. Just kidding, Allan ;)

Yes, we saw the Talkers item. Rick was in California at the time that it came out and I texted the message to him.

By the way, now that I re-read my earlier post about Jim and Ted, it may not have come off as the way it was intended. My only point was both weren't here very long, so it's hard to lose what you didn't have.
 
Maybe I should change my moniker here to "Big Picture Guy", because most everyone here is missing the RELEVANT points.

1. Rush, and to a much lesser extent, Hannity, may keep WILM neck-to-neck with WDEL in the 12+ numbers, but do those syndicated hosts - particularly Rush, for which WILM/Cheap Channel must pay dearly - produce significantly more REVENUE? Answer: When the Hawkins family owned WILM, they couldn't sell Rush. Many more sponsors asked that their spots air as far away from Rush as possible. When WILM dumped Rush, and WDEL picked it up a couple of years later, Delmarva Broadcasting, just because it has the best radio sales team in the state, then and now, did a better job of selling Rush than WILM under the Hawkins family. But still, great advertising resistance. This ain't the Sunbelt! Then, after Cheap Channel 'stole' Rush from WDEL - and put it on WILM a second time - again, the sales force found local retail resistance to Rush. That's why you've often heard 'ILM fill in the holes with PSA's, news, whatever. In contrast, 'DEL has more elasticity WITHOUT all that national syndication. More local avails for spots.

Now, if Rush and Hannity helped 'ILM pivot to a truly impressive overall rank, it might help 'ILM draw some agency buys, but obviously not in the current economic disaster.

How much do you wanna bet that WDEL's revenue flow is two to three-and-half times WILM's, even in this awful economy?

2. In many markets, the station carrying Rush is dominant. Not here. Partly because of the political complexion of this area, partly because of partial Rush listening to out-of-state stations. But clearly, without Rush, and to a much lesser extent Hannity, 'ILM would really be in the ratings dumper. And stations carrying big-league teams don't necessarily win big numbers. Look at the track record of Philly's 1210 over the years, even with the Phillies.

3. Another part of the 'Big Picture': In a world where terrestrial radio will migrate mostly to the Internet, cellphone delivery - God knows what! - it isn't outlandish to suggest that only stations with strong local brand names will survive the transition. Now, what d'ya suppose is going to happen to all the Cheap Channel stations mostly dependent on national syndication?

With its exceptional website, clearly DBC is trying to position its stations for that new era. (It certainly helped the company didn't make the mistake of going into great debt to finance the acquisition of new stations during that acquisition orgy... for which terrestrial radio will pay dearly.)

Why do you suppose Delmarva willingly gave up Hannity? Hannity wasn't golden enough for the station to be muscled to take Alan Levin. Plus, get rid of national syndication: Easier to insert more traffic & weather AND more local avails for spots.

4. Back to ratings... 'DEL has always beaten 'ILM in cume. The frequent traffic reports & weather just about guarantee higher cume, but also make 'DEL more repetitive. 'ILM amassed many more quarter hours with the syndicated talk from a smaller pool of Rush loyalists.


On the Loudell stuff, 'DEL is too multi-dimensional a station to be wrapped up with any one person. But the Loudell interviews in P.M. drive do counter the other repetition.

By the way, Loudell was still at 'ILM when the Cheap Channel edict came down that all CC news-talk stations would take Fox Newsradio. 'ILM was still airing CBS when he arrived crosstown at 'DEL.
 
One factual correction to my last post, before someone else corrects me.

That should be MARK Levin, the nationally-syndicated talk host.
 
Dx, you made some interesting points. Maybe you know, as you've explained that Rush doesn't sell well here in Wilmington, how do the other "blue" cities ( say Philly, Baltimore, NYC, San Francisco, LA, Chicago, and Detroit) that carry Rush do in ratings and in generating spot revenue? Do their sales folks have the same problem that has plagued WDEL's and WILM's sales force in selling Limbaugh? If not, any ideas why?

I always assumed that somehow CC made money corporately via their Premiere network, rather than individual station spot wise in having Rush air on as many of their CC stations as possible in as many markets as possible. Is that correct, if so that might explain why WILM via their CC masters tolerate the lack of actual spots during Limbaugh's show.

My guess is even if Hannity was golden for WDEL, they'd still not tolerate ABC radio tying to force them to carry Mark Levin at night when WDEL would have a conflict with Phillies games, unless ABC was willing to allow Levin's show to be pre-empted for any sporting event as it seems Laura Ingraham's show does on WDEL at night.

As far as traffic and weather during drive times goes, prior to Allan Loudell's afternoon newscast coming to WDEL, they aired Hannity and Phillies games and neither are very consistant in break away times so you could count on traffic and weather happening for the commuter, where as back then WILM had live and local newscasts during both drive times so their traffic and weather were predictable as to when they'd air. This is just an another example of how WDEL has become what WILM was, because now WDEL has live and local news during both drives and WILM has Hannity during PM drive making getting traffic data far more difficult. Of course, when the Phillies are on WDEL during PM drive that situation also happens there.

I agree that no one person, even Allan Loudell makes up an entire station, but it is interesting how much WDEL today is almost a mirror image of WILM prior to CC taking over. With both stations Allan played a very large role. I realize that some of the WDEL brass might chaf at my statement that in some part, some of the success today at WDEL is due to WILM. Let's be real honest, if the Hawkins had not sold WILM to CC, and kept ownership or found some other group that doesn't operate the way CC does, maybe WILM would have not changed. Then Allan Loudell would not have left WILM as he was running the place and for the most part got to do things the way he wanted. He was very content and liked what he was doing. You can't get any higher in business than that other than being the actual owner, but then you've got the financial headaches so Allan might have had the best possible situation prior to CC taking over and systematically dismantling what Loudell built at WILM. If Loudell had stayed at WILM and still been able to run it as he had been doing, WDEL would probably sound very different today than it does now. That's not saying the WDEL management wouldn't have been able to come up with a solid news/talk station, it just would have been different that what it is today.

Good update on Levin's first name, Allan Levin was the former owner of Happy Harry's before selling his business to Wallgreen's.
 
The key is whether the syndicated fare can elevate a station's ratings position sufficiently that it gets national spot buys, to overcome any local retail resistance. Syndicated talk doesn't - and will never - lift WILM sufficiently above WDEL (even if 'ILM gets an exceptional 'fluke' book) to make that happen. In fact, even in GOOD economic times, some national buyers just brush past Wilmington, because psychologically they think of it as but an extension of the Philadelphia market (since Wilmington is, when it comes to television).

You bring up a good point about CC and its syndication subsidiary, Premiere Radio Networks. It's unclear to me how the Cheap Channel / Rush affiliations now work. Do individual CC stations still get assessed the 'normal' fees, which count against their budgets; do CC stations get a discount, but the fees are still counted against their budgets; or some other creative arrangement?

Even in the old days, EFM Media swore Rush affiliates to secrecy on their fees. And doubtless, now, the CC market managers who know the score would be afraid to disclose that information - even anonymously - on a website like this, and people who don't know the score might come here and pontificate.

One thing we know for sure: Cheap Channel struck a deal last summer a month shy of the 20th anniversary of Rush's nationally-syndicated show thought to be the most expensive in radio history since Howard Stern moved to Siruis. According to the NEW YORK TIMES, a $50 Million a year paycheck representing a raise of about $14.4 Million a year over his previous contract.

CC stations must pay for that increase either directly or indirectly. Whether or not it's counted against their budgets, surely the corporate parent has had to lower the guillotine more brutally on its stations during this economic downturn, in part, because CC is paying out so much to Rush.

Fortunately for CC, Rush's ratings have reportedly nearly doubled as a result of that spat with the Democrats, with some of Obama's people trying to transform Limbaugh into the de-facto leader and face of the G.O.P.

Let's see if some of this dies by the time the next book starts!

As for Loudell, doubtless one of his reasons for vacating WILM when he did was, although as a radio programmer he saw the ratings benefits of bringing Rush back to WILM - and potentially Hannity later on - he didn't want to preside over the partial dismemberment of 'ILM's news operation, and he certainly didn't want give speeches in the community, and have to defend CC, and in particular, hours and hours and hours of rightwing nationally-syndicated talk, plus that pesky FOX News affiliation. And, remember, Loudell time-delayed Rush by one hour the first time 'ILM took Rush to leave his Noon news hour intact? Ever wonder how 'ILM ended up with a half hour of news at 11:30 a.m.? Plus, don't forget the abomination which is the WILM/WDOV simulcast. Joe Puglise, the then-CC Delaware market manager, signaled his intention to do that when CC first announced it was acquiring WILM. Loudell might've seen the proposed format, and wanted to run for the hills. Any format which requires the bigger-city station to surrender part of its identity (for the sake of the lesser station) for a generic program name is lunacy. Using that logic, New Jersey 101.5 would surrender its overall name & imaging to its south Jersey repeater!

Of course Loudell's helped change 'DEL's on-air complexion. But Peter & Mellany were going strong before he arrived. And 'DEL was, and is, so much more of a sports station.

Weird, though, the Wilmington radio market is that rare bird where BOTH stations STILL have local content all the way to the Noon hour, and even more incredibly, both stations air news-hours 6-7 P.M.
 
MikefromDelaware said:
As far as traffic and weather during drive times goes, prior to Allan Loudell's afternoon newscast coming to WDEL, they aired Hannity and Phillies games. This is just an another example of how WDEL has become what WILM was, because now WDEL has live and local news during both drives and WILM has Hannity during PM drive making getting traffic data far more difficult.
Click to expand...

Mike,

We did a news wheel from 4p-7p back in the late 90s. I anchored it.

I don't remember the timeline clearly, but I guess we stopped doing it for Hannity.

So WDEL doing PM drive news (with Allan) isn't unprecedented.

By the way, thanks for calling TalkBack on Friday.
 
Chris,

I also remember when Carlotta Bradley did a local talk show during PM drive. That didn't work well as there were so many interruptions to the talk with traffic/weather/news updates/spots that it didn't seem to flow very well.

The talk back idea is a good one. It gives folks a chance to chime in on some issue of the day in a quick manner, which is great as folks are getting ready for work and don't have time to hang on the phone waiting to converse with a talk show host. WILM does the people poll which is fine too, but is more limiting as it is a yes or no question and they talley up the vote and announce it the next day. WDEL's talk back is a bit more fun to do as you get to give more of an answer rather than just a simply yes or no plus you get to hear yours and the other peoples comments later on the radio. Some of the callers have some interesting ideas or spins on the given topic. Cool idea. Peter and Mellany get good participation on it most days.
 
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