There was a lot of hubbub last week about ESPN Radio New York dumping its FM signal in 2024, and what the move may or may not mean for its ratings war with WFAN.
As it turns out, it actually may bring an effective end to hostilities — at least in a measurable sense. From The Post’s Andrew Marchand:
The New York sports radio ratings battle will have its final season this year, as Good Karma Brands will probably exit out of Nielsen Audio ratings when it ditches the FM signal. I believe Nielsen charges around a million dollars a year for the service, but Craig Karmazin’s advertising and promotion is focused on digital. Karmazin has exited Nielsen in other markets. That would make the radio ratings battle effectively over. Even on the off chance ESPN NY stayed with Nielsen, it still wouldn’t be a fair fight if ESPN had no FM signal.
If there are no ratings to compare, there is no ratings battle. Pretty straightforward, no?
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We will hopefully still have some back-and-forth between the stations, given that ESPN’s Michael Kay is extremely sensitive, WFAN’s Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti like to mix it up and WFAN legends Craig Carton and Mike Francesa are always good for a few cameos here and there. But it’s not like we can pivot to comparing ratings between The Shaun Morash Show featuring Tiki Barber and Evan Roberts to NPR or a down-dial mariachi station.
It was a good run. And it could be an amazing finish. Whoever wins the last book wins forever!
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James Kratch can be reached at james.kratch@xlmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @jameskratch.
