CHANGE IN THE DOLDRUMS?; CHICAGO'S WSCR-AM HAS DISASTROUS NOVEMBER BOOK

Nielsen PPMs released Wednesday afternoon showed an astonishing loss for Entercom sports talker WSCR-AM (670) in Chicago.

Despite an enormous surge of interest in All Things Bears, for the month ending November 7, WSCR lost fully one-third of its total listening audience and cannonballed to #18 in the market with a 2.8 share (a-a). It had finished sixth in the October book with a 4.2.

While segment breakdowns were not yet available, the staggering loss signifies an enormous body blow to the destabilized outlet. "It's a station with most programming in flames," said one long-time Chicago radio advertising sage.

Added veteran industry hawk Bill Hazen: "Any radio station that takes an enormous hit can only have its managers retreat to the cocoon of 'target demo,' pump out the most favorable micro numbers even if they, too, denote lost listeners and hope that some pliable media columnist bites on it to make the setback look somewhat less significant.

"In other words, a station that gets pasted can dig deeper and deeper to find numbers that will semantically make it seem that it didn't get pasted and then hope to get a story written that says, 'Hey, forget the final score. We won!'"

The diminished "Score" numbers can only flash in neon red to concerned Entercom sports division bosses in Philadelphia. That flashing is even more problematic considering that the mounting successes of the Bears vastly trump sustained audience interest over the quick 2018 post-season exit of the Cubs.

WSCR-AM has been under an odd sort of scrutiny both internally and externally since the bizarre gang-planking of Brian Hanley as co-host of the a.m. "Mully and Hanley Show" - the station's most successful franchise - in July.

Even before Hanley's departure, with the Cubs in a roller-coastering National League pennant race, "The Score" had "Mully and Hanley," the low-budgeted but engaging Les Grobstein overnight and essentially nothing impacting in between.

The walloping hit for WSCR managers comes in a month that otherwise showed very little movement among t-radio audiences in the nation's third largest market.

The top five finishers were: #1 WBBM-AM (5.7), #2 WOJO-FM (5.4), #3 WVAZ-FM (5.3), #4 WLS-FM (4.8) and #5 WTMX-FM (4.5).

Rounding out the Top Ten were #6 WDRV-FM (4.3), a tie for #7 between WUSN-FM and WXRT-FM (3.7) and a deadheat for #9 with WKSC-FM and BeeGees-saturated WRME-FM (both at 3.3).

Bubbling under was an impressive jump-up by WBEZ-FM, which gained more than 25% a-a (2.3 to 2.9) and leapfrogged "The Score" from #19 to #16. Apparently relentlessly intelligient programming frequently sprinkled with political overtones trumped calcified sports talk in Chicago, at least as a mid-term election cycle crescendoed.

Aesthetically, few this side of the embalmed wouldn't argue that WSCR-AM is in need of significant overhaul from ops manager on down. But even fewer had any inkling that things would tank so quickly, especially with orange-and-blue comets like Khalil Mack and Eddie Jackson blazing across the autumn skies above Chicago sports.

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