New York, NY -- WFAN 660 annihilated thin skinned ESPN New York 98.7 FM in the January 2015 ratings and 101.9's Boomer & Carton / Mike Francesa dichotomy was never wider.
But first, a look back. Four years ago. Matthew Funtime predicted:
What century is this bumbling clown living in? By the time the Yankee lineup is being dictated over the YES network from the gravy-soaked lips of Mike Dupp — it has already been disseminated over the internet by every social media platform that exists a few still in beta.
Mike is gnawing away at air-time delivering pointless information that is already wildly available and easily accessed. It would be artful laziness if it wasn’t so transparent.
And we added, "Is Mike's afternoon radio program going the way of newspapers? Without a Bobby the Blogmeister and lacking all manner of a sense of humor - the answer is...yes."
Seems the time has come.
Let's be honest, Francesa hasn't been number one in years. He'd been #3 at the FAN for at least three years. A year later Craig Carton tweeted (but has since deleted), "Coming in January to the B and C show. New math. When is a 9.6 less than a 6.9?"
Returning to the past two months: December 2014 Mike was on his familiar #3 perch. Stellar numbers outta WFAN followed in January 2015. Terrible numbers from Mike Francesa.
Not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4.....
That isn't a typo. Mike Francesa finished behind overnight man Tony Paige in the ratings. (And still, thin skinned Michael Kay can't capitalize on Francesa's winning streak coming to a crashing halt because Michael Kay is more focused on blocking Twitter users than embracing the social media truth: Love me, hate me - just make sure you Retweet me.") Let that sink in -- a smaller percentage of radio users tune in to Mike's On than do to Tony on overnights.
Enter again, Mr. Funtime, with a warning:
It's very lucky WFAN had Imus and M&MD for so long.
Imagine trying to pitch a show like Joe & Evan? A spoiled, wet-behind-the-ears manchild & an illiterate goomba beat the same topics to death and express their mongoism with vacuity. It's more like an SNL sketch than a radio show.
And he's 100% on the mark. As uneducated sounding Francesa might be - the promise of lies and prank calls, a train wreck if you will, make him entertaining for small periods of time. (At least until the full Department of Defense report is in.) Joe & Evan? How one stomachs that is anyone's guess. MF sums up perfectly, "You could play that theme for 3 hours and WFAN would get the same damn ratings."
(And yet Al Dukes still hasn't invited us to his Al's Boring Podcast. That's OK, we'll just continue to dominate the Google on it.)
A huge part of it is the Esiason & Carson lead in:
Boomer and Carton had WFAN record breaking ratings in January. That 9.6 they registered above? Smashed through it. Source indicates it may be the first double digit rating for a program in WFAN history.
We expect much more of this in the following, uh, months.
One caveat - enjoy Mike while you have him and before the Pentagon report comes out (And it will come out). Because you'll miss him when he's outta there.
[All photochops via the aforementioned Matthew F.]
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