Access Atlanta > Entertainment > Radio Talk > Archives > 2007 > October > 03
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
10/4: Top syndicated radio talk shows
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Talkers Magazine twice a year ranks the top talk radio hosts in terms of audience size. There probably aren’t any major surprises here. Amazingly, No. 4 ranked Dr. Laura still is not on the air here after several years absence. This is partly based on Arbitron numbers from the spring of 2007:
Here’s the top 16:
1- Rush Limbaugh (heard locally on 640/WGST-AM, noon to 3 p.m. weekdays) 13.50 mil +
2- Sean Hannity (heard locally on 750/WSB-AM, 4 to 7 p.m.) 12.50 mil +
3- Michael Savage (heard locally on WSB-AM, 7 to 10 p.m.) 8 mil +
(tie) Dr. Laura 8 mil +
5- Glenn Beck (heard locally on WGST-AM, 9 to noon) 5 mil +
(tie) Laura Ingraham (heard locally on 920/WGKA-AM, 9 to noon) 5 mil +
7- Neal Boortz (heard locally on WSB-AM, 8:30 am. to 1 p.m.) 4 mil +
(tie) Mark Levin 4 mil +
(tie) Dave Ramsey (heard locally on WGST-AM 3 to 7 p.m.) 4 mil +
10- Mike Gallagher (heard locally on WGKA-AM , noon to 3) 3.75 mil+
(tie) Michael Medved (heard locally on WGKA-AM, 3 to 6 p.m.) 3.75 mil+
12- Jim Bohannon 3.25 mil+
(tie) Clark Howard (heard locally on WSB-AM, 1 to 4 p.m.) 3.25 mil+
(tie) Bill O’Reilly (heard locally on 1230/WFOM-AM and 1340/WALR-AM, noon to 2) 3.25 mil +
(tie) Ed Schultz 3.25 mil+
(tie) Doug Stephan
10/3: Dave FM auditioning new morning show
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dave FM is auditioning morning show personalities this week from 1 to 4 a.m. A regular comedic contributor to Glenn Beck’s CNN Headline News show Brian Sack has been involved. Last night, former 99Xer Jimmy Baron tried out. “It was a ton of fun,” Baron said. “I’m thrilled to go on the air there.”
Dave has attempted to work the 99X pixie dust before, using former Morning Xer Steve Barnes as morning host for two years to less-than-rousing ratings. He was dumped about a year ago. The station has gone the past year with Barnes’ co-patriot Holly Firfer and a dude who goes by the name Orf. Ratings have been about the same. New program director Mike Wheeler has said he has plans to revamp the morning show at some point. (I’ll update this entry when I get a callback from Mike.)
Baron, out of radio since March of 2006, is developing a couple of TV shows he’s executive producing and recently tried out for WXIA’s “Atlanta & Company.” (He’ll likely play backup to Tommy Sullivan.) He’s also podcasting with former Regular Guy Eric Von Haessler.
10/3: Dancing W/Stars top show in Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The weekly Atlanta ratings for the week of Sept. 24 mostly reflected what happened nationwide. “Dancing With the Stars” held its own while the Fox shows did better than the national average, especially Jeff Foxworthy-hosted “Are You Smarter.” Most CW shows did only slightly better than they do nationally but “Smallville” outperformed. CBS shows usually don’t do as well locally but “Survivor” and “Two & a Half Men” showed huge disparities. Oddly, “Heroes” did relatively poorly while “Bionic Woman” did slightly better.
Rank. Show. Network. Date. Rating/Share (national rank)
“Dancing With the Stars” ABC Monday Sept. 24 15.1/22 (2)
“House” Fox Tuesday Sept. 25 14.7/22 (6)
“Dancing With the Stars” ABC Tuesday Sept. 25 13.1/20 (5)
“Grey’s Anatomy” ABC Thursday Sept. 27 12.0/18 (3)
“Desperate Housewives” ABC Sunday Sept. 30 11.9/18 (4)
“Dancing With the Stars results” ABC Wednesday Sept. 26 11.5/18 (8)
“CSI” CBS Thursday Sept. 27 10.8/16 (1)
“Bionic Woman” NBC Wednesday Sept. 26 9.5/14 (15)
“Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” ABC Sunday Sept. 30 9.4/14 (13)
“Private Practice” ABC Wednesday Sept. 26 9.3./14 (12)
Some shows with major disparities compared to national ratings:
13- “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader” Fox Thursday Sept. 27 8.1/13 (54)
17- “Bones” Fox Tuesday Sept. 25 7.8/12 (48)
18- “K-Ville” Fox Monday Sept. 24 7.3/10 (61)
21- “Prison Break” Fox Monday Sept. 24 6.9/10 (56)
24- “Heroes” NBC Monday Sept. 24 6.7/9 (7)
26- “CSI: Miami” CBS Monday Sept. 24 6.6/11 (10)
42- “Survivor: China” CBS Thursday Sept. 27 5.6/9 (14)
44- “Smallville” the CW Thursday Sept. 27 5.4/9 (76)
76- “Two & a Half Men” CBS Monday Sept. 24 4.1/6 (18)
Each ratings point represents about 23,000 households. The share is the percentage of Atlanta TVs that were on that show at that time.
SOURCE: Nielsen Media Research
Some cable network shows held up okay in the face of new broadcast TV shows, especially serialized soaps and reality competition shows (e.g. .“Rock of Love,” “Top Chef,” “The Hills”). But some shows took a big hit such as Atlanta designer Vern Yip’s HGTV show “Deserving Design” (1.4 million to 712,000 week over week) and MTV”s “Celebrity Rap Superstar” (1.44 mil to 732,000).
Plus, there’s no obvious breakout new hit so far despite good performances by both “Bionic Woman” (13.9 mil) and “Private Practice” (14.4 mil) against each other last Wednesday. Those were the top two new shows of the week. We’ll see how much erosion there is this week. Anything less than 10% is excellent (and growth even cooler). Anything more than 25% is worrisome and 40% is an early death knell.
WINNERS
ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” With DVRs now in nearly 20 percent of homes, most existing shows are seeing big drops in viewers. This older-skewing reality show is holding up as well as Wayne Newton, bringing in 20 million-plus its first two Mondays and another 34 million-plus combined the other two nights last week.
VH1’s “Rock of Love” - VH1 viewers seem to have an insatiable appetite for cheeseball “Bachelor” shows. First, it was Flavor Flav (and the New York spinoff) and now it’s Bret Michaels. His finale drew an amazing 5.4 million against fresh broadcast competition, bigger than “I Love New York” and “Charm School” but short of the 7.5 million Flavor Flav’s last series drew.
The CW’s “Smallville” This aging sci-fi drama actually held its own last Thursday, more or less with the same opening figure (5.2 million) as last year. That’s a superhuman feat in this day and age.
LOSERS
TBS’s Braves-Astros game - The final Braves game ever on nationwide TBS under its current contract Sunday brought in a modest 468,000, but the team was out of contention and there was plenty of football competition.
FX’s “Damages” - The Glenn Close series, up against new eps of “Law & Order: SVU,” the new series on CBS “Cane” and “Boston Legal” was damaged greatly, with a series low 1.16 million viewers Sept. 25. But the show is repeated multiple times on FX so many viewers probably decided to opt for broadcast shows that weren’t going to be immediately repeated. It’s the same issue with “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” which drooped to under 1 million viewers on Sept. 27 after opening at about 2 million two weeks ago before the broadcast networks had debuted fresh episodes.
Fox’s “K-Ville” Despite a good showing in Atlanta, this post-Katrina cop drama is taking a beating against “Heroes,” “Dancing With the Stars” and the CBS sitcoms, down more than a third from its opening. It finished at 5.6 million this past Monday in its third outing.
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10/3: Changes at night for Eagle 106.7
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Eagle 106.7, working with ABC Networks and Great American Country cable, this week launched a new 7 to midnight country music show featuring GAC hostess Suzanne Alexander (above) out of Nashville. Eagle will be the pilot “test” station.
The new show will feature interviews with country artists and slightly more current music than Eagle’s normal mix, which has already gotten more modern in the past couple of years. It will air Monday through Friday, which means the Southern Fried show on Fridays from 9 to midnight is moving this week to Saturdays. Former 96rockers Steve Mitchell and “Southside” Steve Rickman remain as hosts. That show has done well since its launch earlier this year, mixing southern rock by David Allan Coe and Hank Williams Jr. with ZZ Top, Bob Seger and Creedance Clearwater Revival.
This also means Country Gold with Rob Lee, featuring mostly classics from the 50s through 70s, loses its Saturday night slot but Lee (above) will stay on Sunday night and get an extra hour so it runs from 6 to midnight instead of 7 to midnight.
Mark Richards, the Eagle program director, said this is a “soft opening” for the new evening show which can hopefully become a syndicated show starting in 2008 available to stations across the country. He says the show currently is partly taped, partly live but he hopes to see it fully live five hours a night at some point, much like Blair Garner’s “After MidNite” syndicated overnight show heard locally on Kicks 101.5.
Until this week, Kevin O’Brien has been holding fort at nights for Eagle, but O’Brien (above) was “voicetracked,” not live.
