Posted Tuesday, March 27, 2018 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Talkers magazine is giving 92.9/The Game personalities more love than ever in this year's Heavy Hundred sports talk show programs in America.
Game afternoon show Carl Dukes and Mike Bell, which debuted on the list last year at No. 32, jumped to 21, the highest rank of any Atlanta-based show. Game morning show John Fricke and Hugh Douglas moved up from its debut of 46 to 26.
The top-ranked show from rival 680/93.7 The Fan was again Chuck Oliver and Matt Chernoff, falling from 24 to 35.
Nick Cellini and Chris Dimino, who had been part of the Rude Awakening until Christopher Rude was last summer, has bounced around, falling from 37 in 2014 to 46 in 2015 to 53 in 2016 to 57 in the most recent rankings. They had been mornings but recently swapped slots with the Front Row.
John Kincade and Buck Belue, early afternoons on the Fan, fell off the chart after placing at No. 84 in 2017, down from 78 in 2015 and 76 in 2014.
And yet again, Talkers skipped over the Fan's Front Row team featuring Steak Shapiro, Sandra Golden and Brian Finneran. (They had the strongest ratings of any show on the station last month, finishing 15th overall with a 2.7, just beating Fricke & Douglas on the Game at 2.6 in the mornings.)
Rick Kamla and John Michaels in mid days on the Game also missed the cut.
And as you scroll the list, you'll notice it's a bit like comparing apples to oranges since almost all the shows are focused on particular markets and are not syndicated nationally so direct comparisons are truly difficult.
For you 99X fans, Fred Toucher and Rich Shertenlieb jumped into the top 10 for the first time, edging up from No. 12 in 2017, courtesy of their popular Boston talk show on WBZ-FM.
92.9/The Game's overall Nielsen Audio ratings now regularly beat those of 680/93.7 The Fan, which has a weaker signal. In February, typically a down month for sports talk since it's after the football season, the Game garnered a 2.6 rating compared to 1.5 for the Fan.
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