Free Republic

Recent scandals look to have hurt Kyle and Jackie O's 2DAY FM breakfast radio show, with ratings figures showing a drop in listeners. The latest survey, by Nielsen, shows that the audience dropped 2.2 percentage points from a 12 per cent share to 9.8 per cent in the period from June 28 until September 5. The show remains the top rating Sydney FM breakfast show, but it was the biggest casualty in the early morning slot, losing about 35,000 listeners. Sandilands and co-host Jackie O went off air for two weeks in August following the rape revelation scandal in which...

WBZ-AM --CBS Radio --News/Talk 5.7 WRKO-AM --Entercom-- Talk 3.3 WTKK-AM --Greater Media-- Talk 2.7 WXKS-AM/WKOX-AM--Clear Channel--Talk 0.6 (WXKS and WKOX are Air America. Both stations combined get only half the ratings of 250 watt WJIB-AM, an Adult Standards station. Country stations from New Hampshire; foreign language stations, etc.--all get higher ratings than Air America)

From the Billings Outpost, here's an Al Franken quote to quite possibly top them all: Quote of the week “Right now, money is being stolen, and that is killing our soldiers. That makes me furious. I’m very sad about where my country is going, and I love my country.” - Author/comedian Al Franken, talking about the Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority in a live Air America radio program broadcast last Friday in Missoula. Quote of the week? How about year, at least? ..............................snip...................

While conservative news-talk stations begin to dig out of their giant post-election ratings hole, Arbitron trends released late Monday reveal more bad news for the troubled liberal Air America Radio network. From New York, Long Island, Los Angeles and Chicago, there wasn't one piece of good news for Franken and Friends, according to figures posted at Radio & Records.

Is the recent talk radio listenership dropoff continuing? The first set of ratings figures for the three-month period of March, April and May, have emerged tonight and early indications are of a sustained, rocky period for talk radio. It's just a little bit too soon to know for sure, however.

(latest radio ratings in Boston): WBZ holds first place with a 7.3. Conservative talker WRKO up slightly, from a 4.1 to a 4.3, for sixth place overall. Conservative WTKK-FM turns in a flat performance and ranks 10th. Air America's two Boston stations disappear from the radar screen, that's right, they are no-shows. Blame the signal quality all you want, but they were getting at least some ratings before. Even major free publicity from the Boston Globe didn't help one bit. Can't wait to hear the lame excuses. Bet the Globers won't be dwelling on this news.

Newly released Arbitron radio ratings bring some questions to mind, such as: --- Will Air America's apologists finally come up with a fresh batch of excuses, after insisting more time was needed for it to catch on? Isn't that one getting stale? --- Will some of the traditional talk stations, now showing audience declines, make changes soon?

Fresh evidence of Air America's troubles has emerged in the latest issue of Talkers Magazine, an industry trade publication, which annually tracks the popularity of nationally syndicated radio talk show hosts.