WFAN's 'Carton & Roberts' surpasses ESPN's 'Michael Kay Show' in January ratings

WFAN’s Craig Carton and Evan Roberts inched past ESPN New York’s "The Michael Kay Show" in afternoon drive time radio ratings for January, according to Nielsen Audio data released on Tuesday.

For the period Jan. 7 through Feb. 3 among men ages 25-54 — the key target demographic for both stations — the WFAN program averaged 5.6% of the listening audience from 3 to 7 p.m. compared to 5.5 for ESPN.

WFAN was No. 2 overall in the market for that time period and ESPN was third.

"Carton & Roberts" appear from 2 to 7 p.m., but their head-to-head race against Kay is from 3 to 7 p.m.

Kay dominated that time slot for most of 2020, but when Carton replaced Joe Benigno for the final month of the year, he and Roberts trimmed Kay’s lead significantly.

In November, Kay led his WFAN counterparts, 7.2 to 4.7. In December, Carton helped cut that margin to 6.5 to 5.4.

Now Kay’s lead is gone, but it is important to remember that radio ratings traditionally are judged in quarterly "books," so the first month of the year should be regarded as akin to the first intermission of a hockey game, not a final score.

WFAN led ESPN by its customary wide margin in morning drive time in January, despite a new dynamic in which ESPN for the first time put a local show up against WFAN.

Rick DiPietro, Chris Canty and Dave Rothenberg are heard on ESPN from 5 to 8 a.m., for the first hour against WFAN’s Al Dukes and Jerry Recco and for the other two hours against Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti.

For those three hours in January, WFAN was first in the market with 8.1% of the listening audience among men ages 25-54 tuned in and ESPN was 10th with 3.8%.

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.