WFAN's 'Carton and Roberts' remains in front of ESPN Radio's 'Michael Kay Show' in May ratings
Evan Roberts, left, and Craig Carton sit in the newly redesigned WFAN studio for "Carton and Roberts" simulcast on SNY, on May 24, 2021. Credit: Corey Sipkin
WFAN’s Craig Carton and Evan Roberts largely maintained in May the ratings lead they have built in afternoon drive time, nearly matching their figures relative to ESPN New York’s "The Michael Kay Show" in April.
For the 4 ½ hours in which the programs overlap from 2 to 6:30 p.m., Carton and Roberts ranked third overall in the New York market among men ages 25-54 from April 29 to May 26, averaging 5.9% of those listening in that key demographic, according to Nielsen Audio data obtained by Newsday from an industry source.
Kay finished seventh for that period, averaging 4.2%.
Those figures are similar to April’s, when Carton and Roberts finished third among all stations with 6.4% of the audience while Kay averaged the same 4.2% he got in May.
The two stations traditionally judge themselves on full, quarterly "books," and there still is one month left in the spring book, so the April and May data should be considered akin to the second intermission of a hockey game.
This was the first month since Carton returned to WFAN in November and was paired with Roberts that they did not improve their performance relative to Kay, but the race appears to have stabilized with WFAN well in front.
The data includes both over-the-air and streaming audiences.
From 6 to 10 a.m., WFAN’s Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti again finished first in May, averaging 7.4% of men ages 25-54, while ESPN ranked ninth at 3.4.
From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., WFAN’s Maggie Gray and Marc Malusis finished fourth at 5.4% and ESPN was seventh at 3.5%.
This is the final set of monthly data that will be available during the term of Mark Chernoff, the senior vice president of programming at WFAN and its longtime day-to-day boss.
He will leave Audacy, WFAN’s parent company, at the end of the month and be succeeded at WFAN by Spike Eskin.
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.
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