Chicago radio ratings: The Drive revs up to the top after 18 years

Eighteen years after WDRV 97.1-FM signed on as an edgy new choice for Chicago radio listeners, the Hubbard Radio classic rocker is the most popular station in town.

Nielsen Audio ratings released Monday showed The Drive No. 1 in overall audience share for the first time. The latest monthly survey ran from June 20 to July 17.

It was another one-two punch by Hubbard Radio Chicago, which also captured the No. 2 spot with hot adult-contemporary WTMX 101.9-FM. Last month the two stations finished in reverse order.

The ascent of The Drive culminated a year of growth following the demise of principal competitor WLUP 97.9-FM. With the sale of The Loop to Educational Media Foundation (and its switch to contemporary Christian music as WCKL), The Drive became Chicago’s sole classic rock station.

In the just-released survey The Drive also led the market in middays with Bob Stroud and in afternoons with Steve Seaver and Janda Lane.

Top-of-the-morning honors again went to “Eric in the Morning” on The Mix with Eric Ferguson, Melissa McGurren and Brian “Whip” Paruch.

iHeartMedia urban adult-contemporary WVAZ 102.7-FM, which finished third overall behind The Drive and The Mix, led in evenings with Chris Michaels.

Note: In accordance with Nielsen’s publishing guidelines, I cannot report actual audience shares other than those for the full week (below). For mornings, middays, afternoons and evenings, I can list only their rankings — not specific shares.

Here are Chicago’s top 30 radio stations from 6 a.m. to midnight Monday through Sunday, as measured by Nielsen Audio from June 20 to July 17, followed by format and average quarter-hour share of listeners age 6 and older (with previous month’s share in parentheses):

1. WDRV 97.1-FM classic rock, 5.4 (5.1)
2. WTMX 101.9-FM hot adult contemporary, 5.2 (5.6)
3. WVAZ 102.7-FM urban adult contemporary, 4.9 (4.3)
4. WBBM 780-AM/WCFS 105.9-FM all news, 4.8 (4.8 )
5. WLIT 93.9-FM adult contemporary, 4.3 (4.2)
6. WLS 94.7-FM classic hits, 4.0 (4.8 )
7. (tie) WXRT 93.1-FM adult album alternative, 3.8 (3.4); WSCR 670-AM sports talk, 3.8 (3.9)
9. (tie) WBMX 104.3-FM classic hip hop, 3.3 (3.7); WKSC 103.5-FM Top 40, 3.3 (3.5)
11. (tie) WOJO 105.1-FM Mexican regional, 3.1 (3.2); WRME 87.7-FM soft rock oldies, 3.1 (3.0)
13. (tie) WBBM 96.3-FM Top 40, 3.0 (2.8 ); WGN 720-AM news talk, 3.0 (3.0); WKQX 101.1-FM alternative rock, 3.0 (3.0)
16. (tie) WUSN 99.5-FM country, 2.8 (2.7); WGCI 107.5-FM urban contemporary,2.8 (2.8 ); WSHE 100.3-FM adult contemporary, 2.8 (2.9)
19. WBEZ 91.5-FM public radio news talk, 2.7 (2.5)
20. WLS 890-AM news talk, 2.2 (2.1)
21. (tie) WLEY 107.9-FM Mexican regional, 1.9 (2.0); WPPN 106.7-FM Spanish adult contemporary, 1.9 (2.2); WPWX 92.3-FM urban contemporary, 1.9 (1.9)
24. WEBG 95.5-FM country, 1.6 (1.6)
25. (tie) WCKL 97.9-FM contemporary Christian, 1.5 (1.2); WMVP 1000-AM sports talk, 1.5 (1.2)
27. WVIV 93.5-FM Spanish contemporary, 1.4 (1.7)
28. WERV 95.9-FM classic hits, 1.3 (1.3)
29. (tie) WFMT 98.7-FM classical, 0.8 (1.0); WMBI 90.1-FM Christian ministry, 0.8 (0.8 )

Here are Chicago radio’s top 10 morning shows from 6 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday, as measured by Nielsen Audio:

1. WTMX 101.9-FM Eric Ferguson, Melissa McGurren and Brian “Whip” Paruch
2. WBBM 780-AM/WCFS 105.9-FM Felicia Middlebrooks and Pat Cassidy
3. WDRV 97.1-FM Brian Sherman and Steve Tingle
4. WOJO 105.1-FM Raúl Molinar, Carla Medrano and Andrés Maldonado
5. (tie) WSCR 670-AM Mike Mulligan and David Haugh; WVAZ 102.7-FM Steve Harvey
7. WGN 720-AM Steve Cochran
8. WLS 94.7-FM Dave Fogel and Kim Berk
9. WXRT 93.1-FM Lin Brehmer and Mary Dixon
10. WBEZ 91.5-FM “Morning Edition” and “Morning Shift” with Jennifer White

Here are Chicago radio’s top 10 midday shows from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, as measured by Nielsen Audio:

1. WDRV 97.1-FM Bob Stroud
2. WTMX 101.9-FM Lisa Allen
3. WBBM 780-AM/WCFS 105.9-FM Cisco Cotto and Rob Hart
4. (tie) WLIT 93.9-FM Robin Rock; WLS 94.7-FM Greg Brown
6. WVAZ 102.7-FM Bioncé Foxx
7. WXRT 93.1-FM Terri Hemmert; Richard Milne
8. WOJO 105.1-FM Rafael “El Primo Rafa” Bautista
9. WLS 890-AM Chris Plante; Rush Limbaugh
10. WRME 87.7-FM

Here are Chicago radio’s top 10 afternoon shows from 3 to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, as measured by Nielsen Audio:

1. WDRV 97.1-FM Steve Seaver and Janda Lane
2. WTMX 101.9-FM Kevin “Koz” Koske and Jennifer Roberts
3. WLIT 93.9-FM Mick Lee
4. WVAZ 102.7-FM Joe Soto
5. WBBM 780-AM/WCFS 105.9-FM Keith Johnson and Lisa Fielding
6. WLS 94.7-FM Ron Parker
7. WKSC 103.5-FM Brady Broski
8. (tie) WXRT 93.1-FM Marty Lennartz; WRME 87.7-FM
10. (tie) WSCR 670-AM Dan McNeil and Danny Parkins; Cubs baseball; WBMX 104.3-FM Sean “Sonic” Leckie

Here are Chicago radio’s top 10 evening shows from 7 p.m. to midnight Monday through Friday, as measured by Nielsen Audio:

1. WVAZ 102.7-FM Chris Michaels
2. WSCR 670-AM Joe Ostrowski; Julie DiCaro; Cubs baseball
3. WLIT 93.9-FM Delilah Rene
4. WGCI 107.5-FM DJ MoonDawg (Michael Muniz)
5. WBBM 780-AM/WCFS 105.9-FM Mariam Sobh; Bob Conway
6. WDRV 97.1-FM Phil Manicki
7. (tie) WBMX 104.3-FM Julian Jumpin’ Perez; WTMX 101.9-FM Nikki Imbracsio
9. WBBM 96.3-FM Julia Lepidi
10. WLS 94.7-FM Brian Peck

(Copyright © 2019 The Nielsen Company.)

WDRV fires Dan McNeil and rises to the top spot in the ratings. Meanwhile, McNeil and Parkins fare so poorly that broadcasts of the the first place Cubs can only lift WSCR 10th place in that time slot.

nerdy douchey middays are missing.... im sure their demo's are on fire though. julie must be disapointed with the drop to #2

As I said last year, Danny Mac's return would put an end to WMVP beating WSCR in the afternoons.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

I'm surprised the Cubs aren't higher. That doesn't look like a very good sign.

It's interesting that Entercom was in such a hurry to push Terri Hemmert out the door when she was top 10 in middays right to her last book. She's already been back in her old shift a bunch of times since fake-retiring, as if they're trying to keep her audience without having to pay for her health insurance.

Lite FM has been doing well since actually deciding on a real format, even if it's a lame one, instead of the I-dunno-it's-whatever-come-back-in-10-months hot-AC/CHR blend they'd been doing for the last six years.

I'm pretty sure Big 95 only exists to clear Bobby Bones, whose name is a subject and a predicate, in market #3 at this point. This is not a two-country-station town and the sooner iHeart realizes this, the better. B96 is a dead station walking too.

Power 92 is tied for 21st in the market, but, as we all know, they are #1 in the streets.

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Curious Hair....now with more BITE.

87.7 is beating Score middays. DiCastro looks like a dumbass twice over.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

97.9 to Christian rock has never made sense. this list continues to prove it.

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'Your AT&T Universal Card has arrived'? Oh God, Kick-fucking-ass, I got a Master Card! I don't believe it, man. Life is kinda cool sometimes.

this shows that radio listeners are mostly of the older demographic.

Also, im surprised Mancow didnt crack the top 10 morning shows.

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It wasn't supposed to make sense. Randy Michaels owned the station while licensing the operations to Cumulus, but then, having gone broke on his FM News For Ladybrains concept a few years ago, sold it out from under Cumulus to the K-Love people, who go around the country buying stations at fire-sale prices from desperate sellers. It wasn't a programming decision that came from the home office.

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104.3 kicking the shit out of WGCI after only a couple of years.

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Nas: Blago, who has single handedly destroyed CFMB?

Blago: https://youtube.com/shorts/Lftdxd-YXt8?feature=share

Mind you own damn business! -VP Walz

I really like Brian Paruch but why is Chicago so provincial to be listening to that gelding Eric Ferguson?

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

87.7 plays some yacht rock for sure, but there's decent songs on there throughout the day. But considering there are some radios that don't even go low enough to pick up 87.7, your point about The Score is a valid one. It will be innnneresting to see if football starting picks the sports ratings up a bit.

Even if they don't know what they're doing, all they have to do is keep the car on the road for another 12 weeks, and then they switch to Christmas and dominate.

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The Lite probably prays for a snow storm on November 1 so they can flip the format.

Didn't they do last year what I have always recommended and play Christmas music until December 30?

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

I think so. I never understood why they shut it down right at midnight on the 26th. You would figure at least go thru the 26th, but even carrying it out a couple extra days makes sense.

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They didn't last year. They wanted to promote their format change so they flipped right to light AC on the 26th. They went right up to New Year's the year before.

The "December" book starts on November 8th this year, so that'll probably be the day they flip to Christmas.

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Glad I do not directly own any Entercom stock. Their results looked ok but apparently they missed badly on analyst expectations. The stock is down about 40% today.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Investing in a radio broadcast company just sounds like a bad idea

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

There’s a lot of cash flow. The problem is these companies use debt to finance the station acquisitions which hems in their financial flexibility. There is such a limited spectrum that well run stations do ok especially with cookie cutter models that are replicated across markets.

Entercom made decent money. I am surprised by the stock reaction. I don’t follow them. I only it caught on the day’s largest declining shares.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

They overextended themselves buying CBS Radio, whose properties were mostly top billers in major markets. Couldn't have come cheap. Maybe it's a bad idea to own that many radio stations! Who knew?

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I remember one morning near the end of high school when I was TAing for the music department but not really, I had the band room to myself and put the Drive on the big speakers. They played the entire Girl in Buckhannon suite from Chicago II straight through while I did whatever homework I didn't do the night before. Now they play "Don't Stop Believin'." Ah well.

EDIT: Not sure how Feder thought there was anything edgy about the Drive when it launched; if anything, its mission was to be the edgeless alternative to the Loop's Zeppelin odysseys and hair-metal schlock and WXRT's insistence on playing "What I Am" by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians twice a day. I guess Me-TV FM is the closest thing to the old early-2000s Drive but with more yacht rock. I wish someone would play BS&T and Chicago more.

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That's....fucking awesome.

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Yeah, Chicago was so good and got so bad. Never got why "25 or 6 to 4," "Beginnings," and "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is" never got much play on the Loop or WXRT, just the Drive. I mean, the band's got the same name as the city and everything.

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To me it boils down to two things.

1. So many options for the consumer. Podcats, satellite, etc.
2. The talent right now in Chicago sports radio is just awful. I would say the most talented on air radio guy has to be Silvy. If he was teamed up with somoene better than bland Waddle, it would be the only sports cast to listen to.

Huagh is awful radio, Bernstein/McKnight is not even worth tuning into, Parkins/McNeil had promise, but I overrated Parkins early. I really thought he was going to be good.

On ESPN, Carmen, Jurko, just no, Kap is a workhorse, but not good radio, Waddle boring, J Hood is actually pretty good, maybe one of the better ones when it comes to a sports radio guy.

Again Chicago right now just in a bad spot for radio talent the last 4-5 years.

we've been in the post golden era of the station for more than a decade

Still, I think there is talent. It is aging talent but it is talent. I don't think they have done well developing younger guys. Some have soured on Parkins. I have not. I really like his work. They don't have reporters like they used to so no young people are developing their voices in important but less intense rolls. The quality of the ascending producers is just garbage. I guess that is what you get when you offer a college grad 20K per year.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

You're right. I remember quite well when the Drive was launched, I was a 19 year old metalhead who posted on a website called "Coalition to Rock Chicago" that was mainly devoted to hoping a station sounding like the last two years of Rock 103.5 would eventually come back to town. Eventually 94.7 The Zone would prove that hard/active rock was dead for good in Chicago, but in early 2001 we had high hopes for what Bonneville was going to do with the former WNIB (and boy, did the founder of WNIB know when to cash in) They did the last night of classical music on WNIB on a Sunday night and actually turned the transmitter off when it was done. When I got up Monday morning I turned my radio on and heard...Barbra Streisand's last live album, as part of the stunting they did for a month before the Drive was launched.

At first it was emphatically classic HITS, not classic rock. Carole King, Dan Fogelberg, Gordon Lightfoot, and not just "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". But the Loop, even when they were playing entire albums at 10 PM every night, always mixed in the louder and trashier side of classic rock and also eventually started throwing in the very safest and most generic early 00's rock like 3 Doors Down and Nickelback, and the Drive eventually evolved to be in between that and XRT's endless Dylan/Springsteen/Bono worship. "10 at 10" always played a few songs from a specific year that you NEVER otherwise heard on the radio.

Eventually the Loop went back to straight classic rock and the race to the bottom to see who could play "You Shook Me All Night Long" more than once an hour was on, but hey. The Drive was good for a few years.

No kidding. The Florians were very generous with that windfall, at least. I think they gave a ton of money to the Lyric Opera.

WIIL Rock is keeping the active rock fire burning, for whatever that's worth. And they're relocating from Kenosha to Gurnee Mills soon (though retaining Union Grove as their city of license to pretend they're a Milwaukee station for FCC-skirting purposes)! May a thousand drop-D dirges from bands called "Gumberdudge" and "Ashes of a Thankful Never" proudly beam from outside an Auntie Anne's.

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