Spent last weekend out of town, so this info came to me second-hand. But it arrived from more than a couple folks who claimed to have heard it live.
In response to my Nov. 1 Whitt’s End item in which I laid out a dramatic shift atop DFW’s sports talk radio landscape, 1310 The Ticket has apparently adopted the simpleton strategy of “shoot the messenger.”
According to loyal Ticket listeners, one of their morning hosts last Friday uttered this defensive/nonsense/bullshit:
“A very unreliable reporter recently wrote that over the last six months the Ticket has a 3.2 share in the Men 25-54 demo … and that is simply not true. Over the last six months the Ticket has a 5.3 share, which ranks us still ahead of all of our competition.”
Cute spin. But altogether inaccurate. In today’s climate, we call those “alternative facts.”
The claim is as misleading as the coach of a 5-5 team on a five-game losing streak crowing that “Hey, over our last 10 games we’re a .500 team.” I mean, true, but …
I, of course, did not write that 3.2 was a six-month average. Accurately, I did write that 3.2 was the October end point of The Ticket’s six-month nose drive. Destination, alas, is much different than average, but when your crown has been unceremoniously nabbed off your smug noggin’ you’re reduced to monkeying around with semantics in an attempt to sidestep the cold, hard truth.
Diminish the message by denouncing the messenger. I get it.
Call me a “douche”? Sure, guilty. Refer to me as “Bitchie Twit”? Please, I’ve been called much worse during 33 years in this market. But label me a “very unreliable reporter” and question my credibility? Them’s fightin’ words.
Allow me to retort, with the cunning use of … facts. Accessorized with pictures and stuff.
On local and national levels, I maintain industry sources. They have access to ratings. They supply me with the numbers. Nothing magical or mysterious or remotely subjective about it.
If a certain someone and his pals are claiming I’m fabricating numbers, they might as well indict Mr. Nielsen himself.
Bottom line: 105.3 The Fan continues to not only obliterate The Ticket, but in November it rose to the most popular radio station in Dallas-Fort Worth among the coveted demographic of listeners: Men aged 25-54.
These, then, are the numbers The Ticket does not want you to read:
As recently as May, The Ticket was No. 1 overall and The Fan 14th. But in November numbers released Monday afternoon, The Fan is now No. 1 with a 5.4 and The Ticket tied for 10th with a 3.2.
It’s a shocking polar shift. Like up being down. Left is right. Taylor Swift not turning a single chair on The Voice. And Jerry Jones actually considering firing Jason Garrett.
It’s not, however, a hiccup or aberration. It’s now an eight-month trend in the wrong direction for the heritage sports-talk station that for 25 years shrugged off pretenders to its dynasty like so many gnats at its annual victory parade.
To be fair, there are reasons for the change, as it’s preposterous to believe The Ticket suddenly forgot how to do entertaining radio and, simultaneously, The Fan somehow stole its mojo. As I’ve said before, in today’s wholly unfair and irrationally inaccurate PPM system, a severe ratings swing could be the result of something as simple as a handful of listeners being forced to turn in their meters because their two-year listening period was up. That’s right, three P1s in Plano and a couple more in Aubrey being yanked off the grid could re-route DFW’s power rankings.
Right or wrong, the system is what it is. The Ticket flourished under it. Now, after an almost unbearable wait, The Fan gets its time on the throne.
