Toronto Sports Radio Fall Ratings Book Results

So, after my 50th birthday last week…I don’t count anymore?

I didn’t stop listening to the radio on that anniversary of my birth…and I have more money to spend on whatever I want, than ever!

Holy hell, how did Bob Mccown lose that much audience?

Looks to me like TSN is making progress

Answer: By showing utter contempt for his audience (the phone-in segment today was the latest example); by giving a half-assed effort every day (when he does show up for work); by letting co-hosts ruin conversations, and thus the show, through their ignorance and arrogance (e.g., Shannon and Cox); by having on the same old guests just because they’re buddies (FOB), no matter who else may be available and more interesting; etc, etc, etc.

Is that supposed to say m 25-24?

Seems like The Fan is more or less keeping it’s audience, while TSN is slowly finding it’s own. Probably best case scenario if you like sports radio, and would like them both to be viable.

I think you summed it up nicely Curt, well said. Today was a perfect example of how bad PTS has become, Bob just brushes off callers who surprisingly had some valid points (especially about the Blue Jays), he simply refuses to say anything remotely close to calling AA or more to the point Beeston out for their lack of caveman approach to contracts in todays world. This bullshit about not going over a 5 year term is killing them. Then idiot Cox comes on at 5 and it’s just laughter until Brunt came in, then it was almost uncomfortable when Cox was asking about all-timers in Blue Jays uniforms, talk about McCown arguing for the sake of arguing but more than ever now it seems like he enjoys belittling Brunt. It really is frustrating as a long time listener to see how far this show has dropped in quality over the past few years. I just wish Bob would retire, get it over with, he doesn’t want to put any effort into the simple things like ya know, showing up for work and when you do at least TRYING to have a segment where it’s not about his disdain for being in the building.

Bingo AFRAUDHATER….the BobCat has turned into the FatCat!

Count me in as one of the TSN converts especially the afternoon and the drive home! IMHO Bryan Hayes is by far the best Sports Radio Host in Toronto!

I didnt listen to pts yet, but 1050 had a really indepth discussion of the lou marsh w naylor, arthur and simmons, all of whom voted today.

Did bob go this year? Iirc, he skipped it last year or just phoned in. (Insert joke here)

I was shocked to find out that Naylor voted for the CFL player for the Lou Marsh……………..I just didn’t see that coming

Regarding the ratings, the two things that stand out are the PTS decline and the significant increase in just about every 1050 show…………..McCown likes to boast whenever his ratings go up………….I’m guessing we won’t hear much about the ratings book from him this time

The gains by 1050 surprise me a bit……………I realize they have made some good changes (replacing Cybulski with Naylor, adding Jeff O’Neill to the noon hockey show, etc) but they haven’t changed the morning show much and its ratings increased quite a bit since last year just like the other shows did…………….does carrying half of the Leafs games make that big of a difference to all of their shows ???

Alex, Bob said he removed himself from the voting for the award, when asked to explain why on air from Cox & Brunt he pretty much just Bob’d it off, didn’t really have the balls to come clean. Funny, when he voted and was actually in the room for the dialog he was the first on the air with the State Secrets as to what actually went on in the room. I think he even went as far as to say who some people actually voted for and gave the arguments for others with votes which was frowned on by most if not all voters. Now that he doesn’t have a vote he decides to keep his fat mouth shut as far as giving any reason, typical Bob.

Excellent to see PTS dying a slow and horrible death.

Used to post here fairly regularly a few years back, but for awhile I just stopped listening to either 590 or 1050 and listened to internet feeds from other cities, and my posting here stopped as well. I have given the stations another chance and have to admit that i am becoming a big fan of the TSN Naylor show. I think it mainly has to do with co-hosts like Dave Hodge and Bruce Arthur, but I am also warming up to Dave Naylor who I thought would do no better than Cybulski.

I also have started to listen to the TSN noon hockey show as O’Neill to me, keeps the discussions real. Everytime i try once again with 590, I just hear Kypreos yelling and MacLean talking about himself…..so typical.

Neither morning show does anything for me, just as neither mid-morning slot does anything either.

Glad to see the competition is getting closer, should be better for us as patrons.

Bob when he wants to be can be excellent, but I truly think Cox has eroded away at the entire PTS show.

I thought Bob did a pretty decent job with Halladay yesterday.

With Naylor gaining traction and people complaining more and more about Bobcat mailing it in, I wonder how long Brunt’s contract has to run. From the feedback here, he could be the tipping point if TSN could grab him.

Agreed. that there has been a coasting aspect to McCown recently. I’m not a fan of inane banter and inside stories so when I’m listening in my car for 20 minutes at a time, I’d like the hosts to get to the point.

TSN is usally better at this than the Fan, but I find the Fan to be better when it comes to guests, and the questions that they ask.

I really enjoy Tim and Sid, and find them quite funny and a little away from the norm in that they do not take phone calls. That said, they can become the guys who laugh at each others jokes. Overall, I’d take them over Bryan Hayes who is good, but a little vanilla in my opinion.

Same goes for Dave Naylor vs McCown. Naylor is a bit vanilla, and has not developed his personality quite yet. Whereas McCown has the curmudgeon/crank down pat.

I’ll flip back and forth from the morning shows but tend to favour Brady/Walker over Richards. Brady’s humour resonates more as we’re around the same age and the hockey insiders are great. I’m a Pierre McGuire fan (just like the song says), but he’s a little too intense and focused for my liking.

Not surprised to see the Fan’s lead cut into a little bit. TSN has done some nice things on the radio side of things. We’ll see if the Fan responds at all, but rides out the storm!

I find it odd / interesting that the total audience for sports radio (Fan 590 and TSN 1050 combined) went up in the morning and lunch periods but not the afternoon drive slot. Any thoughts as to why this would be?

So when does Bob’s yearly talk of Pinball’s charity as well as his recommendation for beef jerky as a last minute Christmas gift for your better half?

Begin?

Where did Bob Ryan (Boston Globe’s) learn how to speak?

Listening to McCown and crew make me feel 100 years old….I tuned it in when the Naylor show was into something I didn’t want to hear tonight….McCown is not even likeable, and Cox is actually hateable (as he always has been)…they are just blowhard old farts who try to “out glib” each other. It is poserville….I heard Kypreos tonight from the GMs meetings and wanted to wretch. “I’m a partner now” referring to his role reporting on the NHL…(he actually said that on the radio)
– – Anyway, Naylor’s delivery is pretty dry and when he gigles I cringe (ew, gad – stop that. Its awkward) – but his show is far superior to McCown’s…

as for Leafs Lunch, the three guys are great – Informative and very entertaining, often very funny. McClennan took a while to grow on me and O’Neil has an engaging personality. They are great at poking fun at each other and actually being funny…590? Not funny at all….just pathetic…same with the morning show. Wow, it is bad. They fire one morning guy and hire someone worse….Mike Richards is weak, but his show is that much better than the Fan (actually 640 is a great alternative)…TSN from 9 to noon is actually good too when I can listen. You have to give it a chance.
I sound like a TSN fanboy, but no, I just hate bad raio ….and the Fan 590 is really, really bad radio…

…and looking at McCown’s shrinking audience, I can see I am not alone in my disdain for PTS. A year from now, I bet he’s almost even with TSN’s offering….

I used to be a religious pts listener. However with Mcowan not caring and Cox’s ego without any substance to back it up I have completely changed over to 1050. Thank good ness for Tim and Sid which is pretty much the on,y show worth listening to on the fan right now( don’t get me started on the morning show)

I’m hesitant to say this necessarily means McCown is doomed or something. If you look back a couple years, he was getting 7s against the Watters show, which was in the 3s. These things don’t always seem to be linear.

Having said that, I hope The Fan does take this as an opportunity to fix PTS a bit. I think McCown is great, but he’s not a nuts and bolts guy. Not great on modern stats etc. I think that’s fine for him, but he needs to be paired with a rational, intellectual type who can argue nuts and bolts. Who can say things to him like ‘Bob, pitching wins don’t matter anymore etc’. Counters his cranky irrationality. That’s why Brunt (and i would say Grange) work so well with him, but Cox and Shannon make the show much worse.

McCown’s like that old sales guy in your office who’s been with your company for 35 years. Most days, he’s coasting and really doesn’t give a damn about anything but his golf game; but, when the heat’s on, he’s still the best. When a truly serious issue comes up, not just the normal run-of-the-mill fire-the-coach blah blah blah, Bob’s still pretty good. I certainly want to hear what he thinks then.

Because of this coasting, though, so much of the day-to-day falls onto his sidekicks. Brunt tries to come off a little high-brow for sports talk sometimes, but is at least a solid broadcaster who does his research. He also has a good voice and likewise good delivery. Grange and Shannon are embarrassingly bad behind the mic; unbearable to listen to. Cox, who cares? The epitome of a buffoon, Cox makes Bill Watters sound reasonable.

So this is where all the McCown haters hang out. He is by far the best interviewer in sports radio. His questions actually have some point. Unlike the run of the mill guys asking disinterested athletes what they need to do to turn things around. How compelling.

All I see here is people who don;t want their host to have an opinion. Have a point. Be who he wants to be. I don’t mind a guy like Hayes. But he’e just a puck head. He is a walking talking sports cliche. And the banter with the two boneheads on with him at noon. All bravado and bluster. A salient point would be nice once in a while.

All in all most of the posts here read like the threads on Stern. Lots of haters who dislike the success and persona. Funny how both guys have dominated their respective markets. Guess there are just more likers than haters out there.

Cox, at his most trollingiest tonight, said

“Why do they let me on this show?”

A question we all ask bi-weekly

Cox and Elliotte should not be on the show at the same time. -_- They both have snipey personalities and together all they do is insult each other.

With Cox and Friedman, there likely is a bit of tension as Cox has been a fairly vocal critic of CBC and Don Cherry in particularly . One wonders what might happen if Cox were to appear on HNIC with the new agreement

TSN needs to move Mike Richards out of mourning’s he’s better suited for late nights then when people wake up. his skits are not my type of entertainment when I want to listen to sports talk. Richards in late nights could be more edgier instead of being vanilla which I find him to be.
id like to see TSN 1050 move Mike Hogan to mourning’s and hire Jim Land to be his partner both very knowledgeable and would be better then 590’s team.

^^^ ** Jim Lang”**

TSN won’t move Richards from that slot. Sports stations tend to want variety in the morning (sports, news, weather, traffic, skits, etc.) before going sports-heavy the rest of the day, and he fills that bill. It wouldn’t surprise me if 590 eventually moves Tim & Sid to mornings. I think they can handle that role.

To answer Stever’s defense of Bob, I think the common criticism is that Bob mails it in too often, not that he isn’t a good broadcaster or can’t deliver a good show. I don’t think many people doubt his interviewing skills. He just doesn’t seem as interested as he once was. Then again, maybe I’d do the same if I were in his position.

Cox couldn’t understand why the Jays didn’t re-sign Kawasaki. A career .218 hitter and a very average defender, but a great mascot, eh Damien? There are plenty of examples that can be used to criticize Jays management, but passing on Kawasaki isn’t one of them.

Would be nice to see more clearly defined times. To me ‘morning’ for Sports radio is roughly 530 to 9 (Brady vs Richards). Followed by ‘late morning’ 9-12 ( Blair vs Mack & Cauz) Lunch ( Millard vs Hayes) Afternoon (air horns vs Hayes) and afternoon drive (McCown vs Naylor)

The above graph is nebulous.

I would imagine a Producer or two has told Bobcat that yakking about Damien Cox’s poor choice of tie and fact that he was 30 seconds late does not hook listeners when he drones on about it ( try to ‘out-glib’ each other someone posted above ) for the 15 most valuable minutes of Sports Radio in Toronto 5-5:15 when Naylor is talking Leafs from 5:01 with Bob Mackenzie – then Dreger at 6:01. TSN hooks me & I don’t like Naylor or the soporific, professorial, snobbish, tweets like a 9 year old girl, Bruce Arthur – but I like that they talk about Sports on a SPORTS FUCKING RADIO STATION while McCown yaks about what Cox should pick up from Korry’s on the fucking Danforth.

Bobcat is coasting. He knows he’s coasting. Management has told him he’s coasting. Bob does not give a F. But we all know that. I wonder when his contract is up? I thought those tools Tim & Sid were showing up on Prime Time Sports so Bob could expose them to more people and boost their ratings, I guess the opposite is the case.

Above, someone said McCown does the best interviews in this market and gives the best commentary when a heated subject comes up: that’s dead on. Pairing him with Stephen Brunt who has all the appeal of a ventriloquist dummy without a handler, is a big mistake. You’d think Brunt was blind or someone off-camera is shining a flashlight at him – he does not move or blink. I know its radio but that kind of magnetism affects his vocal ‘delivery’; needs a Jeff O’Neill-like person. Naylor is just so happy to have any guest at all that he interviews them like he’s meeting a 5 year old niece for the first time.

HCN is a piece of shit. Note to Millard – you are really REALLY not so important and nobody here gives a F about the fucking Flames. Hayes show from Noon to 2 PM is the best show in Toronto. Brady is lost without Lang, show is suffering. Richards? No comment. I guess if you’re stoned, Tim & Sid’s air horn show is for you – judging by their ratings, I guess there’s a lot of stoned people out there.

Where the hell is the latest sports radio ratings???? Its mid-may????!

fatcat. doesnt prep or watch sporting events. the other day he says greenbay settled for field. goals.. instead tring to go for it when seattle was not able to move the ball. did he even watch the game to know, seattle only had one possession at the time green bay kicked two field goals? seattle fumbled kick off which led to second field goal..he only preps by watching hi lights.. its such an insult that he even gets paid..he just wants to name drop. and boast about the littliest things..hes a joke