{"id":2179,"date":"2014-01-28T21:00:11","date_gmt":"2014-01-29T03:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=2179"},"modified":"2014-01-28T21:00:57","modified_gmt":"2014-01-29T03:00:57","slug":"wls-drops-roe-roeper-sports-hour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2014\/01\/28\/wls-drops-roe-roeper-sports-hour\/","title":{"rendered":"WLS drops Roe & Roeper sports hour"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Roe<\/a>

<\/a> Roe Conn, Richard Roeper and Lou Canellis<\/p><\/div>\n

It took a year for WLS AM 890 <\/a>bosses to figure out what most listeners realized from Day One: A full hour of sports talk at 5 p.m. each day was killing Roe Conn and Richard Roeper\u2019s afternoon show.<\/p>\n

Faced with disastrous ratings, the Cumulus Media news\/talk station is dropping\u00a0\u201cThe 89 WLS Sports Pregame Show,\u201d<\/a> the somnambulant segment that featured Fox 32 sports anchor Lou Canellis and interviews with sports figures. Its final airing will be Wednesday.<\/p>\n

In a city with two full-time sports\/talk radio stations and numerous other options, the futility of Conn and Roeper\u2019s effort finally dawned on WLS management. The move comes 10 weeks after the appointment<\/a> of Peter Bolger as operations manager and program director.<\/p>\n

Effective Thursday, the 5 p.m. hour of \u201cThe Roe & Roeper Show\u201d will revert to regular talk programming (including the return of their \u201cTop Five at 5\u201d feature).<\/p>\n

Launched on the eve of last year\u2019s Super Bowl and doomed from the start, the sports hour was conceived by Drew Hayes in his final weeks as operations director and continued under his protege, former program director Tracy Slutzkin.<\/p>\n

Ratings showed listeners tuned out in droves, while projected revenue never materialized. The latest Nielsen Audio survey shows WLS tied for 26th place in afternoons with a 1.4 percent share and a cumulative weekly audience of 174,600. Among listeners between 25 and 54, the station ranks 28th in afternoons with a 1.2 share.<\/p>\n

Total revenue for the station fell 12 percent to $13 million in 2013, according to Miller, Kaplan, Arase & Co.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It took a year for WLS AM 890 bosses to figure out what most listeners realized from Day One: A full hour of sports talk at 5 p.m. each day was killing Roe Conn and Richard Roeper\u2019s afternoon show. Faced with disastrous ratings, the Cumulus Media news\/talk station is dropping\u00a0\u201cThe 89 WLS Sports Pregame Show,\u201d... Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2179"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2184,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions\/2184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}