WHFS SCORES WITH THE O’S

By: Jim Williams

The Examiner

It is early but it seems that the move of the Orioles from WBAL-AM to WHFS-FM was a positive one and the April ratings speak for themselves.

WHFS-FM posted a 6 rating for Orioles baseball in April compared to a 5.1 that WBAL registered last year during the same ratings period.

So how many fans are tuning into the O’s on WHFS?

Well the average during April was nearly 56,000 listeners per game compared to about 33,000 last seasons at this time on WBAL. The weekends were even more dramatic with nearly 60,000 listeners per game compared to last seasons 33,000.

Veteran broadcaster’s Joe Angel and Fred Manfra continue to delight Orioles fans and they have become one of the best radio teams all of baseball. Meanwhile popular
Baltimore
broadcaster Tom Davis hosts the pre and post game shows that are giving Birds fans plenty to talk about after the games.

Clearly fans find the FM band and the stereo sound a plus and the cross promotion that CBS radio has been able to do with it’s five station cluster in Baltimore has paid off for the Birds and their fans thus far.

Bob Phillips senior vice president of operations at CBS Radio Baltimore told me “We could not be happier with our relationship with the Orioles and how the fans have embraced our broadcasts of games thus far is awesome. I think the reason for our early success comes from the ability to use all of our five stations to promote O’s baseball. The team has been super by giving us unprecedented access to players, coaches and front office representatives that make regular appearances on shows on all of our stations. That has given all of Baltimore a chance to reconnect with the Orioles. If you add to that the concerts and other promotions we do everyone in the city knows the O’s are on WHFS.”

The Pirates moved from KDKA who had the team’s radio rights for most of the last half century to WPGB-FM. Just like CBS here is Baltimore , the Clear Channel owned Pittsburgh FM station is part of a five station cluster that uses the same broadcast/promotion template that WHFS uses.    

The winning formulaseems to be using the non tradional formats to promote the games and the players back to the community. In the case of CBS radio in
Baltimore
that is five stations with five different formats that account for over 50% of all the people who listen to radio in the market and more importantly for the Orioles it cuts across all ages and demographics.

Make no mistake about it WBAL is a very successful and a legendary station but it is tough to compete with the promotional power and diverse audience that five radio stations with totally different formats clearly gives CBS an advantage in expanding the Orioles fan base.

Next week we will talk about the MASN TV ratings.