Exclusive: Dumping DePetro In Morning Hurting WPRO-AM
Thursday, February 09, 2012
It has been just about a year since GoLocal broke the exclusive story about the on air changes at WPRO-AM.
The market’s “radio station of record” decided to move morning drive host John DePetro out of his slot and put him on from 9am till noon. Now, one year later the ratings have dropped nearly in half.
It also meant that Dan Yorke’s time slot would change and so would Buddy Cianci’s. The station opted to promote Tara Granahan who had been DePetro’s Executive Producer and on-air contributor with former Channel 6 news guy
Andrew Gobeil. Station insiders indicated the move was meant to have a “more warm and friendly” WPRO morning show and to get away from what some have described as DePetro’s aggressive and over the stop style.A Risk
When the on-shuffle was reported here, the issue of this being a big risk for the station was raised. Gobeil taking over for DePetro that is. Here is a look from that February 2011 article.
What isn’t known is how well this morning show will work. The current one with DePetro is a proven ratings winner and it works. Some people in the advertising community tell me this is a risky move. You can debate his style, but DePetro engages listeners, gets phones to ring and the most important thing for station brass is that he gets people to advertise and spend money!
Granahan, to her credit, can say she is the first woman to ever host the highly sought after morning drive slot on WPRO-AM where the legendary Salty Brine worked for decades giving the station it’s heritage. Gobeil, coming from TV, has struggled to make the change over to radio. His style is laid-back and does not necessarily remind you of a hard-driving, news driven, morning show. People who will work closely with the morning team say the “chemistry” just isn’t there and from listening, Granahan clearly has more of a command of moving the show along than he does.
The Numbers
GoLocal has obtained specific rating numbers for the WPRO-AM morning show for the past 12-months and beyond. They clearly show that this switch from DePetro to Gobeil is not working as management as planned. You could also argue why was the change even made?
Radio ratings are measured in share and rating points. The share is the % of people listening to a specific program at a specific time. Ratings and share help sales people sell the radio station. The higher and better the share – the higher the ad price can be.
An analysis of the numbers shows that for 10-straight months, since DePetro has been off the show, the share % of listeners has been trending down. In addition, the two lowest share % numbers for the morning show was in November and December of 2011. The numbers show that in July of 2009 DePetro’s numbers were almost twice what the numbers were for this new morning show at the end of last year. This drop in share in not only problematic for selling ads during morning drive, it also hurts the station as a whole because the morning show helps to set the pace for the rest of the day. Listeners who start in the morning, have a better chance of staying longer through the day listening to Yorke and Cianci.
Job Being Shopped
GoLocal, through multiple sources, has learned that the morning show job to co-host with Granahan is quietly being shopped around. More than one person has been approached to see if they have an interest in the show. It is unclear what the timetable may be. But if those share numbers continue to drop going into early 2012—you can bet it will be sooner than later.
Love him or hate him – DePetro had higher higher numbers. But will the station consider a switch back?
It depends on how much pride the powers at be can really swallow.
But in broadcasting, dollars often win out over pride. GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST
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