A bit of Milwaukee radio history is written this week in the final quarterly ratings from Arbitron based on old-fashioned diary entries.
Soon, we'll be studying monthly numbers based on portable people meters designed to measure actual listening, rather than what listeners recall as they fill out the diary in the nation's 37th largest radio market.
Most important are the 25-to-54 numbers, and WISN-AM (1130) is on top in that measure, which is what most advertisers use to buy airtime. It's up from fifth place in spring 2009.
The rest of the top 10 in that demographic are WXSS-FM (103.7), WTMJ-AM (620), WMIL-FM (106.1,) WKKV-FM (100.7), WHQG-FM (102.1), WMYX-FM (99.1), an eighth-place tie between WLWK-FM (94.5) and WKLH-FM (96.5). WJMR-FM (98.3) was in 10th
Among all listeners, 12 and older, the top 10 are WTMJ, WISN, WXSS, WMIL, WKKV, WRIT-FM (95.7), WMYX, WHQG and WLWK.
In the morning: Weekdays, from 6 to 10 a.m., the top five stations in the 25-t0-54 group, are WHQG, WKLH, WTMJ, WKKV and WXSS. Among all listeners, the top stations are WTMJ, WHQG, WKLH, WISN and WXSS.
In the afternoon: Weekdays, from 3 to 7 p.m., among listeners 25 to 54, it was WISN, WXSS, WMYX, WMIL and WTMJ. Among all listeners, the finish was WISN, WXSS, WTMJ, WMIL and WKKV.
The bottom line: This final quarterly book, which features new strength for news/talker WISN, is something of a footnote as we move into the new ratings system that could yield surprisingly different results.
As I've written before, people meters have had a dramatic impact on other radio markets, including the huge one that lies just south of the state line.
Radio pros have been learning tactics to deal with the new system which could lessen the blow here. Or, we could see long-time ratings leaders to take major league dips.
We'll start seeing (and hearing) soon enough.
On TV: WRIT-FM (95.7) morning co-host Meg McKenzie is known as a radio personality, but she may get some TV time soon as one of the 100 semi-finalists in the "Live! With Regis and Kelly" show's "Women of Radio Co-host for a Day" contest. There were 10,000 entries. Her supporters should show their support at the show's Facebook page.
- It looks like AJ Bombers burger emporium will be part of another Travel Channel show. Co-owner Joe Sorge tweets that a crew will be filming at 2 p.m. Friday for a show called "Best Places I've Ever Been."
- Speaking of Twitter, Channel 12's Andy Kendeigh tweets that he's leaving the ABC station after 11 years to become sports director at KETV-TV in Omaha, Neb. Like Channel 12, it's a Hearst-owned station.
- Jim Windsor is out as Channel 12's director of creative services. He can't offer details, but he says, "I would like to thank everyone, my co-workers and viewers, for a great 16 years in Milwaukee. We ended up on top with 12, and that's a great place to be."
- Syfy Channel says "Caprica" will be back in January, with the second half of its first season. Nine more episodes are scheduled for the "Battlestar Galactica" prequel.
- Martin Bashir is leaving ABC's "Nightline" to take an NBC News job. Bill Weir replaces him.
- When Oprah Winfrey signs off next year, her flagship station, Chicago's WLS-TV, will replace her with a live, local morning talk show in the 9 a.m. hour, according to Chicago TV maven Robert Feder. The future of local TV, of course, is local programming.
Blago's video testimony: Although disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich won't testify in his corruption trial as he had promised, here's an entertaining video of an auto-tuned Blago put together last year by John Williams of Chicago's WGN-AM (720).
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
