The Media Notepad: Bears fourth quarter blunder draws 37 million
Also: Ramblin’ Ray gives up KCMO gig to focus on WLS-AM; Moffett Nathanson gives mixed reviews of upcoming NBCU cable spinoff
Unlike other Chicago Sports embarrassments this year, this one was shown live in front of the largest audience of the season.
The Bears’ major meltdown against the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving drew a record of 37.5 million viewers for CBS in the early window due to Detroit’s 12-1 record, tied with the Kansas City Chiefs for the best record in the NFL.
When the two teams last met on Thanksgiving in 2021, the matchup drew 26.7 million viewers as both teams had subpar records. Of note, the number was released by the NFL and not CBS Sports, whose parent company Paramount Global is in a contract dispute with Nielsen.
In a season full of blunders for the NFL Lakefront Team, Bears head coach Matt Eberflus botched a play in the fourth quarter by failing to call a timeout. The next day, Eberflus was fired – the first time a coach was sacked during the season in its 105-year history.
The season game between the equally woeful New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys drew slightly higher numbers for Fox with 38.8 million viewers. Despite the struggles, the Cowboys are still must-see TV, with a Cubs-like following of loyal fans – especially in the Metroplex, which supplemented Philadelphia as the fourth-largest television market in the country and has its eyes set on Chicago for third place behind New York and Los Angeles.
Of note, the Bears are losers on the field but winners where it counts – the team is a nine-time T Dog Media Turkey Award winner.
WLS-AM morning personality Ray Stevens (formerly known as Ramblin’ Ray) has exited his moonlighting job at Kansas City’s KCMO-AM to focus more on his Chicago gig, where he is heard weekdays mornings from 6 to 9.
Stevens succeeded the fired Steve Cochran last June amid station cutbacks, which saw its local afternoon programming canceled. Stevens had been hosting at KCMO since September 2023, replacing Chris Stigell and hosting the 10 a.m. to noon slot while doing double duty at WLS-AM in the earlier shift. Replacing Stevens at KCMO is Kevin Kietzman, who hosted sports talk at WHB-AM from 1997 to 2019. Before the Chiefs’ success, Kietzman was harshly critical of the team, targeting head coach Andy Reid for his decisions on and off the field. Kietzman fills the 10-11 a.m. slot at KCMO and continues with his independently-produced podcast.
WLS-AM and KCMO are conservative talk stations owned by Cumulus Media.
“WLS needs every ounce of my being and we expect to continue with our heavy street presence,” Stevens told Barrett Media, where the story first appeared. “Our job is to be in every neighborhood in Chicagoland doing charity work and bringing our show to the public. To do that makes it hard to give my best [at] KCMO.”
“I wish [Cumulus’ Kansas City management] the best and will look back at it as one of my favorite all-time gigs,” Stevens continued. “Now it’s time to make WLS AM great again!”
Well, WLS has a lot of work to do to make it great again. According to the latest Nielsen overall PPM numbers, the station ranks 24th.
In other Cumulus news, the program director of WLS-AM’s FM counterpart received a promotion Thursday, as Todd Cavanah was named VP of Classic Hits. Cavanah will counsel the company’s 24 stations in the format including WLS-FM, where he’ll remain program director and report to chief content officer Brian Phillips.
Ray Stevens should not be confused with the novelty singer of the same name, who hit number one in the 1970s with Everything Is Beautiful and The Streak.
Analyst firm MoffettNathanson released a report last week on Comcast’s plan to spin off the company’s cable networks into a separate company with the prototype name SpinCo, and it was quite damning.
In it, MoffettNathanson stated the ratings decline for SpinCo’s network was “catastrophic” with “[the] collection of networks with this viewership profile will have little negotiating leverage, not much of a story to tell advertisers, and nothing indispensable to offer streaming services,”, noting the tough road ahead in operating in an environment where cord-cutting is rampant.
But MoffettNathanson did have some positive things to say about the upcoming spinoff, stating it could attract a buyer with a similar portfolio of cable networks, i.e. Warner Bros. Discovery, owners of TBS, TNT, and Discovery.
“To be fair, a careful look reveals that the rate of decline in ratings has slowed of late; indeed, the last couple of years have been something close to stable, offering at least a ray of hope. And some of the assets are inherently relatively stable. Yes, all are suffering from falling viewership and cord-cutting makes that inevitable. but CNBC and Golf Channel, to cite the two most obvious examples, have reasonably strong and focused platforms and relatively high engagement (and both of these two have very attractive demographics).”
However, CNBC has fallen behind competitor Fox Business in recent years. Tensions at CNBC were evident Thursday on the American version of Squawk Box when hosts Andrew Ross Sorkin and Joe Kernan clashed on air Thursday morning over the network’s editorial direction—something they’ve done before on the show. Meanwhile, the PGA has been less than pleased with the Golf Channel as financial resources have been diverted from the network in the last few years. There were reports the organization was looking into buying the channel and its assets.
MoffettNathanson noted the spinoff is about consolidation as ratings for NBCU’s networks continue to decline due to cord-cutting, and “isn’t a “prerequisite for deal-making; Comcast could have entered into deals while remaining consolidated if they had so desired … But the spin obviously makes deal-making more likely.”