‘Toucher & Wealthy’ nonetheless owns morning drive, however WEEI’s ‘Greg Hill Present’ is creeping into the rearview mirror

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Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
With ex-Patriot Jermaine Wiggins amongst its co-hosts, “The Greg Hill Present” had a powerful finish to the spring. Craig F. Walker/Globe Workers

By Chad Finn, The Boston Globe

Reducing via some static on the Nielsen Audio spring sports activities radio rankings that had been revealed this previous week…

“Toucher & Wealthy” completed first with relative ease in morning drive with a 21.4 share within the focused males 25-54 demographic, the very best of any weekday sports activities present available in the market throughout the three-month interval.

I don’t wish to overlook that as a powerful feat. It’s straightforward at this level to take these 20 shares without any consideration since they’re nothing new to the Sports activities Hub, nevertheless it wasn’t that way back that such a quantity was unprecedented for a day by day sports activities radio program, not less than within the 13 years I’ve been protecting sports activities media.

That “Toucher & Wealthy” earned such a big share whereas navigating well-documented stress amongst hosts Fred Toucher and Wealthy Shertenlieb, and Toucher’s absences whereas he handled a vocal wire drawback, speaks properly of the loyalty of the present’s listeners.

However there was a compelling shift within the final month of the rankings interval that left one questioning whether or not extra informal listeners drifted over to their competitors throughout the top of Toucher and Wealthy’s drama. WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Present” completed second within the spring, a good way again with a stable 8.6 share. However the month-to-month tendencies throughout the spring rankings interval had been encouraging to say the least for this system.

Within the first month of the ebook, which coated March 30 to April 26, “Toucher & Wealthy” crushed Hill’s present by greater than a 20-share distinction, 26.3 to six.2. WEEI’s present chipped away at that huge benefit within the second month (April 27-Might 24), placing up a 9.7 share to T&R’s 22.0

The third month of spring rankings is the place it actually will get attention-grabbing. Within the interval of Might 25 to June 25, “Toucher & Wealthy” dipped to a 14.7 share, which was nonetheless good for first place in that stretch. (Toucher returned to the air on June 2.) However Hill’s present was lower than a 5 share behind, ending with a ten.2 for the month.

Mike Thomas, senior vice chairman and market supervisor for WEEI’s dad or mum firm, Audacy Boston, attributed a number of the progress to the Hill present’s in-person engagement with its listeners.

Through the spring, Hill and the present’s co-hosts — which embody Jermaine Wiggins, Courtney Cox, and Chris Curtis — broadcast from seven totally different places on that it known as its “New England Highway Present.’’

Hill is an knowledgeable schmoozer, and Thomas stated in an electronic mail that he thought the highway present was “a degree of differentiation for us … Greg is nice at it.

“Typically, once you exit and do occasions and attempt to develop your viewers one handshake at a time, you don’t see the ends in Nielsen. This time we did and the station benefitted.”

It’s going to be fascinating to see whether or not that is sustainable; not a lot in the summertime ebook (the least related interval), however within the fall, when the Patriots are in season and sports activities radio tends to thrive.

All the Sports activities Hub’s daytime packages noticed their share dip within the third week of the ebook, however Hill’s present was the one WEEI program to make notable features in the identical stretch. The Sports activities Hub is the house for Celtics and Bruins broadcasts, so their departures from the postseason may need been an element within the slip from huge rankings to merely glorious ones.

The second-most profitable daypart for WEEI throughout the interval was evenings (7 p.m.-midnight), which completed second to the Sports activities Hub with a 7.2 share. A few of that’s most likely attributable to carrying Purple Sox broadcasts in that window, nevertheless it’s satisfying to see nighttime host Wealthy Keefe be related to some robust rankings. He’s WEEI’s most entertaining host and hasn’t had the fairest shake.

Reynolds was one of many greats

One of many perks of being an editor and producing the sports activities part daily in my first newspaper cease in Harmony, N.H., years in the past was gaining access to the work of excellent columnists from all around the nation on the Related Press wire service. That’s how I acquired launched to the great Joe Posnanski, then in Cincinnati, and Michael Wilbon on the Washington Publish, and it was additionally how I turned a fan of Invoice Reynolds on the Windfall Journal. Reynolds, who handed away Thursday at 78, was an achieved author in a number of kinds (his “Fall River Goals,’’ is a top-10 favourite sports activities ebook, and “Massive Hoops,’’ on the 1988-89 Massive East season, isn’t far exterior of that prime 10). However what I actually seemed ahead to studying was his whimsical Saturday column of one-liners and observations, titled “For What It’s Price.” If you happen to weren’t aware of that column, Boston Sports activities Journal’s John Karalis captured the spirit of the factor with an exquisite homage to Reynolds this week.