Air Warfare By the Numbers

More Air America woes:

Air America apparently is not flying too well in Philly. The liberal talk network’s home since Aug. 30 is WHAT-AM (1340), which airs shows by Al Franken (noon to 3 p.m.) and Randi Rhodes (3 to 7 p.m.). Arbitron ratings for fall were released last week. Though specific numbers are not available for Franken’s time slot, a check of Rhodes’ finds that WHAT’s ratings have dropped.

Among total listeners ages 12 and older, the station managed a 0.5 rating in fall 2003; it got a 0.3 this time. The “cume,” the cumulative number of weekly listeners, fell from 22,000 to 17,800. By comparison, Sean Hannity and Dom Giordano on talk rival WPHT-AM (1210) had a 4.4 rating and cume of 217,800 weekly listeners; the top afternoon-drive station was WBEB-FM (101.1), with a 7.6 rating and a cume of 441,100.

Ouch.