Cumulus Sports trimulcast “105 The Ticket” 105.1 WGVX Lakeville/105.3 Cambridge/105.7 WGVZ Eden Prairie/Minneapolis, MN has dropped its local talk programming.
2-4pm host Bob Sansevere and 4-6pm co-hosts Mike Morris and Ben Holsen are out with the change, which sees the station go to the CBS Sports Radio Network programming around the clock. Program Director Scott Jameson told the St. Paul Pioneer-Press that the stations will “provide an alternative to the other two local stations” and “focus on the network product and provide it to people who prefer that.” The stations will retain local high school sports coverage on weekends.
The stations have registered just a 0.3 share in the last three Nielsen Audio PPM ratings, placing it well behind iHeartMedia’s “100.3 KFAN” KFXN-FM which had a 5.7 share in April and Hubbard’s “1500 ESPN” KSTP’s 1.2 share.
Scholarm1111 
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Fightingirish
That sounds really exciting. Cumulus please put an end to this failed use of 3 frequencies in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market!
I know, right? When they were the “Lite FM” at least they were getting a 3 share instead of a .3. They could go back to that with no local employees if they want to save money. At least it’s something people actually want to listen to.
Having seen the May 2015 book, they’re still stuck at 0.3. One gets the feeling that this approach will not work. Can you say future format flip?
Clearly, the market for sports in the Twin Cities is pretty well saturated and bird-feed from the CBS radio network (which is second tier stuff, for the most part) will only serve to drive off that 0.3% of the audience that IS listening. Making a bad situation even worse.
Time for a new format. Heck, go back to the “Love” format of oldies – a lot of older listeners are one hell of a lot better than no listeners at all!
If Cumulus is so hell-bent on clearing CBS Sports in the Twin Cities (and seriously, why?), they should just leave it on 105.1 and 105.3, and give 105.7 a new format. Granted, 105.7 wouldn’t have the coverage of all three sticks together, but they could probably squeeze a few bucks out of, say, an urban-oriented or rhythmic CHR format. Even better, just beg one of the many failing AM stations in town to carry CBS Sports. Expecting The Ticket to complete against the mighty KFAN and the much weaker KSTP is just plain ridiculous thinking.
As for the 105s, they all came together during the REV105 days in the 90s. REV was pretty adventurous, and a damn good station, but were a small-time operation getting clobbered by ABC and their own modern rock station (93.7 The Edge). Finally, REV’s owners sold out to ABC, and since then, their main purpose has either been to be a flanker for KQRS and KXXR, a piece of their “wall of rock”, a throw-in incentive for advertisers or a half-assed attempt at attacking Kool 108. The 105 trio as it stands could work as a modest success, but as it stands, it’s just the unloved younger sibling to its big sisters.