NEW YORK, July 19 (UPI) -- The New York radio station that made national news by firing Bruce "Cousin Brucie" Morrow and changing its oldies format is losing listeners.
Abitron's preliminary spring ratings report -- which includes only three weeks of the new format -- indicates 12 percent of the listeners of WCBS-FM turned the station off when it flipped to the prerecorded "Jack FM" format
, the New York Post reported Tuesday.
Infinity Broadcasting fired the entire WCBS staff last month and replaced them with the recorded voice of "Jack" and songs from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The company took similar action in Chicago at WJMK-FM.
Despite the Arbitron report, one industry expert warned it's way too early to write off "Jack" as a failure.
"It's too different
, too new and too soon to haul Jack into court to judge him
," Inside Radio editor Tom Taylor said.
