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#5 - 104.3 WOMC. I preferred WOMC's playlist from 2017. However, the new morning team of JoAnn Purtan and Stephen Clark has gelled nicely as the year moved along. It's nice to hear a true morning show on the station once again as opposed to a guy making corny remarks between songs accompanied by a giggling lady.
#4 - 950 WWJ. The quality of the traffic reports in drive time has improved since Captain Dennis came on board in A.M. Drive and K.T. came on board in P.M. Drive. Their predecessors were fine, very polished broadcasters, but I feel the timeliness and completeness of incident reporting has improved of late.
#3 - 101.9 WDET. The station is once again showing signs of life. After multiple years of ratings stuck in the 0.5 to 0.9 share range, the station has recently shown some gains, even reaching mid 1's at times. I welcome the return of music to middays (if only for two hours), NPR's two flagship weekday programs rightfully air on the station, and some of the weekend music programming is excellent. I do wish the station would feature music weeknights, though.
#2 - 97.1 The Ticket. The station still has weaknesses. The programming during the weekend is generally terrible. However, I give the station props for two reasons. First, for the first time EVER, it actually features a morning show that is primarily geared toward SPORTS with two hosts knowledgeable in that area, although I must say Stoney's opinions are more logical than those of Jamie the Sourpuss. Second, the unfunny slappy humor that riddled Valenti's show for much of the past few years seems to have been dialed back. It still makes an occasional appearance, but not for the ridiculously long stretches that it did previously.
#1 - 89X. No surprise here. The playlist could use some additional improvement, but the station has come a long way in the past twelve months, and in particular, the past six months. For a few years, I found the station nearly if not completely unlistenable. At one point, I had removed it entirely from my presets. Now, I enjoy the station's playlist almost as much as that of WRIF. The morning show replays at odd hours annoy me, but I do like the fact 89X during most hours has less on-air clutter than WRIF. Also, I love the fact the station plays MUSIC in the morning. The station no longer subscribes to Detroit's Nielsen Audio ratings, but in spring 2018, 89X was already showing major ratings gains in Windsor. Will be interesting to see what the spring 2019 book looks like for Windsor.