Friday will bring the sixth and latest installment of our annual local-music spotlight, Eight Great Local Acts, which we've been toiling away on for the past few months. Despite the fact that we've got a lot fewer worker bees in here than we used to, I think this year's Great Eight is the best ever. So I'll be making the local multi-media rounds to talk it up beyond the attention it has already picked up from the totally cool preview trailer. There will be a report about it on the morning news on NBC-17; and I'm scheduled to be on 850 The Buzz at about 9 a.m. Friday.

As for the bands themselves, a couple are playing WKNC's Double Barrel Benefit this weekend in Raleigh; and there's also the Great Eight showcase coming up on Feb. 13 at Local 506 in Chapel Hill. Hope to see you out and about at either, or both.

The latest quarterly radio ratings from Arbitron show that 99.9 The Fan, Capitol Broadcasting's all-sports FM station, leads each of McClatchey Broadcasting's two AM sports stations, 850 The Buzz and 620 The Bull, in the Raleigh-Durham market.

But McClatchey General Manager Brian Maloney says "The Triangle's Sports Leader," to borrow the company's claim, has not changed, because McClatchey counts its two stations together.

According to Arbitron, 99.9 (WCMC) drew a 1.0 rating — measuring listeners age 12 and over from 6 a.m. to midnight Monday through Sunday — in the fall 2008 quarter, up from 0.7 in the summer. The Fan attracted an estimated 41,800 unique listeners in any given 15-minute period, up from 30,600.

Next was 850 (WRBZ) at 0.8, the same as the previous quarter, followed by 620 (WDNC) at 0.6. The latter fell 0.2.

But Maloney sees those numbers as a combined 1.4 — or higher than 99.9 The Fan's 1.0.

"We're in the business of providing sports programming to sports radio fans, and we don't really care which one they're listening to as long as they're listening to The Buzz or The Bull. And we have the lion's share of the sports radio market," Maloney says.

More important, as far as 99.9 The Fan is concerned, was its performance in the demographic categories it really wants to own: men 25-54 and men 18-34, essentially the target audience for a sports radio station. In the male 25-54 category, 99.9's rating increased from 0.7 to 2.5, according to the station. (Arbitron limits what it makes immediately available to the press.) Among men 18-34, The Fan's rating rose from 1.4 to 1.9.

Again, in a news release Monday, McClatchey (no relation to the parent company of The News & Observer) noted that its combined rating among men 25-54 exceeded 99.9 The Fan's figure in that category. 

The Fan benefited from its FM signal, its move to ESPN programming and its coverage of Carolina Hurricanes hockey and NFL games, says Dave Shore, the operations manager for the station.

"I'm happy we've been able to do this in the first year," Shore says, referring to the station's ratings success in the year following its format change from country music to all-sports in October 2007.

Ultimately, he adds, 99.9 The Fan will measure itself in its primary demographic against all of the Triangle's stations, not just the sports-talk outlets.

Overall in the fall quarter, the leader was WQDR-FM 94.7, a country station, at 7.8, followed by WDCG-FM 105.1, a pop contemporary hits station, and WPTF-AM 680, a news talk station, each at 6.9.

The changes generated by ESPN Radio's move from McClatchey Broadcasting — 850 The Buzz and 620 The Bull — to Capitol Broadcasting's 99.9 The Fan are being heard by listeners for the first time. The FM sports-talk station began carrying ESPN programming today, and is planning another big change around the first of the year.

Capitol Broadcasting expects to begin airing ESPN Deportes, the Spanish-language version of ESPN, on an as-yet unidentified AM station in the market around the first of the year.

The FM station's local program from noon to 1 p.m. weekdays is "Sports Lunch With Mike Maniscalco."

McClatchey split with ESPN in large part so it could drop "Mike and Mike In The Morning" in favor of "Imus In The Morning" from 6-10 a.m. on 620 The Bull.

Not surprisingly, "The Dan Patrick Show" has been picked up by 850 The Buzz from 10 a.m. to noon. Patrick, a longtime reporter, anchor and radio host with ESPN, joined The Content Factory in 2007, and also writes a column for Sports Illustrated.

From 1-3 p.m. on weekdays, 620 The Bull will air "Two Live Stews," featuring brothers Doug and Ryan Stewart, a syndicated show out of Atlanta that has gained attention in recent years.

That question came from a listener who wondered why both AM sports radio stations in the area, 850 the Buzz and 620 the Bull, were broadcasting the Duke men's basketball game against Rhode Island last Sunday instead of, say, ESPN Radio's studio show on the day's NFL games.

This Sunday, for example, both local stations will carry Duke's home game against Montana at 1 p.m.

It's about reaching the biggest possible audience, says general manager Brian Maloney, who adds that "nearly" every Duke game is simulcast on the two stations but not all of them.

This Sunday, both stations will carry the Duke game, and 850 the Buzz will then broadcast the Carolina Panthers' game at Atlanta, scheduled to start at 4:15 p.m.

Sports radio 850 The Buzz is recruiting Carolina Hurricanes fans to file on-air reports before and after every Canes home game. The reports will air on the AM station's pregame "Stormfront" and postgame "Aftermath" broadcasts. The "Citizen Cane" reporters will be selected on a game-by-game basis to give their insights on the matchups and the RBC Center scene.

Anyone interested can register and find out at www.850thebuzz.com. Hurricanes games are broadcast live on 99.9 The Fan.

Sports radio 850 The Buzz is recruiting Carolina Hurricanes fans to file on-air reports before and after every Canes home game. The reports will air on the AM station's pregame "Stormfront" and postgame "Aftermath" broadcasts. The "Citizen Cane" reporters will be selected on a game-by-game basis to give their insights on the matchups and the RBC Center scene.

Anyone interested can register and find out at www.850thebuzz.com. Hurricanes games are broadcast live on 99.9 The Fan.

Successfully ending what he termed a "very competitive" process, 99.9 The Fan's general manager, Mike Morgan, confirms that the FM sports talk radio station has reached an agreement to carry such ESPN Radio programming as "Mike & Mike In The Morning" from 6-10 a.m. weekdays and "The Herd" with Colin Cowherd at 10 a.m.

The local station expects to begin airing ESPN programming on Jan. 5, says Morgan, adding that 99.9 now will have access to Major League Baseball, NBA and other games broadcast by the national network.

"Our local shows won't disappear," Morgan says. "You'll still see a local show at midday and 'The Insiders' in the afternoon ... and when appropriate, we'll have special programming that focuses on the things that are important to the local market."

Morgan says 99.9 The Fan had been looking to pick up ESPN for some time and has had informal conversations "off and on" with the national radio network for the past eight to 12 months.

McClatchey Broadcasting, which owns 850 The Buzz and 620 The Bull, announced in mid-October that it was ending its relationship with ESPN, in large part so it could go back to airing "Imus In The Morning."

McClatchey Broadcasting is unrelated to the McClatchy Co., which owns The News & Observer.

Now that McClatchey Broadcasting is dropping ESPN Radio programming, in large part so it can pick up Don Imus' weekday morning show, ESPN is looking for a new local radio affiliate.

Dan Quinn, a spokesman for ESPN, says the network is "in negotiations with one party" in the Raleigh-Durham area, though he wouldn't identify the party.

"We certainly expect to be on sooner rather than later down there," Quinn says.

One logical landing spot on the dial would be 99.9 FM The Fan, but we haven't heard whether that's the one. 

McClatchey Broadcasting is bringing back Don Imus' sometimes controversial morning show on 620 the Bull.