But there is "no panic" to name a sidekick, operations manager Mark Chernoff said yesterday. One reason was evident in the ratings for Sept. 18 through Dec. 10, which came out Friday.

In his first full seasonal period without Chris Russo, Francesa finished second to Q104.3-FM in the men ages 25-54 demographic the station targets, averaging 5.4 percent of the audience.

That was for the traditional 3-7 p.m. afternoon slot. For the 1-6:30 period Francesa actually is on the air, he was third behind Q104.3 and WSKQ-FM, a Spanish station, with a 5.5 rating.

"This is wonderful news," Chernoff said. "It was hard to say what was going to happen [when Russo left in August]. All I know is the numbers have held up. I'm obviously pleased by that."

While Francesa logged solid ratings, 1050 ESPN enjoyed a positive trend of its own in afternoon drive time. Michael Kay's show averaged 2.9 percent of men 25-54 for 15th place overall.

Drawing to within less than a 2-1 ratio of WFAN is a milestone for Kay, whose ratings improved every month in the fall. Program director Aaron Spielberg credited Kay himself and stationwide efforts, such as a focus on news coverage.

(Kay announced yesterday that his show will air from 2 to 7 p.m. effective next week; it expanded from three hours to four last April.)

The sports stations' ratings were a surprise because of competition from news and news talk during the heated presidential campaign and because neither local baseball team made the playoffs.

Arbitron's switch from the old diary system to people meters makes it difficult to compare numbers from year to year. The meters were not official in 2007, but in figures distributed internally, Francesa and Russo ranked fifth in their time period.

(Ratings are not measured for satellite radio, so it is difficult to say exactly how Russo is doing in attracting an audience at Sirius XM.)

Chernoff said Francesa still is open to adding another cast member - eventually.

Doing so in time for the post- Super Bowl dog days would be wise.

"Our thinking really is if we can find the right person to put in there, we're still going to do it," Chernoff said, "because it's a long show for one person to do 12 months a year."