With the end of the Gopher football season still visible in the rear-view mirror, I thought it might be interesting to take a look back at the first year of our radio partnership with KFAN as our flagship station.

KFAN Program Director Chad Abbott told me earlier this week that the station's ratings throughout the fall were very strong.

"We had tremendous ratings growth this fall," Abbott said. "KFAN experienced its best ratings period in the station's existence in the fall. Gopher Football games were a key component in that growth."

According to Abbott, many of KFAN's broadcasts of Minnesota Football games were the top-ranked radio programming in the Twin Cities during those particular windows. In fact, he said Minnesota's 2:30 p.m. starts were regularly the most-listened to programming at that time over any other station in the Twin Cities.

From KFAN's standpoint, the first season of carrying Gopher Football was a definite success, Abbott said.

"2011 was a great start to the partnership between KFAN, Learfield and Gopher Football," he said. "Ratings aside, we're excited about the direction of the program and being associated with it."