Radio AM to FM

Radio AM to FM: January 17, 2003

Fall Arbitrons

Power 106 (KPWR) has led the Los Angeles radio ratings race for much of the last year, but they decimated the competition in the Arbitron Ratings released last week, jumping 0.3 and solidly beating a strong second-place KROQ by one full point, 5.4 to 4.4. KROQ was down half a point from Summer.

Third-place KIIS-FM was down 0.7 and earned a 4.1, just slightly ahead of sister KOST and Spanish music leader KSCA, which tied at 3.9.

As per usual, KFI led the talk wars, but with no major news events happening they found themselves down to 3.6 from last quarter's 4.5 ... and the lowest rating they've seen in over a year. Not that management is too worried ... the closest talk competitor was KLSX at 2.5 (up from 2.3), followed by KABC at 2.4 (down from 2.5), KLAC at 0.9 (their last book as talk was down from 1.1), and KRLA at 0.6 (down from 0.7). KPLS was unrated this quarter, which may explain rumors that the station is being bought by Salem and going religious.

KNX was the top all-news station at 2.2, but KFWB was close behind at 1.8. It will be interesting to see how the Dodgers will affect KFWB when baseball season begins this year; The station obtained the rights to broadcast Dodgers games at the end of last season.

Sports is still a tough sell. KSPN showed for only the second time with a 0.3 ... an infinite increase from last quarter's 0.0. But KXTA was down to 0.3 from 0.7, and XTRA was up just slightly to 0.4 from 0.3. Combined, the three stations offset each other and were flat, while KMPC didn't even show.

In oldies, KRTH was essentially flat, coming in at 3.1 from Summer's 3.2. Arrow 93 (KCBS-FM) was down a bit more, to 2.1 from 2.4, while KLOS had an unusually large drop to 2.0 from 2.7. In fact, it is the KLOS decline that makes me question the results this quarter; I'm betting that many of the changes will reverse themselves in the Winter book.

That being said, KJLH earned their highest rating in recent memory, and I hope they continue with their success ... up 0.4 to 1.9.

The full story: Each rating is an estimate of the percentage of listeners aged 12 and over tuned to a station between the hours of 6 am and 12 midnight, as determined by Arbitron.

1. KPWR (5.4) 2. KROQ (4.4) 3. KIIS-FM (4.1) 4. KOST, KSCA (3.9) 6. KFI, KKBT (3.6) 8. KBUA/KBUE (3.5) 9. KLVE, KTWV (3.4)

11. KRTH (3.1) 12. KLAX (2.9) 13. KBIG, KHHT (2.6) 15. KLSX, KXOL (2.5) 17. KABC (2.4) 18. KNX (2.2) 19. KCBS-FM, KYSR (2.1)

21. KLOS, KMZT (2.0) 23. KJLH, KZLA (1.9) 25. KFWB (1.8) 26. KRCD/KRCV, KSSC/KSSD/KSSE (1.3) 28. KLYY (1.1) 29. KHJ (1.0) 30. KLAC (0.9)

31. KWIZ (0.9) 32. KBLA (0.8) 33. KFSH (0.7) 34. KKLA, KLTX, KRLA, KSUR/XSUR, KTNQ, KWVE (0.6) 40. KMXN (0.5) 41. KWKW, XTRA (0.4) 43. KDIS, KGGI, KSPN, KXTA (0.3)

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