January 21

Radio AM to FM: January 21, 2005

Movin' On Up ... And Down

Clear Channel announced a major change in its Los Angeles- area AM stations last week. Effective February 3rd, the sports format will move down the dial from 690 and 1150 to 570, creating X-TRA Sports 570.

690 will take on the standards format as the Fabulous 690, giving it coverage in both Los Angeles and San Diego due to a power 75,000 watt transmitter located in Mexico. Of course the name "Fabulous 690" doesn't sound as good as "570," ("Super 690?" "Mighty 690?"). I'm hoping that perhaps the actual audio quality will improve, as 690 is only run -- not owned -- by Clear Channel and therefore is not necessarily subject to Clear Channel's awful narrowband engineering directive.

Left in the air is the future of 1150. Good money has the syndicated angry liberal talk format Air America taking root; Spanish is another possibility but unlikely in an area that already has numerous Spanish stations -- many on FM.

KLOS Smashes Goal

More than 9000 CDs and DVDs were collected by KLOS in its Operation: Reel, Rock and Roll charity event, shattering the goal of 2000 when it launched in November.

Additionally, more than $20,000 in merchandise was donated by Panasonic including a 53" HD television and a huge quantity of CD and DVD players.

The drive benefited injured and active duty troops at Camp Pendleton, Bethesda National Naval Hospital and field hospitals and military units in Iraq.

Fall Arbitrons

Power 106 was the big winner in the Fall Arbitrons released last week. Holding steady at 4.9, the urban hits station beat everyone else including 2nd place KFI (4.4), KLVE (4.3), KIIS-FM (4.3) and KROQ (4.1).

A month of highly-rated Christmas music came through once again over at KOST, which saw a huge jump to 3.9 compared with Summer's 3.1. This is KOST's highest rating in over a year, in fact. Sister station KBIG declined a little, earning 1.9 compared with Summer's 2.3. Star 98.7 held steady at 1.8.

KFI's second place finish won the talk wars once again, beating out format competitors KLSX, KABC and KRLA by 1.4 or more.

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. (Station - Summer rating - Fall rating)

Power 106 - 4.9 - 4.9; KFI - 4.3 - 4.4; KLVE - 3.7 - 4.3; KIIS-FM - 4.1 - 4.2; KROQ 4.3 - 4.1; KOST - 3.1 - 3.9; KTWV - 3.0 - 3.9; KLAX - 4.4 - 3.5; KBUE/KBUA - 3.3 - 3.4; KSCA - 2.5 - 3.1

The Beat - 3.6 - 3.0; KLSX - 2.8 - 3.0; KRCD/KRCV - 2.4 - 2.8; KRTH - 2.9 - 2.8; Hot 92.3 - 3.1 - 2.4; KSSE - 2.4 - 2.4; KLOS - 2.1 - 2.1; KBIG - 2.3 - 1.9; Arrow 93 - 1.6 - 1.8

Star 98.7 - 1.8 - 1.8; KZLA - 2.1 - 1.8; KJLH - 2.1 - 1.6; K-Mozart - 1.5 - 1.6; KNX - 1.8 - 1.6; KFWB - 1.5 - 1.5; KXOL - 1.4 - 1.5; KLYY - 1.3 - 1.4; KDAY - 1.2 - 1.0; The Fish - 0.9 - 0.9

KLAC - 0.8 - 0.9; KRLA - 1.0 - 0.8; KDKD/KDLE - 0.6 - 0.7; KHJ - 0.8 - 0.7; KLTX - 0.8 - 0.7; KWVE - 0.4 - 0.7; KKLA - 0.5 - 0.6; KSPN - 0.5 - 0.6; XTRA Sports 690/1150 - 0.7 - 0.6; KTNQ - 0.5 - 0.5

KGGI - 0.4 - 0.4; KWIZ - 0.6 - 0.4; KWKW - 0.5 - 0.3

Ratings are © 2004-2005, Arbitron, Inc. May not be quoted or reproduced without prior written permission from Arbitron.

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