The seemingly unstoppable light rock powerhouse KOST (103.5 FM) continued its dominance in the March Los Angeles Nielsen ratings released last week. The station has been at the top of the list all year; for March, it earned a solid 6.3 share compared with second-place KRTH (101.1 FM) at 5.8. KOST sister station My FM (KBIG, 104.3 FM) — with a format so similar to KOST, scientists are still trying to determine the differences — was third at 5.3, followed by KNX (1070 AM, 97.1 FM) at 4.7 and KIIS-FM (102.7) at 4.3.
KLOS (95.5 FM) is still close, but can’t quite catch Jack-FM (KCBS-FM, 93.1), with Jack beating KLOS 3.8 to 3.6 … a spread that has held pretty much all year. Interestingly, KLOS has a slightly younger audience, with KLOS ranking higher in some of the younger demographics, while Jack leads in some of the older demos.
Alt 98.7 FM was down 0.2 from February, but at 2.9 still handily beat KROQ’s (106.7 FM) 2.0. According to one insider, much of the credit goes to Alt’s morning Woody Show, but overall the station just has a buzz that is ironically similar to the buzz KROQ itself had back in the 1980s. Alt’s music just seems fresher, even though there is a lot of overlap, and they recently started highlighting newer music again. On the other hand, KROQ has Kevin Ryder back in the afternoon … will that help?
Go Country (KKGO, 105.1 FM) matched its January rating of 2.6 after February’s slight drop to 2.5. KFI (640 AM) won the talk competition again, increasing to its highest rating of the year at 4.0, increasing from the last two month’s share of 3.8. No other talk station comes close. Spanish Hits KLAX (97.9 FM) had a tremendous jump to 3.9 from 3.3 — its highest of the year, and KJLH (102.3 FM) also had a good month with its 1.9, the highest it had all year as well.
The top-rated public station is KUSC (91.5 FM) … but only by a hair, beating KPCC (89.3 FM) by just 0.1: 2.5 to 2.4. KKJZ (88.1 FM) was not far behind at 1.9. Of course, the formats are totally different, but it still makes for an interesting discussion.
I’m not trying to dog Power 106 (KPWR, 105.9 FM), but with such a strong signal, the station is definitely underperforming at 1.4. In fact, the station under previous call letters changed formats in the past with ratings much higher … both top-40 K-WEST and hot adult contemporary Magic 106 had ratings at least a share higher when they changed to something else. Those formats, or “Yacht rock,” should be under consideration … or even Power’s rhythmic top-40 format it had at launch would likely do better.
At the lower end of the list, LA Oldies (105.1 HD3) earned a 0.2 share of the audience … not bad for a station that needs a special HD radio or app to hear it.
Each rating is an estimate of the percentage of listeners, aged six and over, tuned to a station between the hours of 6 a.m. and 12 midnight, as determined by Nielsen.
1. KOST (6.3) 2. KRTH (5.8) 3. “My FM” KBIG (5.3) 4. KNX AM/FM (4.7) 5. KIIS-FM (4.3) 6. KLVE (4.2) 7. “The Wave” KTWV (4.1) 8. KFI (4.0) 9. “La Raza” KLAX (3.9) 10. “Jack” KCBS-FM (3.8)
11. KLOS (3.6) 12. KSCA (3.1) 13. “Alt” KYSR (2.9) 14. “Go Country” KKGO (2.6) 15. KUSC (2.5) 16. KPCC (2.4) 17. “Cali” KLLI (2.2) 18. KXOL (2.1) 19. KROQ (2.0) 20. KJLH, KKJZ, KKLQ, “Real” KRRL (1.9)
24. KRCD (1.8) 25. KCRW, KLYY (1.7) 27. KBUE (1.5) 28. “Power” KPWR (1.4) 29. KDAY (1.2) 30. KLAC (1.0)
31. KFWB (0.8) 32. “The Answer” KRLA (0.7) 33. KEIB (0.6) 34. “SoCal Sound” KCSN (0.5) 35. KDLD (0.3) 36. KAIA, “LA Oldies” KKGO HD3, KNX AM/FM stream, KTNQ, KWKW (0.2)
41. KBIG HD2, KCBS-FM stream, KHJ, KKGO, KKLA, KKLQ HD2, KLAX stream, KNX-FM HD2, KROQ HD2, KTLW, KTWV stream (0.1)
My 15 Minutes
Due to a cancellation and apparently no one interesting being available, I was a guest on Poorman’s Morning Rush “15 minutes of Fame,” a segment on his syndicated morning show originating from low-power community station KOCI/Newport Beach (101.5 FM and KOCIradio.com).
We spoke of radio in general, how this column started back in 1987, and the state of radio itself… basically a condensed version of this column in audio form. You can find a recording of it as well as far more interesting guests — including the producer/director of the movie documentary “The Wrecking Crew” — at Poorman.Net.
Richard Wagoner is a San Pedro freelance columnist covering radio in Southern California. Email rwagoner@socalradiowaves.com
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