KPWR Back on Top, Format-Flippers Fall

Top 40 dance station KPWR-FM has regained its spot as the top dog of Los Angeles-area radio stations, edging out easy-listening KOST-FM, according to the latest Arbitron ratings survey released Wednesday. Meanwhile, a handful of stations that changed formats last fall have nearly all lost large numbers of listeners.

KPWR’s winning streak of more than two years was stopped briefly last quarter when adult contemporary station KOST-FM (103.5) rose to No. 1 in Arbitron’s summer survey.

KPWR (105.5), which had dropped to No. 3 in that period, climbed back into the top spot during the fall, edging out KOST and fellow Top 40 dance station KIIS-FM (102.7).

“We work every day to make sure we’re delivering excitement based on input from our listeners and our staff’s ability to focus on that objective,” KPWR program director Jeff Wyatt said Wednesday. “And it has paid off once again.”

KOST officials had regarded their ascendancy to No. 1 as an anomaly.

The last rating, according to KOST program director Jhani Kaye, was “extraordinarily outstanding for us. We felt that it was a wobble upward. We’re settling now to where the radio station should be. Hit music radio stations are always going to be the top stations in the marketplace.”

The Arbitron survey, which bases its data on information recorded by listeners in a personal diary over a seven-day period, covered the 12-week period from Sept. 21 through Dec. 13.

Over those months, the radio dial saw a series of programming format changes, some dramatic and others more subtle. The most striking was the demise of Los Angeles’ only commercial classical music station KFAC, which was sold for $55 million and converted to a rock station on Sept. 20.

Ironically, the ratings of the new station, KKBT (92.3), were far lower than they were when the station played classical music, which station owners said they changed because it was an unpopular format. The station dropped from 22nd place as KFAC to 36th as KKBT.

KKBT general manager Jim de Castro attributed the station’s dismal showing to the difficulty in attracting adult audiences to radio (the station is targeted to adults 18-54) and to its dial position--farther on the left-hand side than the other rock stations.

“We’re obviously a little disappointed,” he said. “It was my anticipation we would have started a little higher, but we wanted to try and build an adult station and that’s very difficult to do.”

KJOI-FM (98.7) dropped substantially after it switched formats from easy-listening “beautiful music” in October to “soft hits,” a format closer to that of KOST and KBIG, in order to reach a larger, younger audience. In the last survey KJOI had reached fifth place, with a 4.6% share of the audience. In this survey it dropped to 15th place, with a 2.5% share.

Even the much-ballyhooed KQLZ, Pirate Radio (100.3), which debuted last March, dropped substantially from fourth place in the last survey, with a 5.5% share of the audience, to seventh--and a 3.8% share, in the latest ratings.

KKGO (105.1), which had been a jazz station and switched to a classical format Monday,) rose in the ratings slightly from 29th place--and a 1% share of the audience--to 24th and a 1.4% share. From Sept. 18 to Jan. 1, the station’s programming consisted of both jazz and classical pieces.

Fall Summer 1.KWPR-FM 6.2 6.1 2.KOST-FM 5.7 6.8 3.KIIS-FM 5.4 6.2 4.KABC-AM 4.6 4.3 5.KLOS-FM 4.2 4.1 6.KBIG-FM 4.0 3.6 7.KQLZ-FM 3.8 5.5 8.KWKW-FM 3.5 2.7 9.KNX-AM 3.4 2.8 10.KLVE-FM 3.2 3.2