Gulf War Boosts News-Radio Ratings : Surveys: Listenership peaked during the first few days of war, but has dropped some since then.

Ratings surveys released this week show that a record number of people turned to news-radio stations last month after the outbreak of war in the Persian Gulf.

“I think there has been a much bigger audience for news in the last several months--particularly in January--than there has been in a long time, since maybe even back to the ‘60s, when everybody was interested in what was going on,” said Robert Sims, news director at KNX.

According to Arbitron estimates released Tuesday, KFWB-AM (980) was the seventh most-listened-to radio station in the Los Angeles area during January, and KNX-AM (107) was right behind at No. 8. KFWB had been 12th and KNX had been 10th in the last quarterly Arbitron ratings.

KFWB’s January showing was 80% higher than its average for the previous three-month rating period, with an estimated 1.6 million people tuning in, said General Manager Chris Claus.

“This is by far the biggest audience we’ve had,” said Claus, adding that the largest previous audience in the 23-year-old station’s history had been 1.4 million.

Rival KNX reported similar record figures.

KNX commissioned a telephone survey just after the bombing of Baghdad began on Jan. 16 that further attested to the large numbers. The survey, conducted Jan. 18-20 by Birch Scarborough Research, found that 970,000 people tuned into KNX for coverage immediately after the outbreak of war, while KFWB attracted 930,000.

KABC-AM (790), with its call-in format, ranked third in the January ratings--two notches higher than during Arbitron’s last quarterly survey.

“What we can offer is the spontaneity of opinion and emotion,” said KABC program director Michael Fox. “. . . Our personalities talk with the people who make the news and then we have the ability to open up our phone lines and allow our listeners to do the same. In a time like this, it really becomes a lifeline for many people.”

Despite the ratings boost, KNX and KFWB executives said that advertising revenue has not risen at a corresponding rate.

“Our business has been exceptionally good, but I wouldn’t say it has picked up because of the war,” Claus said. “In fact, if anything, we lost revenues” because KFWB ran 40 hours of commercial-free coverage after the war began and has been dropping commercials during the daily press conferences and briefings. In addition, some advertisers dropped out because they didn’t want to be associated with war.

“When war hit, we probably lost $100,000 worth of business,” Claus said.

George Nicholaw, general manager at KNX, which offered 36 hours of commercial-free news reports when war erupted, said that his station has had similar problems associated with preempting commercials for briefings.

Public radio stations have also seen substantial--though not as dramatic--increases in listening levels since the outbreak of war.

“We know we’re getting new listeners--(a) from letters, (b) from phone calls and (c) from new member subscriptions,” KCRW-FM (89.9) spokeswoman Sarah Spitz said. Between Jan. 21 and Feb. 15, she said, 1,950 people contributed $100,000 to the station. Of those, 825 were new members. Those new subscribers donated an estimated $30,000, she said. “We’re darn certain that it’s because of war coverage.”

All the stations acknowledged that their listenership peaked during the first few days of war and has dropped some since then.

“I presume listening was very intense the first few days and that tapered off after a while; that’s only natural,” Claus said. “As soon as the ground war starts, I think listening will pick up again. We could be looking at unprecedented listening levels.”