Latino Radio Surge: A Coming of Age : Ratings: The rise of KLAX-FM to top-dog status in the Arbitron rankings reflects the ascendance of an immigrant population.
Spanish-language radio newcomer KLAX-FM (97.9) startled the radio industry this week with its precedent-setting, meteoric rise to top-dog status in the Arbitron ratings, but industry insiders say it was inevitable that a well-programmed Spanish station would achieve such prominence.
“Spanish language radio has come of age,” said Allen Klein, a radio industry researcher.
“This shows that Latins in certain metropolitan areas are becoming very influential,” said Alfredo Alonso, president and publisher of Radio Y Musica, a weekly Spanish-language radio trade publication with about 1,700 subscribers.
“From an advertising standpoint, it’s a major coup to have a Spanish-language station be No. 1 in Los Angeles,” Alonso said. “We’ll be taken more seriously.”
Although KLAX’s ascendancy marks the first time that a Spanish-language station has reigned atop the Los Angeles ratings charts, it is the second Spanish-language station in the United States to rise to No. 1 within the last six months. KXTN-FM in San Antonio reached that position in the previous Arbitron quarterly ratings period.
With Arbitron data listing 33.6% of the 9.6 million residents in the Los Angeles-Orange County market as Latino, there are nine full-time Spanish-language stations here, and three of them--KLVE-FM (107.5), KTNQ-AM (1020) and KWKW-AM (1330)--have been in and out of the top 10 over the past three years. But KLAX ranked 21st in the last Arbitron survey three months ago.
Its rapid rise is attributed to its being a well-programmed station that has mastered the art of appealing to young people as well as adults. Guided by general manager Alfredo Rodriguez, who joined the station in July after 12 years at KWKW-AM (“La Mexicana”), the station has put together a mix of Mexican country music, known as ranchera , that is contemporary as well as traditional, and a roster of on-air personalities that are younger and more casual-sounding than those heard on the competition.
“To me they really sound like Los Angeles,” Alonso said. “They sound like regular guys on the air, as opposed to sounding like a made-up announcer who has a deep, baritone voice and speaks down to his audience.”
KLAX is owned by Spanish Broadcasting System, which is comprised of Raul Alarcon Sr., his son Raul Alarcon Jr. and Raul Alarcon Jr.’s father-in-law, Jose Grimalt, who own seven other Spanish-language stations around the country.
Once Rodriguez came aboard, he examined the traditional demographic research and then did some of his own--talking to people in neighborhood restaurants, bars and dance clubs to find out what music they liked.
“You can’t do radio based only on cold, hard facts or statistics or numbers,” Rodriguez said. “You have to put your heart in it, not only your mind. We’re aiming primarily at Mexican immigrants. I’m one of them so I know how they react, how they think, what they like. . . . My research techniques may sound a little primitive in this era of technology, but I like to get out on the streets.”
In these forays, Rodriguez found that young people who were reared in the United States and were English-speaking were turning back to Spanish-language radio.
“They’ll tell me they used to listen to (top-rated contemporary-hits stations) KIIS or KPWR, but now they’re identifying more with this,” he said. “They feel it’s their sound. I met a young man at a concert on New Year’s Eve and he told me he used to be a cholito and listen to rap. But now he’s returning to the mainstream of our culture.”
Musicians played on KLAX include traditional ranchera performers such as Antonio Aguilar, Pepe Aguilar, Vincente Fernandez and Angelica Maria and contemporary bandas such as Banda Superbandido, Banda Machos and Banda Vallarta show.
“It was a smart move,” said Alonso of Radio Y Musica. “Los Angeles is the perfect example of where that Mexican format would do really well. You talk to most people and they think of Los Angeles as a little Mexico.”
Alonso likened the resurgence in popularity of ranchera music to that of American country music, and compared some of the new young acts that KLAX plays--such as Los Bukis and Los Fredis--to country newcomers Garth Brooks and Billy Ray Cyrus.
Other radio experts point to a variety of factors--an improved broadcasting signal, a larger-than-ever surveying of Latinos by Arbitron, and a move to the FM band by Latinos--as critical in KLAX’s success.
“Everything fell into place,” said radio analyst Klein. “The signal increase, a format with great popularity, the Spanish marketplace growing up now and moving toward FM just like the Anglo market did years ago.”
And there are those who say it is a fluke, that Arbitron may have goofed somehow. Indeed, KLSX-FM (97.1) personality Howard Stern, whose show is rated No. 1 during morning drive-time, insisted on the air Wednesday that Arbitron diaries marked “KLAX” might really have been poorly-scripted “KLSX” entries.
Arbitron has staunchly denied any such errors.
“When you begin to stand out in the crowd, they always find an excuse, a sort of justification,” Rodriguez said. “Why can’t they accept the fact that with all the millions of Hispanics in Los Angeles, this is a logical thing to have happened? This is something to be expected. It had to happen someday.”