Shake-up on dial shakes up ratings

The landscape of morning drive saw a seismic shift last month, with the biggest names in Los Angeles radio either leaving or reclaiming lost ground, and the full scope of their impact showing up in ratings released during the past week.

Shock jock Howard Stern, instead of losing out in a feud with President Bush, the Federal Communications Commission and the nation’s largest radio chain, has garnered audience figures he hasn’t seen since 1995.

Renan Almendarez Coello, known as “El Cucuy,” left the station where he topped morning ratings for seven years and, after only nine days on the air there, made his new home the market’s No. 1 Spanish-language morning show, accomplishing what the trade magazine Radio & Records called “a feat perhaps never before seen in Los Angeles radio.”

And after Rick Dees was bounced from his morning perch after 22 years at KIIS-FM (102.7), his replacement, “American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest, helped pull the station’s morning program from 10th place to fifth.

“For this to move this quickly is amazing,” said Roy Laughlin, who manages KIIS and six other Los Angeles stations owned by Clear Channel Communications. “Radio is very slow in its ratings process. Typically it takes so long to get people to tune in.”

But Stern, Coello and Seacrest showed immediate, dramatic gains.

The Arbitron radio ratings released Friday covered listener preferences for the first three months of this year, presenting them as a quarterly average. But a month-to-month breakdown available this week shows just how suddenly the audience for these morning shows surged.

On his Los Angeles affiliate, KLSX-FM (97.1), Stern averaged 3.9% of Southland listeners over the age of 12 in February. When the FCC proposed slapping its maximum fine on a Detroit station for a Stern broadcast, Stern began an on-air crusade against the agency and the president in response, and radio chain Clear Channel Communications pulled the shock jock from six of its outlets, citing indecency fears. After that, in March, Stern’s L.A. audience share leaped to 5.4%, making him No. 1 in the market.

He was also first among listeners ages 25-54, with a 5.7% share -- the first time he’s topped the L.A. ratings in that demographic since the summer of 1995, according to Infinity Broadcasting Corp., which distributes Stern’s show and owns KLSX.

He saw similar gains in his home market, New York, and in Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and elsewhere.

And Stern’s effect worked in the other direction, as well. At KIOZ-FM (105.3) in San Diego -- one of the Clear Channel-owned stations that pulled Stern’s program at the end of February -- the audience share for its morning show went from 8.9% in February to .7% in March, according to Infinity. The fall was even greater among listeners ages 18 to 34 -- from 20.6% to .8%.

When KIIS replaced Dees against his will, critics blasted the move, saying he was an institution in Los Angeles. Seacrest already had been working as Dees’ permanent guest host in addition to his duties as host of Fox’s “America Idol”; his own syndicated television show, “On Air With Ryan Seacrest”; and “American Top 40,” the radio countdown show on which the energetic Seacrest replaced Casey Kasem after three decades.

During Dees’ last week as host, the KIIS morning show was 11th in the market, attracting 2.8% of listeners 12 and older. The week before, he had hit No. 2, when he told his audience he was going to make “a life-changing announcement” -- which came a week later, when he acknowledged he was leaving Feb. 10. After his departure, the show dropped to 19th place, with only 1.9% of the audience. That figure rose to 2.3% in the first week after Seacrest took over Feb. 26, then climbed again to fourth place and 4.7% of the audience the week after that.

Coello, who left KSCA-FM (101.9) in a bitter dispute, pushed the audience share at his new outlet from 2.5% in February to 4.5% in March, giving KLAX-FM (97.9) the top-rated Spanish-language morning show for the month -- even though he didn’t start broadcasting until March 22.

“We thought he’d be No. 1 almost immediately. I didn’t think we’d see it to this degree,” said Bill Tanner, executive vice president of programming at Spanish Broadcasting System, which owns KLAX.

Coello, whose show is a combination of bawdy humor and social work, topped the morning ratings soon after he started at Spanish-language KSCA-FM (101.9) in 1997. After years of besting his Spanish- and English-speaking competitors, he moved to afternoons in February 2003, saying he wanted more time than the grueling morning schedule allowed for his family, other projects and charity work. He predicted his legion of fans would follow him to afternoon drive, and he immediately took KSCA from 24th in the ratings for the time slot to second, and subsequently hit No. 1.

But he stormed off his show Feb. 20 after a dispute with KSCA’s parent company, Univision, about the pay and treatment of his supporting cast, “La Tropa Loca.” Univision suspended him, and they parted company March 17. Spanish Broadcasting announced the next day he was returning to mornings, on its KLAX.

He started his Monday-through-Saturday show March 22, just before the end of the winter ratings period March 31.

Citing figures released Tuesday, Tanner said that the week before Coello went on KLAX, its morning show was fourth among Spanish-language stations with 2.2% of the overall audience. As soon as he went on, KLAX shot to No. 1 in the morning, with 4.8% of the audience. The next week, his first full week, the share was up to 9%.

“Everybody thinks that radio is all research. You hear radio is so bland, and it doesn’t have this, and it doesn’t have that. Yeah? Well, look at that,” Tanner said, noting Coello’s consistent ability to attract a huge and loyal audience. “It’s very reassuring to see the power of a personality.”