Power 106 still outdraws rivals

Though hip-hop outlet Power 106 maintained its supremacy in the Los Angeles-Orange County market, completing 2 1/2 straight years as the No. 1 radio station in the area, the race among the top seven tightened considerably during the summer, according to ratings released Monday.

During the summer survey period from July 1 to Sept. 22, KPWR-FM (105.9) attracted 4.9% of all listeners ages 12 and older -- down slightly from its 5% in the spring but still a larger slice of the market than anyone else’s, according to the figures from the Arbitron ratings service.

With listener habits disrupted by summer vacations and daylight saving time, second-place KLAX-FM (97.9) also slipped from the spring, averaging 4.4% of the audience in the summer, compared with its previous 4.7% share. That was still far ahead of its winter showing, though, when the outlet for traditional Mexican music was in 10th place with a 3% share of the audience.

Tying for third in the latest survey were talk station KFI-AM (640) and alternative rocker KROQ-FM (106.7), each garnering 4.3% of the local audience. KFI had been alone in third in the spring, with 4.5%, and K-Rock following at 4.4%.

The Nos. 5 through 7 stations made big gains during the summer. KIIS-FM (102.7) leaped from seventh place, with 3.2% of the audience, to fifth and 4%. KLVE-FM (107.5), home of Spanish-language love songs, rose from 3.1% and eighth place to 3.7% and sixth. And KKBT-FM (100.3) jumped from a ninth-place tie to seventh, increasing its share from 3% to 3.6% in the summer.

The biggest loser in the summer was adult contemporary station KOST-FM (103.5), which fell from fifth place and 3.7% of the audience to 3.1%, an eighth-place tie with rhythm & blues station KHHT-FM (92.3).

Among morning shows, “El Cucuy,” the alter ego of frenetic Spanish-language host Renan Almendarez Coello, maintained the lead that he reestablished in the spring quarter. He commanded 6.7% of the morning drive audience, down from his 7% share in the spring. He was followed by Bill Handel at KFI, who took 5.6% of the audience, also down slightly from his 5.8% in the spring. Handel has been the top English-language morning host since spring 2003.

Coello returned to mornings in March after leaving his afternoon show on KSCA-FM (101.9) in a dispute with management. His former morning show on that station topped the ratings for six years, and his replacement, Eddie “Piolin” Sotelo, fared well in the most recent listener survey.

Sotelo had taken a huge ratings hit when Coello reclaimed his old morning time slot, now on rival KLAX, falling from a second-place tie with 4.7% in fall 2003 to seventh and 3.3% in the winter, and further still in the spring, to 2.9%, though he remained in seventh. This summer, Sotelo posted an enormous gain in audience share, increasing to 3.9% of the audience, though he still couldn’t break out of seventh place.

Kevin & Bean, the KROQ morning team, rose from fifth place to fourth in spite of losing audience share, slipping from 4.6% to 4.5%. They switched places with KPWR’s Big Boy, who dropped to fifth after going from 4.7% to 4.1%.

Shock jock Howard Stern, reemerging this year as a force among all listeners, not just his core adult audience, held third place in the mornings for talk station KLSX-FM (97.1). He took 5% of the audience, down from 5.2% in the spring.

Once the reigning king of morning drive, Stern had slipped somewhat from his heyday in the 1990s. But a feud over indecency issues earlier this year with the Federal Communications Commission and U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), and his resulting on-air rants about them and President Bush, has brought him attention and listeners.

But Stern’s performance didn’t help the rest of the lineup at KLSX, which dropped from a ninth-place tie with 3% of the audience in the spring to 12th and 2.8% in the summer.

The news that arrived two weeks before these ratings may have been even worse, however: Stern announced that when his contract with KLSX parent Viacom/Infinity is up in January 2005, he’s jumping to Sirius satellite radio, leaving Infinity stations and the rest of Stern’s 45 outlets with 15 months to find someone to anchor the top of their schedules.

Talk station KABC-AM (790) dipped from its spring showing, falling from a 12th-place tie with 2.9% of the audience to 14th, with 2.6%.

The market’s two all-news stations showed mixed results: KNX-AM (1070) fell from a tie for 18th, with a 2.1% audience share, to 21st, with 1.8%. Meanwhile, KFWB-AM (980) -- which also serves as the Dodgers’ flagship station -- rose from 1.3% and a tie for 28th to 1.5% and a tie for 25th, an increase that coincided with the Dodgers’ run for a National League West title.

Ryan Seacrest, who took over the morning show on KIIS in February from 22-year veteran Rick Dees, improved on his audience share from the spring, his first full ratings period as host. Seacrest went from 2.9% to 3.4%, but nevertheless dropped to eighth from a seventh-place tie in the spring.

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Radio Ratings

The area’s top 25 stations and their average share of audience as measured by Arbitron for the summer months compared with the previous three-month period.

*--* Summer Previous Quarter 1 KPWR-FM 4.9 5.0 2 KLAX-FM 4.4 4.7 3 KFI-AM 4.3 4.5 KROQ-FM 4.3 4.4 5 KIIS-FM 4.0 3.2 6 KLVE-FM 3.7 3.1 7 KKBT-FM 3.6 3.0 8 KHHT-FM 3.1 2.7 KOST-FM 3.1 3.7 10 KTWV-FM 3.0 3.3 11 KRTH-FM 2.9 3.0 12 KLSX-FM 2.8 3.0 13 KBUE-FM 2.7 2.9 14 KABC-AM 2.6 2.9 15 KSCA-FM 2.5 1.9 16 KSSE-FM 2.4 2.3 17 KBIG-FM 2.3 2.2 18 KJLH-FM 2.1 1.9 KZLA-FM 2.1 2.4 KLOS-FM 2.1 2.1 21 KNX-AM 1.8 2.1 KYSR-FM 1.8 2.1 23 KRCD-FM 1.7 1.7 24 KCBS-FM 1.6 1.9 25 KMZT-FM 1.5 1.5 KFWB-AM 1.5 1.3

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The ratings survey covers people 12 and older listening between 6 a.m. and midnight, from July 1 to Sept. 22.