Christmas music pays off for KOST-FM

It’s the same gift exchange every year: KOST-FM (103.5) offers its listeners wall-to-wall holiday music, and they in turn give the adult-contemporary station a bump to No. 1 in the ratings. Last month was no different, according to figures released by the Arbitron ratings service.

KOST shot to the top of the Los Angeles-Orange County market, garnering 5.5% of the radio audience ages 6 and older. Top-40 station KIIS-FM (102.7) finished second, at 4.7%, for the ratings period, which surveyed listeners from Nov. 12 to Dec. 9.

In previous period, KOST was fourth at 3.7%. KOST started its holiday marathon on Nov. 19 and didn’t stop until after Christmas.

“The Christmas music does give a lift, but KOST has been performing extremely well during the rest of the year,” said Andrew Jeffries, director of adult-contemporary programming in Los Angeles for Clear Channel Communications, the parent company of KOST and seven other stations in the market.

“It’s about reflecting the feel of the season, the mood of the people. I loved turning KOST on whenever I was with my kids. It just felt like we’re in Christmas mode,” Jeffries said.

“There also is a point where Christmas is over and we have to go back to normality,” he said, so the station started easing off the holiday music throughout the day on Dec. 26. As Jeffries joked, “Cold turkey is not a good thing.”

In the previous four-week ratings period, oldies station KRTH-FM (101.1) had snagged its first No. 1 ranking in memory. But the holiday tunes it sprinkled into its playlist of classic hits weren’t enough to keep it from slipping to third place in the most recent survey, with a 4.4% audience share.

The figures released Wednesday showed this was also a good month for public radio in the Southland. Classical-music station KUSC-FM (91.5) rose from 20th to 19th, increasing its audience share from 2.3% to 2.5%. News and public-affairs outlet KPCC-FM (89.3) saw an even bigger jump, from 1.6% to 2.2%, even though it remained in 25th place. And jazz station KJZZ-FM (88.1) rose from 0.7% to 0.8%, while remaining in 38th place.

KCRW-FM (89.9), home of news and eclectic music, dipped from 1.2% to the same 1% share it held in October, dropping from 30th to 32nd, but that was still its second-best showing of the year.

And though commercial stations live or die by tenths of a point, as millions of dollars in advertising revenue hinge on the ratings numbers, KUSC President Brenda Barnes downplayed her station’s showing.

“It’s definitely good news, but it’s within the margin of error,” she said. “December is a little bit better, and I’m not exactly sure why.”

“The bottom line for me is it’s just wonderful to see that a classical radio station can be Top 20 in a major market,” she said, calling it a testament to the cultural organizations in this area “and the power of the arts to touch people’s lives.”

Bill Davis, president of Southern California Public Radio, which operates KPCC, wondered if part of the ratings bump came from listeners interested in news on the healthcare debate.

“Beyond that, there is nothing in those numbers to suggest there was something dramatically different. It’s something of a mystery,” Davis said. “We’ll have to see if this was the start of a trend or a one-book anomaly.”

During the morning drive-time period when audiences are at their peak, talk station KFI-AM (640) dipped slightly, going from 5.6% to 5.5%. The station, which features Bill Handel and then the first hour of Rush Limbaugh during the 6-10 a.m. slot, still remained far ahead of the competition, though. The second-place finisher, news station KNX-AM (1070), dropped from 4.6% to 4.4%.

Longtime KLOS-FM (95.5) duo Mark Thompson and Brian Phelps remained at 4.3%, but rose from fifth to third as others dropped around them. Gary Bryan on KRTH and Ryan Seacrest on KIIS tied for fourth place with 4.2%.

National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition,” which airs on KPCC and KCRW, had a combined share of 4.4%, which would have tied it for second.

“That’s just amazing,” Davis said. “That’s the highest, in terms of market share, we’ve ever had.”

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