Summer bites into KIIS-FM’s ratings

In its quest to stay atop the radio ratings this summer, Top 40 station KIIS-FM (102.7) is facing another assault from rival KAMP-FM (97.1) at the same time it lost a reliable partner — the alarm clock.

“For KIIS, you’ll see a little erosion in the summer,” said the station’s program director, John Ivey. School is out, “kids sleep in, and midday becomes morning drive for them.”

Audience figures released this week may bear that out. KIIS dropped to third in the morning ratings in June as its marquee host, Ryan Seacrest, fell from May’s 5.6% share of the Los Angeles-Orange County audience to 5.2%. His cumulative number of individual listeners in an average week fell from 1.22 million in May to 1.09 million in June.

But the station improved its midday numbers. From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays, KIIS rose from fourth place in May to second in June, and increased its weekly audience from 1.55 million to 1.71 million. Moreover, the station held onto first place every other part of the day and increased its lead on weekends, according to the Arbitron survey of listeners 6 and older from May 27 to June 23.

Now, Ivey said, the station plans to follow its youthful audience around during the summer, to make sure they stay tuned. KIIS already did a remote broadcast from Six Flags Hurricane Harbor water park in Valencia earlier this month, will travel to other theme parks, festivals and fairs, and is camped out every weekend at the Huntington Beach Pier.

And even though KIIS’ overall audience share declined slightly from May, slipping from 6.1% to 5.9%, second-place KRTH-FM (101.1), the classic hits station, lost even more ground, going from 4.9% to 4.6%. So KIIS ended June with an even bigger lead than the month before. It was the fourth month in a row that KIIS widened its gap over No. 2.

Arbitron divides the year into 13 four-week ratings periods. With its No. 1 showing in June, KIIS has now topped the ratings in 17 of the last 23 periods, dating back to September 2008, when Arbitron instituted a new survey method.

KIIS even did well during the year before that, when the ratings were tallied quarterly. It finished first in winter and summer 2008, and placed second to Spanish-language pop station KLVE-FM (107.5) in summer and fall 2007, and spring 2008.

“Obviously you don’t take anything for granted. You can’t sit still or you’re going to get beat. You have to keep giving the listeners what they like,” Ivey said.

That’s especially true now that its chief rival, KAMP, is bearing down once again.

That station not only jumped from seventh to third place in June — the highest showing in its history — but KAMP also edged adult-contemporary station KOST-FM (103.5) for second in average weekly tune-in, 3.27 million to 3.26 million. KIIS remained in first with 4.09 million.

Once upon a time, KAMP was talk station KLSX, the outlet for Howard Stern, Adam Carolla, Danny Bonaduce, Tom Leykis and other shock jocks targeting a mainly male audience. At the beginning of 2009, the station where Stern had once ruled morning ratings was languishing in 26th place overall, just behind classical music outlet KUSC-FM (91.5). In February 2009, the station switched from talk to Top 40, and in the ensuing months shot from 20th, to 11th, to seventh to fourth place — hurtling toward KIIS and its perch atop Southland ratings. But KAMP rose no higher, though it continued to pop in and out of the Top 5 from then on. And in June the only buffer between KIIS and KAMP was KRTH, the venerable “K-Earth 101,” in second place.

“More and more people are discovering the station, and we’re making great strides,” KAMP program director Kevin Weatherly said Friday. “Obviously, KIIS is a great heritage radio station. There’s room for both of us.

“The music right now is super-hot,” he said, with hits from Usher, Eminem, Katy Perry and others topping both the sales charts and the playlists at KAMP and KIIS alike. “Both stations are benefiting.”

In June, talk station KFI-AM (640) led the ratings during morning drive — as it has since Arbitron began its monthly surveys in 2008, and even before that. From 6 to 10 a.m., its longtime local host Bill Handel and the first hour of Rush Limbaugh’s syndicated show captured 5.5% of the audience.

But right behind, moving up from fourth and overtaking Seacrest was the duo of Kevin Ryder and Gene “Bean” Baxter on alternative rock station KROQ-FM (106.7). They increased their audience share from 4.8% to 5.3% and their weekly listeners from 789,000 to 875,000. Weatherly, who also programs KROQ, pointed out that Kevin and Bean finished first, with a commanding lead, in the key demographic of adults ages 25 to 54, with 7.7% of the audience, compared with Seacrest at 4.7%.

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