Los Angeles radio listeners love oldies. But some other stations are on the rise.
Richard Wagoner writes the radio column each week.
LA loves its oldies.
According to the latest Nielsen ratings for metro Los Angeles released last week, oldies-formatted KRTH (101.1 FM) dominated the city, with a 6.4 share of the audience of listeners aged six and over, also known as 6+. For the month of June, KRTH was more than a half point above second-place KOST’s (103.5 FM) 5.8 and more than a point above KIIS-FM’s (102.7) 5.1.
Of course, this is not news … oldies have always done well in town, with various stations taking up the mantle over the years. KRTH happens to do a spectacular job of staying fresh and playing music that attracts a decently young audience while not alienating us older folk by carefully adding more recent music that helps the station sound fun and exciting.
What is news is the rise of KIIS-FM. Some observers noted that top-40 radio seems to be on the rise, and KIIS-FM is bearing that out. Much of it has to do with the availability of new music that is breaking away from the predictable repetition and auto-tune hits that made up the recent past. If station management continues to develop the talent and the music stays creative, I expect KIIS-FM to continue to rise.
Something interesting is happening in the alternative arena. Notable is KROQ (106.7 FM) continuing to beat Alt 98.7 as it has much of the past six months, this time with 2.9 and 2.7 shares, respectively. What I find interesting is that both stations are doing well, in a format that was declared dead by some not that long ago. It appears that the healthy competition between the stations has made both of them more successful. As well, like top-40, alternative music has had an upswing in quality for new music, and this has helped … even though both stations reach for what I call “alternative oldies” quite often.
It is too early to see the effects of any changes yet, but Go Country seems to have stabilized. The three-month trend from April shows 2.1 – 1.8 – 2.0 shares, meaning that the increase from its earlier low of 1.7 has staying power. Now the question is – will the changes already made and those that are still to come help take it up a notch or two? I’m predicting yes.
This was not the best month for talk, with every station running the format either flat or down. KFI (640 AM) was the top-rated talker at 3.7 — a drop of 0.3 from May — followed by KRLA (870 AM) at 0.7 (0.1 decline), and KEIB (1150 AM) at 0.5 (also down 0.1). Even public station KPCC (89.3 FM) was down slightly to 1.6 from May’s 1.8.
Before anyone panics, however, summer seems to be a time when talk traditionally declines anyway, so this wasn’t really out of the normal cycle for radio ratings. That being said, I would not be surprised to see some of the stations increase for the month of July, due to current events happening in the political world.
As is typical, some of the interesting results came from the bottom of the list. Namely, that the “Roq of the ‘80s” format heard on KROQ’s HD2 stream continues to show in the ratings at 0.2, with more listeners tuning in on an HD radio than the station’s online stream. The format of what some consider “real oldies” (‘50s through the 1970s) earned a 0.1 share on “LA Oldies” KKGO HD4.
Finally, a fair number of people are getting their news on the KNX NewsRadio stream, which earned a 0.3 share of the audience. Considering that the 1070 AM and 97.1 FM signals can be heard pretty much anywhere in town and earn a 3.1 combined share, that means that those who stream are probably listening on their smart speakers, or perhaps at work where reception can be a problem.
Each rating is an estimate of the percentage of listeners aged six and over tuned to a station between the hours of 6 a.m. and 12 midnight, as determined by Nielsen.
1. KRTH (6.4) 2. KOST (5.8) 3. KIIS-FM (5.1) 4. KBIG (4.7) 5. KLVE (4.5) 6. KTWV “The Wave” (4.2) 7. KFI (3.7) 8. KCBS-FM “Jack” (3.6) 9. KLAX, KSCA (3.5)
11. KNX (3.1) 12. KLOS (3.0) 13. KROQ (2.9) 14. KYSR “Alt 98.7” (2.7) 15. KRCD (2.5) 16. KLLI “Cali 93.9,” KUSC (2.4) 18. KCRW (2.3) 19. KLYY (2.2) 20. KKGO “Go Country,” KRRL “Real 92.3” (2.0)
22. KKLQ, KXOL (1.8) 24. KJLH, KPWR “Power 106” (1.7) 26. KPCC (1.6) 27. KDAY, KLAC (1.5) 29. KFSH “The Fish,” KKJZ (1.2)
31. KBUE (1.1) 32. KFWB (0.8) 33. KRLA (0.7) 34. KDLD, KEIB (0.5) 36. KCSN “SoCal Sound” (0.4) 37. KNX online stream, KWKW (0.3) 39. KHJ, KKLA, KROQ HD2, KYLA (0.2) 43. KBIG HD2, KKGO HD4 “LA Oldies,” KKLQ HD2, KTNQ, KZNO (0.1)
Talking topics
The July 16th edition of the “Really? No, really?” podcast is a ghostly show: Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden explore why 67% of Americans believe in ghosts, hauntings and the supernatural! Guest ghost hunters Ryan Bergara (the believer) and Shane Madej (the skeptic) discuss the paranormal investigations that have taken them around the world for their popular series, “Ghost Files.”
Richard Wagoner is a San Pedro freelance columnist covering Southern California radio. Email rwagoner@socalradiowaves.com