[BC] Top Stations in NYC and LA are all Spanish

[Rich Wood]

------ At 10:09 PM 9/18/2006, Bill Harms wrote: -------

>according to Drudge this evening (9/18), the top radio stations in
>New York City and Los Angeles are Spanish Stations.  A news article
>will purportedly follow later.

While this has happened in the past, all Mr. Drudge has to do is 
check any of a number of web sites that publish the 12+ numbers. WLTW 
is still #1 and it's about as un-ethnic as you can get. Radio 
listening in the market is heavily Spanish and Black. It's been that 
way for quite a while. He's relying on the trends, not the actual 
quarterlies. That won't be released for Summer until mid October. 
Trends and full books don't always track.

Los Angeles has often had a #1 ethnic station. Surprisingly, even in 
the trend, it's ratings are less ethnic than New York. Slightly.

Nothing new in either market. Not a big news story. I've seen a few 
research projects that indicate Spanish and Black residents are 
heavier radio users than other groups. At least in New York, a 
sizable audience for Hip Hop are young White kids. I lived in New 
York for 20 years and long ago stopped counting the cars with blaring 
radios driven by White kids listening to Hip Hop. You've got to be 
careful with a one-size-fits-all approach.

The real shame of all this is that ethnic stations with great numbers 
don't get the same rates as White stations with lower numbers. WXKS 
(Kiss) used to be across the hall from WOR (we used to be commonly 
owned by RKO). WXKS was #1 and the sales manager was complaining to 
me that he couldn't bump his rates. I think this may be changing 
thanks to a group of Spanish and Black stations forming a group to 
discuss the matter with agencies.

We'll know better on October 16 when the Summer quarterly data is 
released. Until then, it's truly a ho-hum story. He's going to have 
to come up with something bigger than this to beat the Monica story.

Rich

Rich Wood
Rich Wood Multimedia
Phone: 413-454-3258