U.S. 95.7 spanked in ratings flap

By: RANDY DOTINGA - For the North County Times | Wednesday, April 27, 2005 12:21 PM PDT ∞

For the last several years, upstart country station U.S. 95.7 ---- formerly known as Bob 99.3 ---- has given Excedrin headaches to archrival KSON, grabbing a big chunk of its listenership and swiping its morning show "Tony & Kris." But now, it's KSON's turn to crow.

On Tuesday, the quarterly Arbitron radio ratings for San Diego came out, and there's something very unusual about them. The ratings for KUSS/U.S. 95.7 are flagged, and readers are referred to a long note under the heading "Extemporaneous Comments/Rating Bias/Rating

Distortion."

In layman's terms, this is an indication that the station's ratings may be tainted and, therefore, unreliable. The all-powerful Arbitron hardly ever flags a station ---- it did so just five times in its fall 2004 ratings of 10,000 stations, according to company spokesman Thom Mocarsky.

What does it all mean? In a world where advertisers pay big bucks to reach big radio audiences, this is far from a minor matter ---- at least according to the whistle-blowers at KSON.

The station contacted Arbitron after noticing a strange uptick in U.S. 95.7's ratings a few months ago. KSON staffers reviewed its tapes of U.S. 95.7's programming and discovered some questionable remarks by morning hosts Tony Randall and Kris Rochester, KSON general manager Darrel Goodin said.

According to Arbitron, the hosts tried to manipulate listeners by telling them to "never punch to our former home (KSON)" and to say that they listened to KUSS, even if they didn't. The hosts also sent out an e-mail saying, "We need your help! For the station to survive, we've got to move even higher in the ratings."

Arbitron has rules about what stations can and can't do to influence their ratings. Among other things, Arbitron doesn't allow stations to "distort" ratings by bribing listeners or urging them to deny that they tune to other stations. Acting like your station's survival depends on the ratings is also a no-no. (Arbitron creates its ratings by surveying people through the mail.)

"In a situation like this, everyone gets hurt," Goodin said. "It's not just KUSS, it's KSON, it's every radio station in town, and it's also the advertisers, because the data that we all use to do business is potentially compromised. It's very disappointing."

So what does Clear Channel ---- the owner of U.S. 95.7 ---- think about this kerfuffle? Not much, said local vice president, Jim Richards.

"It's not like we're lawbreakers; it's not like we're doing morally questionable or ethically questionable practices on the air here," Richards said. "There are certain ways you can speak about Arbitron, and there are certain ways you cannot. (Tony and Kris) did it the incorrect way, and it was inadvertent."

Indeed, the station's infraction is pretty minor in the big scheme of things. Arbitron could have made a bigger deal about the infraction, and ---- in the most drastic move possible ---- it could have delisted U.S. 95.7 entirely, creating one heck of a crisis for Clear Channel. That didn't happen.

My verdict? While KSON's hyperventilating is a just a bit unseemly, U.S. 95.7's attempts to woo listeners were tacky at best. Instead of trying to bribe people to listen with dire threats reminiscent of the famous National Lampoon cover ("Buy this magazine or we'll shoot this dog!"), maybe the station could try an old-fashioned approach: quality programming.

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And now on to the ratings themselves, which measure listenership over a three-month period. According to Arbitron, there's a tie for first

place in the winter period between perennial leader KOGO and up-and-comer KLNV, a Spanish-language station. That's stunning news for KLNV/"La Nueva," which has jumped to the top in just a few years.

U.S. 95.7 did pretty well, whether or not the on-air comments helped ---- it landed in a tie for 11th place, ahead of KSON in 13th place. In other news, liberal talk station KLSD dived from 16th in the fall to a tie for 25th in the winter, perhaps because of less interest in post-election politics; conservative talk station KFMB-AM underwent a similar slump from third to a tie for eighth place.

Here are the top 10 stations and their average percentage of the listening audience over the age of 12:

1. KLNV and KOGO, tie, 5.3

3. KIFM/The Breeze, 4.8

4. KyXy, 4.5

5. KHTS/Channel 933, 4.1

6. KFMB-FM/Star 100.7, 3.6

7. XMOR/Blazin 98.9, 3.3

8. KFMB-AM and KGB-FM tie, 3.2

10. XHRM-FM/Magic 92.5, 3.1

Meanwhile, "Jeff & Jer" of Star 100.7 (now 100.7 Jack FM) took first place in the all-important morning hours, followed by KOGO, KLNV, KGB-FM and a tie for fifth place between KyXy and KIFM.

Randy Dotinga is waiting to be drafted into the San Diego mayor's race. E-mail him at NCTimesRadio@aol.com.

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