Radiolist

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Radiolist/Pettersson/dt1st/mark2nd

Executive Summary:

Spanish-language stations continue to dominate the ratings race in Los Angeles. The No. 1 and 2 stations, KLVE-FM and KSCA-FM, both broadcast in Spanish and are both owned by the same company Heftel Broadcasting Corp.

The success of Heftel’s stations, however, does not necessarily translate into high ad sales. Heftel Broadcasting would not disclose its ad revenues, but the Southern California Broadcasters Association Inc. ranks KLVE 12th and KSCA 27th among Los Angeles County radio stations in terms of advertising revenues.

The Broadcasters Association would not provide ad revenues for individual stations, but the leading stations on its list, KRTH-FM, KIIS-FM, and KKBT-FM, all reported ad revenues of well over $30 million to the Business Journal. The discrepancy between a station’s share of listeners of 12 years and older and its ad revenues shows that it’s not so much how many people are listening, but who is listening that draws the advertising dollars.

The Pacesetter:

Heftel Broadcasting’s KLVE, with its “romantica” format, tops the Business Journal’s list for the second year in a row. The station lost some ground, however, to its sister station KSCA, which moved to No. 2 on this year’s list from No. 5 last year.

KSCA is still officially owned by Golden West Broadcasters, even though Heftel has been providing the programming since last year, when the station changed its format. After the recent death of Gene Autrey, who counted Golden West among his many possessions, the path is clear now for Heftel to take complete ownership of KSCA.

Dallas-based Heftel Broadcasting Corp. owns and operates 37 Spanish-language stations in 11 markets. For the second quarter ended June 30, it reported net income of $7.8 million (16 cents a diluted share), compared with $5.4 million (12 cents) for the like year-earlier period. Heftel’s revenues increased substantially during the second quarter because of aggressive acquisitions of new radio stations. Among the acquisitions were two Spanish-language FM stations in San Diego, one of the top Latino markets in the country.

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