Arbitron ratings calculating where we tuned our radio dials over the summer are out with a handful of changes but otherwise its mostly status quo. Here’s a rundown of some of the more noteworthy:

• Pablo Sato, host of the Pablo show on hip-hop and R&B station KOHT 98.3-FM moved up to be the No. 5 highest-rated morning show in the market. Not bad for a guy who has only been on the air since January. It’s even better for the station’s owner, Clear Channel. Between Pablo on KOHT and Johnjay and Rich on KRQ 93.7-FM, Clear Channel has single-handedly cornered one-third of Tucson radio listeners under the age of 34 and there’s advertising money in those listeners. KOHT is also up outside of the morning show and is either No. 2 or tied for No. 2 behind KRQ with younger listeners.

• Morning talkshow host Jon Justice celebrated his first anniversary on Journal Broadcast Group’s the Truth KQTH 104.1-FM as the newest morning show to be ranked in the top 10. Justice’s show is in a three-way tie at No. 7. One of those he’s tied with is his closest format competitor, Jim Parisi on Clear Channel’s KNST 790-AM. What’s most noteworty is that Justice took the lion’s share of the 25-to-54 year-old audience that’s supposed to be the backbone of talkradio audiences. Justice’s show averages about 4,200 listeners per quarter hour in that age group to Parisi’s 2,200, according to Arbitron. Moreover, Justice’s audience is up 200 percent from three months ago while Parisi’s audience is down 18 percent. This has the makings of a talk radio shootout between the Truth and KNST.

Print this story Email this story Post a Comment ADVERTISEMENT

• Citadel Broadcasting’s country station KIIM 99.5-FM is once again the market’s No. 1-rated station overall — its fourth consecutive quarterly ratings at the top. A year ago, KIIM had slipped into second place.

• Journal Broadcast Group’s Mix-FM KMXZ 94.9-FM picked up listeners over the summer just as it did a year ago, this time moving past KRQ into the No. 2 spot. Mix-FM was the only one of the top three stations to see increased ratings over the summer from where they were three months earlier.

• Johnjay Van Es and Rich Berra, Johnjay and Rich on KRQ, continue to be the market’s dominate morning radio personalities, ranking No. 1 in key demos, from ages 18 to 54.

• Other stations showing significant ratings declines from a year ago: Journal’s Mega Oldies KGMG 106.3-FM/104.9-FM, down 27 percent; Citadel’s Bob KSZR 97.5-FM, down 45 percent; Citadel’s KTUC 1400-AM, down 46 percent; and Clear Channel’s Radio Tejano KXEW 1600-AM, down 50 percent.

• The stations gaining the most over a year ago are: Journal’s the Truth, up 178 percent from a year ago; independently-owned La Poderosa KZLZ 105.3-FM, up 128 percent with its new locally-originated programming;  Citadel’s the Source KCUB 1290-AM, up 50 percent; and Clear Channel’s KRQ, up 28 percent.

Star’s parent takes steps to avoid technical default

The Arizona Daily Star’s parent company, Lee Enterprises, announced Oct. 30 it took some drastic steps to maintain access to credit and avoid technical default due to declining asset values and cash flow. It includes eliminating shareholder dividend payments to save $34 million a year and giving up $575 million of available revolving credit reducing it to $375 million, $207 million of which had been tappped as of the end of September.

In exchange for these, Lee Enterprises will pay higher interest rates but get greater flexibility regarding debt, both how much it can take on and how it pays it down. Although the new agreement allows the company to take on debt of as much as 6.75 times cash flow, it prohibits payment of shareholder dividends until the debt is down to 4.5 times cash flow, which the company hopes to get to by September 2010.

Lee Enterprises, based in Davenport, Iowa, paid $1.46 billion in June 2005 to acquire Pulitzer Inc., which included the Star. In their Oct. 30 announcement, Lee executives said the company’s debt has been reduced by $486 million.

Further, Lee Enterprises announced that starting in December executives salaries will be frozen and bonuses and stock options grants are being suspended. For other employees, the company’s match for employee retirement accounts will be cut in half to 2.5 percent.

In the midst of this, though, staffers at the Star could breathe a guarded sigh of relief with word that attrition has pretty much taken care of goals to reduce staffing levels. They were told the newspaper isn’t planning to make any more employee cuts this year.

Contact David Hatfield at dhatfield@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4237. Inside Tucson Media appears weekly.