Super Bowl week knocked us off schedule on a number of items, including the monthly report from Nielsen Audio on Houston sports radio ratings.
We’ll get to the ratings in a moment, but first, the real bottom line of the radio business: the financial numbers submitted by the seven major chains that together own 25 stations – Cox, iHeart Media, CBS Radio, Univision, Radio One, Cumulus and Salem.
Those groups in 2016 recorded revenue of $261.759 million, down 2.4 percent from $268.215 million in 2015. Most of the decline was in local revenue, which was down by $11.4 million, but a portion was offset by an increase of $4.5 million in national spending and by a half-million increase in digital income.
The big dog in Houston radio continues to be iHeart, whose six stations accounted for 33 percent of the income brought in by the seven chain outfits in Houston last year, or about $87.6 million. Still, that was down 2.4 percent from last year.
Five stations last year brought in more than $20 million, and three belonged to iHeart: KODA (99.1 FM), KTBZ (94.5 FM) and KTRH (740 AM). The other two to top $20 million were Cox’s KKBQ (93.7 FM) and Univision’s KLTN (104.5 FM).
KTRH is among the stations that most clearly reflect that 2016 was an election year. Its revenues were up by $2.3 million, a 10.4 percent jump. CBS Radio and iHeart both reported jumps of more than 8 percent in national income, and Cumulus’ KRBE (104.1 FM) came close to doubling its national income.
Among the other chains, Cox’s three-station cluster declined 5.8 percent in total revenue, the six CBS Radio stations were down by 2.5 percent, Univision’s five stations were off by 2.1 percent and Radio One’s three stations were down by 10.3 percent. The two single-station groups, Cumulus and Salem’s KNTH (1070 AM), were up by about 31 percent and 1 percent, respectively.
One final note on the financials: The three sports stations represented in the corporate income report (CBS’s KILT-AM and KIKK-AM and iHeart’s KBME-AM) accounts for a small part of the revenue total – about $13.5 million, including $9.6 million at KILT (down about 13 percent last year) and $3.7 million at KBME (down 18 percent).
That’s only 5 percent of the total, and it reflects part of the reason why other than KFNC (97.5 FM), whose transmitter is in Winnie between Houston and Beaumont, sports radio hasn’t become a factor on FM as it has in other markets. There’s too much money to be made playing music in Houston to devote one of the big FM signals to sports.
The Gow Media stations were not included in the report from the national chains, so their financials are not known.
With that said, let’s move from money to ratings. The latest book from Nielsen Audio is the 13th four-week report of the year, known as the Holiday book – or in Houston, KODA Month, when the iHeart Media station dominates the field with its wall-to-wall menu of Christmas music.
This year’s holiday book, in a Leap Year-like adjustment, covered the period from Dec. 1 through Jan. 4. KODA dominated once more, but we’ll get to those numbers once we digest the sports radio picture.
First, once again, KGOW (1560 AM) once again did not show up in the numbers, so we will be looking at three stations in the sports realm.
We start with 6 a.m. to midnight among men 25-54, the key demographic for sports radio, where KILT (610 AM) once again outdraws its three competitors combined. The number in parenthesis indicates where sports stations rank among all Houston stations.
6 a.m. to midnight among men 25-54
Station Holiday December November Holiday 2015
KILT (610 AM) 2.9 (T15th) 3.2 (13th) 3.6 (T11th) 2.9 (18th)
KFNC (97.5 FM) 1.4 (24th) 1.6 (24th) 1.7 (24th) 2.3 (20th)
KBME (790 AM) 0.8 (27th) 0.8 (T26th) 1.1 (25th) 1.2 (25th)
KILT has a narrow lead over KFNC’s ESPN Radio lineup in morning drive time (6-10 a.m.). KFNC, though, led in this time slot a year ago.
6-10 a.m. among men 25-54
Station Holiday December November Holiday 2015
KILT 3.0 (T12th) 3.4 (13th) 3.9 (8th) 2.4 (T18th)
KFNC 2.9 (15th) 2.0 (19th) 2.0 (19th) 3.3 (13th)
KBME 1.1 (T26th) 0.8 (26th) 1.3 (T23rd) 2.4(T18th)
KILT maintained its lead and, in fact, equaled its two rated competitors combined in middays (10 a.m.-3 p.m.).
10 a.m. to 3 p.m. among men 25-54
Station Holiday December November Holiday 2015
KILT 2.7 (T14th) 2.7 (11th) 3.6 (11th) 2.9 (15th)
KFNC 1.6 (23rd) 1.9 (T17th) 1.6 (T20th) 2.0 (21st)
KBME 1.1 (25th) 1.0 (26th) 1.2 (23rd) 0.9 (27th)
KILT continues to lead in its strongest daypart, afternoon drive (3-7 p.m.), with another Top 10 overall performance as its competitors continue to struggle here.
3-7 p.m. among men 25-54
Station Holiday December November Holiday 2015
KILT 3.9 (8th) 3.9 (9th) 4.5 (5th) 3.0 (15th)
KFNC 1.4 (25th) 1.8 (24th) 2.4 (20th) 2.8 (17th)
KBME 0.8 (28th) 0.9 (T27th) 1.4 (26th) 1.2 (25th)
As usual, KILT has a big lead from 7 p.m. to midnight.
7 p.m. to midnight among men 25-54
Station Holiday December November Holiday 2015
KILT 2.6 (14th) 3.1 (T12th) 3.0 (T11th) 2.3 (16th)
KFNC 0.6 (T26th) 0.6 (T25th) 1.1 (24th) 1.4 (24th)
KBME 0.6 (T26th) 0.5 (T27th) 0.4 (T26th) 1.0 (25th)
Let’s turn to show-by-show rankings for the month. This is a truncated report, owing to KBME changing its show times by one hour shortly before Christmas. The following Holiday book numbers reflect only the first three weeks of the period.
Hosts (Time slot, station) Holiday December November
Lord/Pendergast/Johnson (2-7 pm, KILT) 3.9 3.8 4.4
Meltser/Payne (6-10 a.m., KILT) 3.0 3.4 3.9
Gallant/Texans/NFL (7-11 p.m., KILT) 2.7 3.2 3.1
Lopez/Stoots (10 am-2 pm, KILT) 2.4 2.6 3.5
Granato/Salisbury (11 .m.-1 p.m., KFNC) 2.1 2.2 2.0
Granato/Ramzanali (9-11 a.m., KFNC) 1.6 1.5 1.8
Joel Blank (1-4 p.m., KFNC) 1.5 1.6 1.3
Faour/Hoffman (4-7 p.m., KFNC) 1.3 1.7 2.7
Jones/Clanton (noon-3 p.m. KBME) 1.2 1.1 1.5
Zierlein/Thomas (6-10 a.m., KBME) 1.1 0.8 1.3
Koch/Kalu (10-noon a.m., KBME) 1.0 1.0 0.8
Josh Innes (3-7 p.m., KBME) 0.8 0.9 1.4
Strongest weekday hours for each station, beginning with KBME, are 1-2 p.m. (1.7 share), 8-9 a.m. (1.6) and 7-8 a.m. (1.5). For KFNC: 5-6 a.m. (7.0 share), 7-8 a.m. (4.3) and 6-7 a.m. (3.0), all for Mike and Mike on ESPN Radio. For local shows: noon-1 p.m. (2.2), 11 a.m.-noon (1.9) and 9-10 a.m., 3-4 p.m. and 5-6 p.m. (1.7).
KILT’s strongest hours are 7-8 a.m. and 5-6 p.m. (4.9 share), 6-7 p.m. (4.2) and 2-3 p.m. (3.9).
From sports, let’s turn to the general market radio leaders, leading with KODA’s (99.1 FM) Christmas landslide. KODA led all stations in the Holiday book among persons 12-plus with a 10.3 weeklong share, followed by KMJQ (102.1 FM) at 6.8, KLTN (102.9 FM) at 6.7, KGLK (107.5/106.9 FM) at 6.3, KBXX (97.9 FM) at 4.9 and KSBJ (89.3 FM) at 4.8.
Among sports stations, KILT was at 1.6 (21st place) and KFNC and KBME were at 0.6 in the all-day weeklong ratings.
KLTN led in morning drive at 8.2, in middays at 11.4, in afternoon drive at 10.1 and at 9.0 at night.
In adults 18-plus, it was KODA for the seven-day lead at 10.2, KMJQ and KODA tied in morning drive at 7.9 and KODA in middays at 11.4, in afternoon drive at 10.0 and at night at 8.8.
Leaders in adults 18-49 were KODA at 8.7 for the week, KLTN in morning drive at 8.5, KODA in middays at 9.6, KODA in afternoon drive at 9.3 and KBXX evenings at 10.3.
Adults 25-54 leaders were KODA for the week at 9.3, KLTN in morning drive at 9.1, KODA in middays at 10.0, KODA in afternoon drive at 9.5 and KLTN at night at 9.8.
Ending where we started with men 25-54, for comparison purposes with the sports stations, KLTN led for the week at 11.7, in morning drive at 10.9, at middays with a 13.0 share, in afternoon drive at 10.0 and evenings at 14.2, a clean sweep.
