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It's not just KRTH, and not just Los Angeles.

DavidEduardo said:
Of course, but our resident Chimpanzee brought up country drinking songs, and said "I can say the only white artists played were men who sang drinking songs".
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I did not say country. If anyone made the choice to play songs by white men about drinking, it was the DJ who was playing mostly artists who were Black. And except for the one guy who looked white in his photo but might have been light-skinned, all the other artists played were Black. And I did make the point that the other songs were about drinking because that was the topic when the DJ was talking. He was talking while playing Percy Faith, who was also white.

The songs were "Escape" (which references Piña Colada) and "Margaritaville" by Jimmy Buffett. Some people do consider that one country.
 
For those playing along at home, the L.A. ratings are out:

KRTH is #1 6+ for the fourth month in a row, with by far the largest cume in Los Angeles (2,336,200---the nearest after KRTH is KOST, with 2,072,900, a difference of 263,300, which is more people than the total weekly cume of KFWB).

KRTH is also #1 25-54, tied for #1 18-34 and #3 18-49.
 
CTListener said:
"The classic hits station in (name some other city) plays (name a song) and gets great ratings. Why doesn't KRTH?"
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I have listened to a lot of different classic hits stations across this country and there is just something about KRTH that makes them the creame de la creme. They have been that way for as long as I have been listening to them since the mid 1990’s when they focused on 1950’s and 1960’s oldies. Other stations had that same magic as KRTH back in the 1990’s and early 2000’s like KOOL 94.5 in Phoenix, WJMK Oldies 104.3 in Chicago, etc… but they all lost it, even though they have had the same owners for almost all of that same time since the late 1990’s (Infinity Broadcasting, then CBS Radio, now Audacy). Meanwhile, KRTH has been pretty steady as the #1 or #2 station in LA for what seems like nearly 30 years with breaks here and there. Somebody is doing something right over there and it shows!
 
asugeorge1 said:
Meanwhile, KRTH has been pretty steady as the #1 or #2 station in LA for what seems like nearly 30 years with breaks here and there. Somebody is doing something right over there and it shows!
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In the full year average of 1998, they were 10th In the two prior years they were below 5th. In 1999 they were 9th. In 2000 they were 6th, and in 1990 they were 19th.


In some of the last 30 years, they were well below the 12+ or 6+ rank in 25-54 because they got very old in appeal, particularly from around 2000 to 2010. In 2000, KLVE and KSCA were #1 and #2, in fact.
 
DavidEduardo said:
In the full year average of 1998, they were 10th In the two prior years they were below 5th. In 1999 they were 9th. In 2000 they were 6th, and in 1990 they were 19th.


In some of the last 30 years, they were well below the 12+ or 6+ rank in 25-54 because they got very old in appeal, particularly from around 2000 to 2010. In 2000, KLVE and KSCA were #1 and #2, in fact.
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The way I view KRTH is that they were about to go off a cliff with too few and too old songs under Mike Phillips and especially Jay Coffey.

Jhani Kaye (PD from 2005-2013) stopped the car at the cliff's edge and very carefully turned it around. Rick Thomas (who succeeded Jhani) started it rolling away from the cliff. He transferred to CBS New York a year later and Chris Ebbott has pretty much had his foot to the floor since 2014.

I scrolled back as far as I could here and found that KRTH has been reliably top 5 (6+) since mid-2014---so, nine years.

They first hit #1 25-54 in 2016. The lead in all key sales demos (18-34, 18-49, 25-54) has traded off back and forth since then, but essentially, KRTH's been a very strong station for most of the last decade.

(Quick side note: The nine years that Chris Ebbott has been PD at KRTH is longer than the tenure of any KHJ PD, and longer than that of Bill Drake himself, who only got 8 years at RKO).
 
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michael hagerty said:
The way I view KRTH is that they were about to go off a cliff with too few and too old songs under Mike Phillips and especially Jay Coffey.

Jhani Kaye (PD from 2005-2013) stopped the car at the cliff's edge and very carefully turned it around.
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Curious, why did Jhani Kaye leave KRTH, if it was heading in the right direction musically and presentation-wise, especially after the ultra-tight format under Coffey? The format got tighter and restrictive again after Kaye left.

Personally, I much preferred Jhani Kaye's approach, along with Phil Hall and Hamilton earlier.
 
oldies76 said:
Curious, why did Jhani Kaye leave KRTH, if it was heading in the right direction musically and presentation-wise, especially after the ultra-tight format under Coffey? The format got tighter and restrictive again after Kaye left.
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Eight years is a long time to be a PD in Los Angeles---and that was just at KRTH and KTWV. Before that it was KBIG and KOST---going back to 1982. So that's 31 years.

Jhani was successful and had the opportunity to retire on his own terms. He was 62 and had been in radio for 45 years.
 
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michael hagerty said:
Eight years is a long time to be a PD in Los Angeles---and that was just at KRTH and KTWV. Before that it was KBIG and KOST---going back to 1982. So that's 31 years.

Jhani was successful and had the opportunity to retire on his own terms. He was 62 and had been in radio for 45 years.
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I agree 8 years is a long time. The average is 4 or 5 I guess.
 
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