The Ratings Aren't Over 'Til The `Fat Man' Talks

Down at their Eastlake Avenue studios, the folks at KIRO radio must be trading high-fives and dancing little jigs to the tune of "Ding-Dong, The Witch is Dead."

Can't blame them. After five years of being trounced five mornings a week by the irrepressible Rush Limbaugh, the Fat Man's broom appears to have sputtered somewhere over Lake Washington.

The wintertime Arbitron ratings just arrived and, for the first time since 1992, KIRO has beaten hot-talk KVI in that all-important 9 a.m.-to-noon slot. The margin is narrow: KIRO talkmeister Dave Ross gets an average 7.4 percent of the radio audience; Limbaugh gets 7.0 percent, down from 10 percent a year ago.

Another Arbitron stat says KIRO lures an average of 236,000 listeners per week in the 9-to-noon slot, while Limbaugh gets 158,800.

"When ratings are good, we smile," says Ross. "They tell me I don't have to be an extremist, that it's OK to be a radical centrist, as long as I'm also entertaining and interesting."

Jaye Albright, a local radio consultant, says the local ratings may reflect a national pattern. Limbaugh's talk empire appears to be slipping a bit, he says.

This is cause for some alarm down at the Tower Building. As goes Rush, so goes hot-talk KVI, whose overall rating has slid to 4.3 percent of the local radio market, just below Classic KING and Country KMPS. Talk rival KIRO leads everybody with 6.7 percent.

Each of KVI's hometown guys has lost ground. In the noontime slot, Michael Medved slid to 10th place at 4.1 percent. During the 3-to-6 p.m. drive time, John Carlson ranks 12th with 3.8 percent.

When it comes to radio, talk ain't cheap - especially compared with music formats. Instead of hiring a couple of disc jockeys, talk shows have to pay talented hosts, producers, perhaps a call-screener or two. And imagine the phone bills.

When audience ratings drop, ad rates tend to follow. And when profits decline, station managers begin to reassess their formats.

So is KVI about to dump Limbaugh and Carlson in favor of Neil Diamond and Montovani records?

Nah. KVI's audience is conservative, solid and fiercely loyal. Limbaugh still holds an edge, 5.7 to 4.3 percent, in the 25-to-54 age group, which is the one most advertisers want. When conservatives tune to 570, they stay there. Carlson, Limbaugh and Co. are fixtures on the local dial, while Medved and Kirby Wilbur are getting there.

Besides, Arbitron's ratings are hardly a precision instrument. They are based on about 3,000 randomly selected listeners who keep logbooks of which stations they listen to. Everybody understands the ratings are prone to bias - especially in a fractured market with more than 30 radio stations.

The fact is, on any given day, far more people are bopping down I-5 to the rhythm of Country KMPS or KISW than to the drumbeat of conservative talk. Even at the top of its game, KVI was getting less than 6 percent of the daily radio market.

Conventional wisdom has it that Arbitron's ratings are only significant if a pattern holds over three or more rating periods. KVI's winter slide is modest, and it occurs immediately after a major election, when listeners were exhausted with political debate. It comes during the winter monsoons, when people may have been more inclined to tune in KIRO's weather and traffic bulletins.

Limbaugh is losing no sleep over a one-period dip in Puget Sound Country. He's still the uncontested King of Talk, holding forth in every radio market, large or small, and dominating most of them.

And, for all that, there's no shame in finishing a close second to Dave Ross, a smart, veteran broadcast journalist with proven skills.

Whether you agree with Limbaugh or not, Puget Sound doesn't need another music station on the dial. For all his self-promoting bombast, Limbaugh virtually invented the talk format and, in doing so, rescued radio listeners across the country from the mediocrity of music formats designed by computers in Burbank or Atlanta.

Talk radio of any ideological ilk contributes to the political dialogue, and to the democratic process. The fierce competition between KIRO and KVI, both of which get more than their share of local audiences, suggests that folks in this corner of the Northwest woods are tuned in to something more than easy listening.

Ross Anderson's column appears Wednesday on editorial pages of The Times.

--------- Talk wars ---------

Average share of Seattle-Tacoma radio listeners, 12 and older:

All day, 6 a.m. to midnight

1. KIRO-AM (news/talk) . . . . . . 6.7%

2. KUBE-FM (top 40 pop) . . . . . 6.1%

3. KBSG-FM ('60s-'70s pop) . . . . 5.1%

4. KISW-FM (rock) . . . . . . . . 4.7%

5. KNDD-FM (rock) . . . . . . . . 4.6%

6. KING-FM (classical) . . . . . . 4.5%

7. KMPS-FM (country) . . . . . . . 4.4%

8. KVI-AM (talk) . . . . . . . . 4.3%

Mornings, 9 a.m. to noon:

1. KIRO (Dave Ross) . . . . . . . 7.4%

2. KVI (Rush Limbaugh) . . . . . 7.0%

3. KISW . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4%

Weekdays, noon to 3 p.m.

1. KBSG . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1%

2. KIRO (Dori Monson) . . . . . . 5.8%

. . .

10. KVI (Micheal Medved) . . . . . 4.1%

Weekdays, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

1. KUBE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1%

2. KBSG . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4%

3. KIRO (news) . . . . . . . . . . 5.0%

. . .

12. KVI (John Carlson) . . . . . . 3.8%

Source: The Arbitron Co., Winter 1997.