Ratings: LA's KIIS-FM Leads In 2010

KOST's all-holiday lineup bumps KIIS briefly from the top spot in a year that saw Laura Schlessinger temporarily retire and Air America permanently sign off.

Pop purveyor 102.7fm KIIS-FM spent 2010 at the top of the charts, leading all Los Angeles-Orange County radio stations in the ratings since January.

But at year's end, according to Steve Carney at latimes.com, adult-contemporary station 103.5 KOST-FM treated it like grandma with the reindeer, according to figures released Tuesday by the Arbitron ratings service.

In the period from Nov. 11 to Dec. 8, KIIS-FM (102.7) barely lost ground from its No. 1 showing the previous month, either in its share of the radio audience ages 6 and older, or in its total of weekly listeners. But KOST-FM (103.5) changed its playlist to all-holiday music and ran over its Top-40 rival.

Every year since 2001, KOST has switched to nonstop holiday music, starting around Thanksgiving and lasting through Christmas. This year's launch was Nov. 17. And the move has always boosted the station's ratings — propelling it to No. 1 in 2005 and again last year.

This year, KOST rocketed to a 6.6% share of the audience, up from 4.6% in November.

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