Los Angeles in April – City of Angels & Distinctive Families
By: Jim Boyle
Los Angeles has many family situations on its mind these days, whether it’s the McCourts, Schwarzeneggers or the Family Radio Ministry. Besides avoiding the coming end of the world in May, Los Angeles’ citizens were quite occupied in April 2011 listening to, watching, and reading over 720,000 advertisements with the concentration of a rush-hour highway driver texting, tweaking makeup, and slaloming through nearby drivers. Ad agencies and their clients invested over $415 million in April to extensively reach, with needed frequency, every corner of sprawling, bustling Los Angeles metro.
New extensive data from leading research firm, Media Monitors, whose patented technology monitors local cable networks, newspapers, local TV stations and radio in as many as 85 markets, disclosed the usual frenetic month for the Southland region, regardless of which celebrity family was in the news or for what reason.
How did that $415 million get divided across 55 well-known Angeleno media outlets by the diverse, leading ad clients? Here’s how they spent that money:
| — Top 9 TV Stations | $ 285 million [#1 station was KABC-TV — $51 million] |
| — Top 2 Newspapers | $ 85 million [#1 publication was LA Times — $70 million] |
| — Top 20 Radio Stations | $ 38 million [#1 station was KROQ-FM — $3 million] |
Whether the entertainment-savvy or pop cultural mavens throughout the City of Angels are obsessed with the McCourts’ divorce affecting the LA Dodgers or ex-Governor Schwarzenegger’s surprisingly expanding brood, the city has countless media options reporting on the latest gossip… I mean, news of local interest. Back to the Los Angeles data from Media Monitors far-ranging database:
| — Top 10 Cable System Nets | 223,500 spots [#1 local net FSN – 14,900 spots] |
| — Top 9 Local TV Stations | 198,900 spots [#1 KABC-TV – 27,800 spots] |
| — Top 20 Local Radio Stations | 198,000 spots [#1-tie KNX-AM – 12,700 spots] |
| — Top 2 Local Newspapers | 2,800 ads [#1 LA Times – 1,720 ads] |
From the comprehensive Media Monitors’ data on local TV stations across 50 markets, the Los Angeles TV stations that fetched the most ad revenue were KABC-TV, KCAL-TV, KTTV-TV and KMEX-TV. All four of those popular stations topped $35 million in sunny April for southern California. Can the Family Radio minister predict the end of the world again? Is he angling for his own reality show in Hollywood?
From the far-reaching local Cable TV network monitoring (there are details on 50 markets, the cable leaders in Los Angeles did differ from other major market leaders I’ve analyzed. Nevertheless, the five highest cable network spot share leaders nearly surpassed some of the lofty numbers put up by retiring LA Lakers’ coach, Phil Jackson, in his sterling career.
| TBS | 28,200 spots | 11.9% share of local market cable spots |
| TNT | 25,900 spots | 11.0% share of local market cable spots |
| Lifetime | 24,900 spots | 10.6% share of local market cable spots |
| USA | 24,000 spots | 10.2% share of local market cable spots |
| A&E | 22,400 spots | 9.5% share of local market cable spots |
| Total | 53.2% share of local market cable spots |
Given Los Angeles’ fondness for being first in the know – Angeleno radio was led by mostly AM stations for advertising messages supplementing all the news, talk, sports and information rocketing around Southern California. But music formats on FM stations largely led in radio dollars. It is on the FM band where the area’s multi-cultural mix is apparent:
| Rank by Units of Commercials | Rank by Revenue |
| AM sports station | #1.) 12,750 spots | FM Alt. format | #1.] $2.94 million |
| AM news station | #2.) 12,660 spots | FM CHR format | #2.] $2.48 million |
| AM talk station | #3.) 11,280 spots | FM Spanish AC | #3.] $2.24 million |
| AM talk station | #4.) 11,250 spots | FM Mexican | #4.] $2.20 million |
| AM news / talk | #5.) 11,040 spots | AM News / Talk | #5.] $2.16 million |
| AM sports station | #6.) 10,960 spots | FM AC format | #6.] $2.11 million |
Los Angeles has many distinctive families, the Kardashian clan, the Sheens, the Quaids, and lots of interest in them from other Angelenos. Fortunately for advertisers and agencies that desire to capture the attention of the City of Angels’ audience that is fascinated with distinctive families – they still intently and voraciously listen, read watch Cable, TV, Newspapers and Radio as though it was their families’ business.