Radio revenues trending up as TV and newspaper ads decline.

L.A. radio seems to be outpacing the overall industry.

Local data culled from the national X-Ray Report compiled by the accounting firm of Miller Kaplan Arase & Co. shows that total radio revenue for the L.A. metro area--defined as Los Angeles and Orange counties--was 3.2 percent higher for the first eight months of the year than for the like period a year earlier.

The numbers for 2005 won't be released publicly until after the end of the year. In 2004, the 59 commercial stations in the two-county region reported $1.045 billion in revenue, a 1.5 percent increase from 2003.

Nationally, radio had a flat summer, with revenue up 2 percent in June, down 2 percent in July and up 2 percent in August, according to a Radio Advertising Bureau report based on the Miller Kaplan data. Combined local and national spot dollars for the first eight months also grew 1 percent, with non-spot growth flat.

In Los Angeles, local radio's eight-month growth compares to a 5.6 percent drop for local spot television revenue and a 7.1 percent decrease in local daily newspaper advertising during the same period.

Mary Beth Garber, president of the Southern California Broadcasters Association, said one of its fastest growing segments is Spanish-language radio, with the number of stations in the region mushrooming to 20, compared with five in the late 1990s.

Tuning In 

Whatever happened to all those predictions of television losing viewers to video games, DVDs and Internet chatter?

A new survey shows average daily viewership at record-high levels--going back to when such readings were first taken in the 1950s.

"TVs are cheaper so a home is more likely to have one in each room," said Karen Gyimesi, a spokeswoman for Nielsen Media Research, which prepared the report. "Add that to the fact that most households have cable or satellite (service) that give them more than a 100 channels to choose from, then you're more likely to find something you want to watch and it's more convenient to watch."

During the 2004-05 season that ended Sept. 18, the average American watched four hours and 32 minutes of TV a day, according to the Nielsen study. Sets in an average household were watched a total of eight hours and 11 minutes per day. That's 2.7 percent higher than last year and 12.5 percent above viewing levels a decade ago.

Data for Los Angeles is not yet available.

For the first week of the new fall season, the total number of viewers was 6.3 percent higher than for the like period a year earlier.

The study didn't ask respondents to say whether they were involved in some other activity while having the TV on, but a separate study from Ball State University suggests that Americans have become increasingly adept at media multi-tasking.

The study conducted by Ball State's Center for Media Design found that TV remains the dominant media in terms of the time average Americans spend daily, but computers are running a close second. Around 30 percent of all media time is spent exposed to more than one form of media, the researchers concluded, with women spending more time media multi-tasking during the day than men.

Online Loyalty

While print subscriptions may be down nationwide, Internet users tend to seek out their local newspaper's Web site as an important news source, according to a study by another Nielsen research group, Nielsen/Net Ratings.

Online readers in nine of the top 10 local markets were loyal to their hometown paper, with washingtonpost.com having the greatest local market reach among news media in its market, 30.1 percent, followed by the Boston Globe's boston.com site at 28.3 percent.

The Los Angeles Times' latimes.com had 15.4 percent local reach, which was ahead of the 13.9 percent that the San Francisco Chronicle's SFGate.com rated.

On average, newspaper Web sites in the top 10 markets reached 19.5 percent of a city's active Internet audience in July, according to Nielsen's first such report. At least 72 percent of online users in the survey still look at the print version of the local paper they also read online.

The most successful newspaper Web sites have cultivated a loyal local following over several years by aggressively investing in their exclusive news and original multimedia content, according Robert Niles, editor of the Online Journalism Review at USC's Annenberg School of Journalism.

"The L.A. Times historically hasn't been as aggressive in promoting their site," said Niles, a former latimes.com staff member. "The Times does have a challenge because of the large number of non-English readers, but newspapers like the Miami Herald have been very successful in reaching a non-English audience."

Fine Living in L.A.

For more than three years from offices on Wilshire Boulevard's Miracle Mile, the Fine Living Network has been dispensing tips on wine-food pairings and upscale kitchen designs. But until recently, much of Los Angeles didn't have access to the Scripps Network's lifestyle network.

That changed this summer when Fine Living joined Home & Garden Television and the Food Network among listings on the Adelphia and Comcast cable systems.

To get the word out, Fine Living launched a two-month, $1 million media campaign that included 500 cross-channel spots on other cable channels, billboard promos, bus posters and local magazine advertisements.

"Chalk it up to the vagaries of the cable industry," General Manager John MacDonald said of the delay in getting the network to local viewers. "But when you consider how difficult it is to get a cable network launched, period, we consider it great to now be in all of the top 20 DMA's (designated market areas) in cable."

While Scripps Network has consolidated production for all its networks at its Knoxville, Tenn. headquarters, Fine Living makes regular use of Los Angeles-based production companies, such as Triage Entertainment, which produced the travel series "The Great Adventure."

This and That

Irvine-based Freedom Communications Inc., publisher of the Orange County Register, has named director Scott Flanders as its next chief executive. Flanders. former chief executive of CD and video marketer Columbia House Co., replaces Alan Bell on Jan. 1. Bell, 73, has been chief executive since 2002 and ushered Freedom through a delicate 2003 deal in which disgruntled heirs of founder R.C. Hoiles sold shares to New York-based Blackstone Group LP and Providence Equity Partners Inc. of Rhode Island. Bell plans to stay on Freedom's board for a while and then serve as a consultant to the company ...

Ingrid Otero-Smart. former president and chief operating officer of Irvine-based Mendoza Dillon & Asociados, has become president of Anita Santiago Advertising in Santa Monica. Founder Anita Santiago remains chief executive. Otero-Smart was with Mendoza Dillon for 18 years and spent the past five as president.

Staff reporter Deborah Crowe can be reached at [phone], ext. 232, or by email at [e-mail].