The Sept. 11 factor. (Media & Technology).

AN appetite for terrorism-related news helped boost public radio listeners hip last fall, according to the Radio Research Consortium Inc.

KCRW-FM (89.9) and KPCC-FM (89.3), whose line-ups are dominated by news and public affairs programming, were the only local public radio stations that saw an increase in ratings during the period between Sept. 20 and Dec. 12.

KCRW rose to a 1.3 share from 1.1 during the summer ratings period. KPCC inched up to a 1.0 share, up from 0.9 in the summer but a sizeable improvement over the 0.7 it posted in fall 2000. KPFK-FM (90.7), the local Pacifica Radio station, remained at 0.3.

"We got a bump from 9/11," said Will Lewis, a management consultant who handles ratings information for KCRW. "The fringe audience came back to us."

Achieving a 1.0 share is a first for KPCC, said Bill Davis, president and chief executive of Southern California Public Radio. The station's new listeners have come not from other public radio stations but from commercial competitors, he said.

Davis added that an analysis of the fall ratings showed KPCC most often shared its audience with two commercial competitors, classical KMZT-FM (105.1) and KNX`-AM (1070), a news station.

"KCRW has generally been the first station that we share the most audience with," Davis said. "What KPCC is doing is increasing the size of the public-radio audience in Southern California," Davis said.

Public radio music stations KUSC-FM (91.5), a classical station, and jazz broadcaster KLON-FM (88.1) both saw their ratings drop.

KUSC fell below a 1.0 share for the first time in months and ended this fall with a 0.9 share, down from 1.5 in fall 2000. KLON came down to a 1.0,. which was still an improvement over the 0.7 share it earned in the like year-earlier period.

Lewis is confident that listeners who came to public radio for information in the days following Sept. 11 will stay around for a while. "I think we'll be able to hold on to this audience," he said.

Claudia Peschiutta