NYC winners and losers

Arbitron's Spring ratings in New York are good news for CBS and Univision. Bear Stearns analyst Victor Miller calculates that 12+ ratings for the CBS cluster improved 13%, led by AC "Fresh" WWFS-FM (the old WNEW). CBS has reformatted three stations in NYC thus far this year, although the switch of WCBS-FM from "Jack" back to Oldies came after the latest book.

The other change was switching "Free FM" WFNY-FM back to "K-Rock" WXRK, boosting its share to a 1.7 from 1.2 a year earlier. The entire CBS cluster claimed a 15.4 share in Spring 2007, up from 13.6 a year earlier. Miller theorizes that Clear Channel's market leader WLTW-FM was hit hardest by the WWFS launch and Clear Channel's cluster ratings fell by 10%. There was more bad news for Emmis, where ratings fell 11%, with all three stations in its cluster down.

Univision's cluster ratings jumped 37%, with WQBU-FM up 300% with its Regional Mexican format from the former WZAA's Tropical format. Miller says the WQBU gains appeared to come at the expense of SBS, whose NYC cluster saw a 10% decrease in share. The Spring books for Los Angeles and Chicago are due out today.

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