While yesterday's monthly Arbitrend report is considered only a rough indicator in the radio business, the morning numbers went up for WHTZ (100.3 FM), WAXQ (104.3 FM), WABC (770 AM), WNEW (102.7 FM) and WBLS (107.5 FM).

The good news for Stern's old station, WFNY (92.3 FM), and its new morning host, David Lee Roth, is that most of Roth's numbers didn't decline further from January to February.

Among 18- to 34-year-olds, his audience share rose from 1.3% in January to 1.7% in February.

The bad news is that about three-quarters of the Stern audience is still gone - a fact general manager Tom Chiusano said isn't surprising.

"We knew January would be rough," he said. "We were replacing the most popular morning show of all time."

Chiusano said he sees "some positive signs" in the February numbers, but reiterated what parent CBS has said all along: that it is premature to assess WFNY's new format and hosts.

CBS still hopes to recover some Stern listeners, a quest whose value was underscored yesterday in a national study by Jacobs Media that found some 75% of former Stern listeners don't expect to follow him to satellite.

Some of the best news in yesterday's Arbitrend report was for WBLS morning host Steve Harvey, who seems to have caught the Jeff Foxx morning team on rival WRKS (98.7 FM).

Elsewhere, WQHT (97.1 FM) took an upward jump while hip-hop rival WWPR (105.1 FM) and its morning host Star seemed to dip. Star still holds an overall lead over Hot-97's Miss Jones, but her show pulled ahead among 18- to 34-year-olds.

WLTW (106.7 FM) continued its dominance both with the overall audience and advertiser-coveted 25- to 54-year-olds.

Firmer numbers in the chase for Stern's audience will come next month in Arbitron's winter report, which covers the three months since he left in January.

Originally published on March 28, 2006