La Mega, a Spanish Station, Draws Young New York Fans On New York radio, the sound of success is a Latin dance mix and a Spanish-speaking D.J. excitedly sending listeners to his Instagram feed. Last week, WSKQ-FM in New York, known as "La Mega 97.9," celebrated a rare victory in the ratings. The station, which mixes tropical Latin music with some high-energy pop, beat English-language mainstays like Z100 (WHTZ, 100.3 FM) and Lite FM (WLTW, 106.7 FM) for the No. 1 share position among two key demographic groups: adults aged 18 to 34, and 18 to 49. In the 25-to-54 ranking, La Mega was second to Lite FM by just a tenth of a share. The overall audience for WSKQ is dwarfed by those of mainstream English-language stations in the greater New York metropolitan market, which is 23 percent Hispanic, according to the tracking company Arbitron. In Arbitron's July ratings, La Mega averaged almost 2.6 million listeners a week, putting it at No. 10; Lite FM, owned by Clear Channel Communications, was No. 1 with 5.2 million. But younger demographics are those most prized by advertisers, and La Mega, which is owned by Spanish Broadcasting System, won its high share rating - a measurement of a station's command of overall listening time - because its listeners keep the station on for longer periods of time than the listeners on other stations. Aided by high "time spent listening" statistics, La Mega's share among the 18-to-34 group has nearly doubled since January, going to 9.2, from 4.7. To accomplish this, the station plays music beyond the traditional salsa and merengue, with Dominican bachata and the hip-hop-influenced rhythms of reggaeton. On its midday show, the host Alex Sensation mixes pieces of Latin, electronic and pop hits in quick succession like a club D.J., singing along and calling out his various social media accounts. "We have connected to the audience in an emotional way," said Jesus Salas, the executive vice president for programming at Spanish Broadcasting System, or SBS, which operates 20 stations in the United States. Like other radio stations - in any language - La Mega has used its on-air personalities and local presence to stand out in the age of Pandora and YouTube. Bill Tanner, a radio consultant and former SBS executive, said that La Mega also benefited from the fact that the Hispanic audience had kept a much closer connection to radio than other groups. "Hispanics listen to the radio much more than English-language listeners do," he said. If they are longer listeners, as Hispanics are, and if the station does a nice job with programming, which WSKQ does, then you have the formula for success. Last year, WSKQ had $22.4 million in advertising revenue, making it No. 11 in the market, according to the media research firm BIA/Kelsey. Minority stations have often complained their ad rates are lower than those for white-owned stations with lower ratings, but Mark Fratrik, BIA/Kelsey's chief economist, said that was slowly changing. "As the Hispanic population grows, advertisers have increasingly recognized how important it is to reach those markets," he said.