If you only speak English, you won't understand the music or on=-air personalities on the top radio station in Dallas. That's because KESS-FM has a format devoted to Mexican music.

A Spanish-language radio station beat its English-language competitors for the first time in the Dallas-Fort Worth market to gain the No. 1 spot among listeners.

Playing Mexican regional music, KESS-FM outranked urban contemporary KKDA-FM in the most recent Arbitron spring ratings. Another Spanish-language station, KLNO-FM (94.1), rounded out the top five in the DFW listener survey, which was conducted from March 31 to June 22.

"It's not a fluke. It's only going to get better," said Betina Lewin, director of Hispanic marketing at Spanish Broadcasting System in New York.

Spanish-language radio stations have regularly reached the top five in New York, Los Angeles and Miami.

In the Houston-Galveston market, Mexican regional station KLTN-FM dropped to the fourth spot after being second in the two previous listener surveys.

El Paso's KBNA-FM was No. 1 in the Arbitron winter survey with its Spanish contemporary format.

And KESS-FM's owner, Univision Communications Inc., has already made history in U.S. broadcasting. Its television network gained the top spot in prime-time viewing among the coveted 18- to 34-year-old demographic during the final week of June, according to Nielsen Media Research.

I'm not surprised by this development -- here in the Houston area, there are already more Spanish music stations than there are country music stations.