As printed on the San Jose Mercury News.

Posted on Wed, Oct. 06, 2004

Big-band fans lament loss of station

By Brad Kava

Mercury News


When the Bay Area got its first commercial liberal talk-radio station
last week on 960-AM it angered more than just political conservatives.

Thousands of listeners in San Jose and San Francisco -- many senior
citizens and some younger fans -- who listened to big-band music and
standards by the likes of Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank
Sinatra, said they were abandoned when KABL-AM, the only commercial
station playing that format, left the area. KABL has had the format
since 1997.

``We had KABL on every single day,'' said Eleanor Miller, in her 70s,
of Sunnyvale. ``When my husband was ill and the music was playing,
he'd be singing or humming. We weren't just big-band dancers. It was
all the music from the 1950s and 1960s and rock 'n' roll. They did all
that on KABL.''

Clear Channel Communications, the San Antonio company that owns 10
stations in the Bay Area, moved KABL music and its personalities,
including popular morning host Jim Lange, to 92.1 FM in Walnut Creek.
That signal can't be picked up in San Francisco or the San Jose area.

Clear Channel executives say they are looking for other signals on
which to simulcast the programming, but so far have signed a deal only
with KION-AM (1460), which will broadcast in Salinas and Monterey,
starting in the middle or end of next week.

``We didn't abandon the format or the listeners,'' said Ed Krampf, the
Clear Channel vice president who oversees stations from Fresno to
Anchorage, Alaska. ``We didn't put the deejays out of work. I think we
are keeping the format alive. It's just not as broad as it was.''

But that's not good enough for many longtime listeners, including
Audrey Humburg, 88, of Campbell.

``Why is it that something of great interest to senior citizens can
merely be cast aside,'' she asked in typewritten letter.

Jack Stone, a World War II veteran from Mountain View, agreed: ``I
have enjoyed KABL for years. I am really lost without it.''

Added Donald Fitzpatrick, 69, of San Jose: ``I welcome the addition to
the airwaves of a liberal talk radio network, but not at the expense
of KABL, the only music station of its kind in this area.''

Krampf, 51, said the problem lies in advertisers not caring about
listeners his age and older.

``I think it's unfair now that I'm in that demographic, too,'' he
said. ``They think that once you reach a certain age, you are already
locked into the products you buy, and they don't think you use cell
phones or buy computers. They don't realize you buy stuff for your
grandkids or you have more income than you did when you were 30.''

It's been a common theme in commercial radio for decades. Advertisers
pay the most for listeners in the 25- to 54-year-old age group.

In 1993, the same nostalgia format was dropped from then-KFRC-AM
(610), even though it was fourth among listeners in the Bay Area.

KABL hasn't been as successful. In the last ratings period, the
station was ranked No. 33 for Bay Area listeners 25 to 54 years old,
the bottom third of the market. It was 17th for listeners over 12 in
the Bay Area, with about 210,000 people checking it out in the course
of a week. It was 25th of 38 stations tracked for all listeners over
12 in San Jose.

Worse than the ratings is the weight advertisers give to stations by
the age of the listeners, called ``power ratios,'' a formula that
allows stations with younger listeners to earn more.

A rock station with a million listeners can bill advertisers as if it
had 1.25 million, because of the perceived buying strength of its
audience, said Krampf, who has spent years trying to sell the
nostalgia format.

A sports station with the same number of listeners, or even a much
smaller number, would be able to bill for 2 million listeners because
of the perceived buying power of young men.

A nostalgia format would be able to bill only half the value of its
million listeners.

``We could never make a profit with that format,'' said San Jose
broadcaster Bob Kieve, 82, whose KLIV-AM (1590) tried big band
programming in the 1980s. ``I've never been able to understand it.
People over 50 have disposable income because their kids are grown.''

The nostalgia format is stronger on the Internet and satellite radio,
but not everyone has a computer, says Lange, KABL's morning host.

``A lot of my listeners haven't thought of getting a computer,'' he
said.

Krampf said he hopes a South Bay broadcaster would will take a risk on
the format and its faithful listeners.

Meanwhile, the company is expecting big things from the ``Air
America'' liberal talk network on newly formed KQKE-AM (960), which
replaced KABL.

``If you have an opportunity to bring liberal talk to the most liberal
city in America,'' Krampf said, ``you have to go for it.''


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Contact Brad Kava at (408) 920-5040. Fax (408)
271-3786.