KSFO BLITZKRIEG IS CAUSE FOR ALARM

By Brad Kava, SJ Mercury News - Ear (column); Friday, January 6, 1995

AFTER a week of listening to the new "Hot Talk" KSFO-AM (560), I can only think of one thing to say: Sieg Heil!

I hate to joke about Nazis or to be so reactionary as to compare a bunch of blathering middle-age radio men to the most evil empire of our century -- but after five days of listening, that's the best comparison I can draw.

It's frightening, really.

Here's a sample of some of the stimulating "ideas" I heard from hosts on the new station:

(box) Spencer Hughes (3-6 p.m. Sundays) says he'd like to ship all criminals to an island surrounded by sharks and hungry rabid dogs and throw down some bread from a helicopter. (Hughes uses another name, Sven Silva, when he does movie reviews on KGO-AM.)

(box) Michael Savage (3-6 p.m. weekdays) argues you shouldn't hire the handicapped when, clearly, people with all their faculties can do a better job. (box) Savage, as if to illustrate how misguided such liberal organizations can be, says Bakersfield must be a great place to live because the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Organization for Women went out of business there.

(box) Tom Kamb (9-noon weekdays) insists an armed militia should harass and hurt violent criminals after they've served their prison sentences and have been released.

(box) Denver's syndicated Ken Hamblin (noon-3 p.m. weekdays) calls the troubled sections of our cities "dark town," unfazed by the implications to people of color. He believes he can say such things with impunity because he is black. Like Rush Limbaugh, he also talks about "feminazis."

And like Rush, who favors the Pretenders, Hamblin plays background music at odds with his ultra-conservative viewpoint. Jimi Hendrix, who died of a drug overdose, must mosh in his grave when Hamblin plays his anti-war "Machine Gun" after a commercial.

(box) On his first day at the station, J. Paul Emerson (5-9 a.m. weekdays) recited a prayer, said the Pledge of Allegiance and passed out American flags. The bearded, white-haired man, who looks like Kriss Kringle, seems to have tamed his act from the one that got him fired last month from KFRC-AM.

San Jose reader Dick Jokinen suggested this is "loose cannon radio." Indeed. With us or against us.

I don't like getting into an us-vs.-them mentality because that is the favorite tack of the new KSFO hosts. They have drawn the line in the sand; you either agree with their reactionary conservatism or heaven help you!

What I've gleaned from this lineup of Limbaugh imitators is that liberals are always bad; you can be a patriot and still launch personal smear attacks on your commander-in-chief, as long as he is a Democrat; crime and murder are bad, except when they're aimed at abortion doctors; the only people with reason are those who agree with neo-Republican doctrine.

Somehow, I thought we'd grown past McCarthyism. Apparently not.

After I thought I'd seen local radio stoop to every possible low, KGO-AM president Mickey Luckoff and program director Jack Swanson have brought us a new one. (Both stations are part of the same company.)

These two bandwagon-jumpers have taken a progressive station that really spoke to the diversity of the Bay Area -- the only station to feature women and minorities in decent time slots -- and replaced it with a bunch of reactionary ranters no different from all the other ranters piling up radio ratings across the country.

(In his tenure with KING-AM in Seattle, Swanson looked on while KVI-AM, a competitive all-conservative station that also used the tag "Hot Talk," become the top-rated news-talk station. He never could come near catching it; his station there had a liberal slant.)

Losing respect

Up to this point, I've had great respect for Luckoff. You have to admire someone who has run the top-rated Bay Area station, KGO-AM, for a record- setting 16 years.

Now it seems that Luckoff, who had Rush Limbaugh on weekends four years ago but let him take his daily show to competitor KNBR-AM (680), is trying to make up for that in a big way.

Luckoff gave the previous KSFO format, started in August, only five months before jumping on the ultra-conservative bandwagon. The older format seemed to be doomed from the minute Swanson replaced former operations manager Ken Beck in October. On-air personalities said Swanson never bothered to talk to them or pay to promote their efforts.

The truly sad thing is that the old KSFO spoke more to the Bay Area, a region I would argue is served more by moderate political opinions and intelligent, even-keeled discussions, than ranting diatribes.

I want information from talk radio, not jargon or knee-jerk reactionary piddle.

Turn it off

You can ignore this new programming because it will probably change to something else before long.

But if you are really ambitious, you can write advertisers and tell them the station doesn't speak to you or your community.

Or write Mickey Luckoff at KGO-AM, 900 Front St., San Francisco, Calif. 94111.

For once, I'm going to take my own advice.

OTHER NOTES: In response to listener requests, KNEW-AM (910) will bring back Tom Benner's morning show starting Jan. 16. It will run 5-9 a.m.

Catch Pearl Jam live on KOME-FM (98.5) at 7 p.m. Sunday.

Still no word on Ronn Owens. I'm told a contract is close to being signed, but it hasn't happened yet. Keep checking every morning. That's what I do.

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