WHAT'S NEW ON RADIO, CONSERVATIVELY SPEAKING

[Savage specific content in bold. I like this quote: In response to Savage's statement that "the right doesn't have a spokesman like Martin Luther King Jr." Brad says, "Probably because conservatives spend too much time listening to morons like Savage." -Ed.]

By Brad Kava, SJ Mercury News - Ear (column); Friday, July 5, 1996

GOOD NEWS/bad news over at Mickey Luckoff's KGO-AM and sister station KSFO-AM (stations another columnist calls "Mickey's Mouth Club").

The good news is that Gene Burns, the well-spoken, truly classy libertarian who has been used in a pinch-hitting role, will get a full-time daily slot from 2 to 4 p.m. on KGO. A 29-year radio veteran of New York's WOR and Boston's WRKO, he is the kind of raconteur who goes beyond the shallow name-calling and liberal-baiting that fill up most of KSFO's day. He makes it worth listening to talk radio.

Jim Eason, the right-wing North Carolinian whose audience seems to be made up of people who remember and still love Lawrence Welk, moves over to the same slot on not-so-hot talk station KSFO, beginning July 15. Interestingly, Eason also identifies himself as a libertarian. I think of him as more of a knee-jerk flag-waver than Burns ("Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels" - Samuel Johnson).

The bad news is that KSFO is keeping Michael Savage, a guy so bad and so malicious that he makes Bob Grant seem classy.

Savage inanities entertain

I'll confess that I listen to him because he makes my blood boil, and I like to know what the enemy is thinking. He's more interesting than much of the other dreck on during his 3-6 p.m. time slot (now 4-7 p.m.).
Savage, whom I've met briefly, seems to be a living example of the Napoleon complex. A guy who must have been bullied and beaten by grade-school peers, he gets revenge on his former tormentors by spilling vitriol with poor pronunciation.
I've recounted before one of his most egregious statements, calling Maya Angelou an "affirmative action" poet.
Recently I've heard these inanities:
(box) An MIT graduate called to correct Savage's pronunciation of the word "pedophile." The host launched into a tirade on the caller's school, calling it Molestors in Training. That's what passes for rational conversation on his show.
(box) Savage also took great pleasure in reporting Hilary Rodham Clinton's talks with a psychic, quoting biblical admonitions against such things. When someone reminded him that Nancy Reagan also consorted with mystical forces, he noted that Clinton's psychic was ugly and unkempt and the Reagans' at least looked good and was rich. Sheesh.
(box) He did a show asking people what they would do to the man convicted of the Polly Klaas murder, Richard Allen Davis. It sounded like a preschool playground conversation.
(box) He spoke of statistics linking breast cancer and abortion, at one point misrepresenting himself as Dr. Savage.

(box) One intelligent thing he said is that the right doesn't have a spokesman like Martin Luther King Jr. Probably because conservatives spend too much time listening to morons like Savage.

Deal may help KSFO ratings

Anyway, back to the main track. I spoke with KSFO/KGO program director Jack Swanson about the Eason/Burns deal and things at the area's most popular talk station, KGO. You regular readers know that both stations are now owned by Walt Disney - right?

The switch could be a huge ratings haul for KSFO, which has tripled from a microscopic 0.7 share (percentage) of listeners over age 12 to almost a 2.0 share in Swanson's 18 months at the helm.

Eason is the area's highest-rated personality during his 2-4 p.m. time slot, with a 6.4 share, well above No. 2, KOIT-FM with a 4.1 share. During that slot, KSFO (with Ken Hamblin and Savage) was drawing a 1.8 share.

Aiming for the top

Swanson figures half of Eason's listeners will follow him to the left on the dial, more than doubling KSFO's number. And Burns should attract other listeners and keep a share of Eason's old ones (those who refuse to reprogram their kitchen and bathroom radios, Swanson says).

If so, he could end up with the top two stations in afternoons. It's not a bad strategy, and I wouldn't be surprised if it works. One loyal Eason-ite I spoke with, Susan Lister of Campbell, who teaches translation of medical terms into Spanish, says she will be hard-pressed to decide what to do, because she likes both.

"I'll reset my radio to KSFO and switch between both for a while."

After losing Tom Kamb at night, Swanson has the flexibility to move Ken Hamblin into the evening and start Art Bell an hour earlier or hire a new local host. He's working on the equation now.

Vacation if strategy works

Swanson, who came here from Seattle to replace Ken Beck (who is now at competitor KPIX), says he'll take a vacation if his strategy works.

Swanson has some other reflections on running the show at KGO, which has been the Bay Area's top-rated station for the past 18 years, and its conservative sister.

"I have been committed to making KSFO a real station," he says. "I was looking for the best way to add fuel to the fire of KSFO's growth. Jim Eason is pumped and excited about it. He believes KSFO is on the way up.

"My biggest regret was hiring J. Paul Emerson. It was the biggest mistake of my career. Frankly, I was under time pressure. I wanted to launch this thing, and I had all the pieces, except a morning show. I heard Emerson's work and, buffered by his co-host, Gary Bryan, it didn't seem as extreme as it was."

But when Emerson began calling for the exile of AIDS patients because of what he saw as possible airborne transmission of the disease, that was the end, says Swanson.

"It was a no-win situation"

"He lasted 30 days a year and a half ago, and I still hear about it. It was a no-win situation."

Swanson says adding Lee Rodgers to the lineup shows a move toward more mainstream personalities, although he says he wouldn't call Savage mainstream.

"KSFO is trying to be a voice for people who are conservative," he adds. "We are saying you are not nuts for being conservative, even though you might feel that way living in the Bay Area."

Swanson is proud of a recent survey that shows KSFO to be the second-most-listened-to talk station among African-Americans, behind his own KGO and ahead of sports station KNBR and the politically liberal public station KQED.

"I don't see how people can call us racist," he says. "I wasn't surprised we did well with African-Americans. I think this is because the African-American community has historically been a conservative community, where churches have been a dominant force and still are, and African-American values have been conservative."

After hearing the likes of Savage denouncing Maya Angelou or "Black Avenger" Ken Hamblin questioning whether black graduates deserved their degrees, I would argue that the ratings may be the result of people wanting to understand their enemy.

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