THE SIGNAL IS CLEAR -- BOOST WOMEN IN RADIO

By Brad Kava, SJ Mercury News - Ear (column); Friday, November 6, 1998

"I'm beginning to think that women should be denied the vote. Their hormones rage; they are too emotional." -- KSFO Talk host Michael Savage, Nov. 3, 1998

"No one wants to hear women on the radio, except for a few dignitaries, such as Eleanor Roosevelt." -- 1940s article on radio

Pat Barrett doesn't have to listen to local radio's afternoon demagogue to know that things haven't changed much for women in 50 years.

She spent the last year, unsuccessfully, trying to place a female-oriented talk format on one of the low-rated AM signals. Now, like others shut out of a medium that's available only to a few big-money cats, she is looking to the Internet to be heard.

"It doesn't matter that I'm a female," says Barrett, 55, who sold an Atlanta ad agency and started an Oakland group called WOMEN (Women's Online Media and Education Network). "What matters is that there really is nothing available, no matter who you are."

Deregulation, which allowed big companies to scoop up hundreds of stations, has killed any chance for newcomers to buy in. The cost of a signal has jumped to 20 times what can be earned in a year. Big companies need big profits to pay off big debt. They aren't about to invest in an untried format.

They also have the ability to forge a monopolistic stranglehold on ad rates, making it impossible for anyone with only one signal to compete. Unlike, say, print, where anyone can buy a press, there are only a limited number of radio signals available.

Women and minorities have been frozen out.

Only 3 percent of radio and TV stations are owned by women, says Barrett. In a Radio, Inc. magazine list of the 40 most powerful people in the medium, only one was a woman, syndicated host Laura Schlessinger.

Ironically, says Barrett, studies show that women favor radio over any other medium, spending 85 percent of their time listening to it, compared with 15 percent spent with TV.

"Working women don't have time to sit in front of a television," says Barrett. "But there is a huge chasm in trying to reach these women and they are hungry to be reached."

Music radio caters to women, but there is little time devoted to ideas. Barrett was hoping to start a network to fill that void, but negotiations for an AM signal fell through.

Instead she's planning to start an Internet audio site next year, working toward the day when radio programming is available by satellite.

It's not a bad bet.

This market -- women and men -- is starved for good talk radio.

All the commercial talk radio in this market is owned by one company, Disney/ABC. One of its stations, KSFO-AM, has become one of the market's top stations, not so much because its sometimes maniacal hosts have a broad appeal, but because there is no other talk on the dial.

Barrett thinks technology will solve the problem, by expanding the range of voices available via satellite.

"It's important to our society to have a greater balance, with women's voices being heard. History will change when we can hear what we want, anytime and anywhere we want to hear it."

FOR WOMEN ONLY:

KYCY-FM (93.3) sponsors "Girls Night Out 8," a Nov. 18 concert at the Saddle Rack by country artist Travis Tritt. Men can come, I'm told, but are discouraged. Tickets are available through BASS for $20. They go on sale tomorrow.

Hole and Garbage headline KITS-FM's annual Holiday Concert, held Dec. 10 at San Jose's Event Center. Rancid, Cake, the Offspring, Soul Coughing and Everlast are also on the bill. Tickets for sale Sunday for $23.50 at BASS and the Event Center. Anyone can attend.

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