Radio Column March 17, 2006

Listening In

March 17, 2006

By Sandy Wells


K-Earth 101’s new PD mining for new gold in old veins


New ‘old’ songs are finding their way on to K-Earth 101 (KRTH-FM 101.1) these days. Jhani Kaye, the recently appointed program director of the CBS oldies outlet, is currently taking some small, short term risks in hopes of a big dividend in the long run.

“We’ve expanded the playlist,” said Kaye. “We examined our song scores. All songs on our station are run through panels of listeners who prefer oldies. They get to rate the songs in a research environment.”

As a result, says, Kaye, new additions have been popping up on the K-Earth 101 “Soundtrack of Southern California,” such Neil Sedaka’s “Laughter in the Rain,” Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock” and “Call Me” by Chris Montez.

The risk of adding songs that the previous programming shunned as too obscure or “low scoring” on the research is offset by the benefit of keeping oldies fans tuned in for longer periods of time, a benefit that is valued by advertisers. And what I always hear is how frustrated oldies fans have been with the excessive repetition of staples such as “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling” by the Righteous Brothers and “Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch” by the Four Tops.

“Generally, expanding the playlist takes the ratings down,” explained Kaye. “But that happens with more with contemporary music stations. With oldies, you have a limited universe. The oldies format is its own entity and you have to have an expanded playlist so you don’t burn out your core library.”

Kaye has taken some of the top scoring songs and stopped playing them so often to keep the station from sounding like it’s always playing ‘the same old song.’

“When you play the lower-scoring songs is when people say, ‘Oh yeah! Ooh!’ It screams variety when you catch listeners from left side, when you play songs they believe they haven’t heard for a long time.”

Kaye is also adding the long “album” versions of favorites, such as the Doors’ “Light My Fire” and “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” by Crosby, Stills and Nash.

Kaye hopes to grow the oldies brand name that K-Earth 101 has established. For starters, that means not tampering too much with the talent lineup.

“I like to listen to the lineup for a long time, get to know them before making any adjustments,” says the veteran programmer who guided soft rock adult contemporary KOST-FM 103.5 for more than two decades. Joshua Escandon – midday personality on KBIG-FM 104.3 until a year ago – is the only new hire so far.

The current personalities, which include Hollywood Hamilton and the K-Earth 101 Morning Crew, Jim Carson, Gary Bryan, “Shotgun Tom” Kelly and Christina Kelley have all been very supportive, says Kaye.

“They are a great team. They all want to win in the worst way.”

Kaye joined the K-Earth 101 team in January after winding up a stint as Clear Channel’s Director of AC Programming for LA, where he supervised both KBIG-FM and KOST-FM. He says he was enticed to fill the programming position vacated by Jay Coffey by the history of the station and its association with the legendary “Boss Radio” KHJ.

“In my radio career, I’d been a disc-jockey in Los Angeles. The one station I always wanted to be on in LA was KHJ. KHJ is gone but the great inheritor of the Bill Drake sound was K-Earth 101. I love the songs. Bill Drake is a great resource for us. I get to speak to him on the phone – talk about programming issues – he’s such a gentleman. It was a great time for me to have a new experience in LA radio and work for a property I respect and love.”

The sound of K-Earth is changing but also sounding more like its antecedent, the top 40 version of KHJ. In addition to finding some neglected oldies and adding more 70s hits, he has dusted off some of the old jingles and vocal imaging recorded by Bill Drake back in the 60s and 70s. That lends an air of authenticity to the station. Kaye is also tweaking the sound processing to make the music more “natural sounding” and, he hopes, entice people to stay tuned for longer periods of time.


Kitty Felde takes on reporting duties


Public radio KPCC-FM 89.3’s Kitty Felde wrapped up a five-year run as full-time host (plus four years as the Friday host of the same) of “Talk of the City” a couple of weeks ago.

“They took my radio show away from me for no reason that I can discern,” the still somewhat shell-shocked award-winning reporter told me this week. “I have no idea what happened. I was blindsided by it. There was no reason given other than they wanted to shake things up.”

Well, part of the shake up means Felde will soon be working out of KPCC’s downtown LA offices as a reporter. But the station, despite its tepid commitment to local long-form programming, has shown an admirable determination to cover Southern California news with a large and ambitious news organization.

Felde, who covered the O.J. trial for KCRW-FM 89.9 and has been in public radio for twenty year, is confident she’ll regain her footing.

“I have a way of talking to people, of making complicated issues sound interesting and showing how policy issues affect real people.”

Now that’s an attribute any news department worth its salt should be souring the four corners of the earth to find.