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KKZZ Changes Its Tunes; Switches Format to Talk Shows for Women

Posted on: Sunday, 12 March 2006, 15:00 CST

By Jim McLain, Ventura County Star, Calif.

Mar. 12--Looking to bolster its ratings and bulk up revenues, Ventura radio station KKZZ-AM 1590 is replacing its adult standards music programming with talk shows targeting women.

The switch from music evoking the big-band-era aimed at listeners well past 60 to shows on relationships, health, careers, consumer advocacy and even interpreting dreams began Feb. 28.

It probably won't be completed for more than a month because much of the programming is still being developed, said Chip Ehrhardt, executive vice president of Gold Coast Broadcasting LLC, which owns KKZZ and five other Ventura stations.

Now branded "The Connection," KKZZ is airing talk shows weekdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. to midnight, as well as for a few hours on Saturdays.

The 1940s-'70s music featured when KKZZ's moniker was "Music with Style" fills out the schedule temporarily, but some listeners aren't happy it will soon be gone. Ehrhardt acknowledged he's heard complaints.

"This was a hard decision because KKZZ has been playing adult standards for at least 15 years, since long before we bought the station," he said. "But radio is a business, an intensely competitive business. The audience for adult standards is aging. Whether it's right or wrong, advertisers want a younger audience. They want to target women aged 25 to 54 because they control most spending."

Though it still gets good ratings in Florida and other markets with large numbers of retirees, the adult standards format is declining nationally, said Tom Taylor, editor of Inside Radio, a daily industry newsletter.

Arbitron Inc., the radio ratings service, showed KKZZ's audience shrinking in its two most recent surveys. The latest, done last fall, showed the station with a 1.9 percent share of the Ventura County audience, totaling about 13,000 listeners weekly.

New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Santa Barbara no longer have stations airing adult standards, Taylor said. Last month, a station transmitting from Tijuana, dubbed "The Fabulous 690," dropped the music for Spanish-language talk. The station can be heard throughout Southern California.

Some 408 commercial radio stations nationwide were airing adult standards in 1991. The number peaked at 569 in 2001, Taylor said, but was down to about 390 last month. During that 15-year period, the number of commercial radio stations increased from about 10,200 to 10,750.

"Adult standards is a tough sell sometimes -- not for listeners, because the fans are passionate and ardent about their devotion to 'their' music," Taylor said, "but it's a tough sell with advertisers and agencies -- especially the big advertisers. Most of them are targeting the younger demographics, ages 18-49 or at least 25-54. Standards falls outside the golden 25-54 demo."

KKZZ is among a fairly small number of stations nationwide airing talk targeting female listeners full time, Taylor said.

Stations in Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Charlotte, N.C., and other markets recently adopted similar formats. They're trying to differentiate themselves from other stations in their respective markets.

"People have tried it in years past in a few places and it hasn't done particularly well, but I think what you're seeing now is the second wave of that," said Taylor. "ABC Radio Networks has a new women's talk programming division, so ABC thinks there's a niche. I think it's inevitable that talk would fragment."

Launched last fall, ABC's division is syndicating only one program, "The Satellite Sisters," a daily live chat among five sisters who live in three cities on two continents. The show, part of KKZZ's midday lineup, is aired on 90 stations on the weekends, but fewer than a dozen so far on weekdays, said Corny Koehl, ABC's director of women's programming. She said she believes there is a much bigger audience out there.

Airing shows on politics and sports intermixed with sexually explicit talk many mothers don't want their children to hear, talk radio draws big male audiences, but increasingly turns women off, Koehl said. A survey of 1,500 women commissioned by ABC indicated that many find that kind of format boring, argumentative, usually biased to one side of a story and focused too heavily on politics, she said.

"Programming that resonates with women is much more respectful," said Koehl. "The classic news/talk format out there is much more kind of the I'm right-you're wrong, black and white. Whereas we women communicate.

We have conversations. I want to call this format conversation radio."

KKZZ's lineup features a local morning show anchored by former disc jockey Lisa Osborn and newsman Paul Tranquillo.

On Friday, they were asking listeners to talk about their favorite Web sites, while earlier in the week Osborn asked for listeners' favorite places to visit. The rest of the schedule is syndicated.

It includes the "Satellite Sisters, 9 a.m.-noon, psychologist Dr. Joy Browne; noon-3 p.m., consumer advocate Clark Howard, 3 p.m.-6 p.m.; and sleep expert Charles McPhee, who interprets dreams and calls himself "The Dream Doctor," 9 p.m.-midnight. A local weekend program featuring motivational speaker Dr. Mitchell Perry of Ventura will soon move over from sister station KVTA-AM 1520, Ehrhardt said. Browne's program is also moving from that station.

Gold Coast Broadcasting management first considered airing female-oriented talk on KKZZ about a year ago, Ehrhardt said, but couldn't line up enough programming. They took a second look when ABC launched its women's programming unit in October. ABC expects to have more programs available soon.

"It came down to what's the best thing? What are the listeners out there lacking, what are they looking for?" said Ehrhardt. "Most AM talk stations are ¿ not really female friendly."

The change gives Gold Coast three talk stations. KVTA airs a traditional news/talk format, while KUNX-AM 1400 provides Spanish-language talk shows.

The company's other stations are KCAQ-FM 104.7 airing hip-hop music; KOCP-FM 95.9, classic rock; and KFYV-FM 105.5, hit music.

Koehl of ABC said their venture already has attracted advertisers such as the J.C. Penney Co., Yoplay yogurt and General Motors Corp.'s OnStar satellite-based driver navigation system. She said the female-friendly format also is gaining a fair number of male listeners looking for less strident fare.

"The primary differentiater here is tone. ¿ Little by little, stations like KKZZ are going to make the flip," Koehl said. "I see that kind of as the future, failing stations looking to differentiate themselves in the market. This is a tremendous way to go."

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To see more of the Ventura County Star, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.venturacountystar.com.

Copyright (c) 2006, Ventura County Star, Calif.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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ARB, DIS,

Source: Ventura County Star

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