RIGHT OR WRONG, IT’S CARPENTER’S COUNTRY

‘I’m listening to things like ‘Jungle Love’ on KIIS and Dees has got the nerve to criticize? How can you compare that to a song like ‘You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma’?”

KLAC-AM (540) morning deejay Scott Carpenter sputtered into momentary tongue paralysis over the issue of country music as mental and musical cirrhosis.

The 39-year-old Maryland transplant’s ire--as well as that of hundreds of his listeners--erupted two weeks ago when KIIS-AM and FM morning drivetime star Rick Dees told The Times that country music is “the music of the underachiever. Let’s go out and drink and have cirrhosis. Be a moron and, you know, kick tail.”

Carpenter, who migrated to Los Angeles three months ago after tripling the morning drivetime ratings of a Baltimore country station in less than a year’s time, found his cause in Dees’ demeaning statement. Armed with such brainy credentials as membership in Mensa, the super IQ society, and a stint as guest host for Mutual Broadcasting’s premier talk-show host Larry King, Carpenter means to put much-maligned country music back on the map in Los Angeles and hopes to use the Dees backlash to do it.

He’s not brain damaged, he says, and neither are his listeners. Carpenter adds that he does some computer systems analysis consulting when he isn’t playing some Waylon Jennings for his allegedly addled audience.

He detests stations that play Prince and Christopher Cross “until you feel like throwing up” and he claims to admire Dolly Parton . . . for her mind.

“She’s one of the greatest song-writers in America,” Carpenter said. “Her lyrics aren’t about honky-tonks and booze.”

KIIS, Carpenter contends, is winning the lion’s share of the Los Angeles listening audience by default--because most stations either use no imagination or refuse to make the kind of promotional and programming commitment that KIIS general manager Wally Clark has made.

That will change, he said, even though “there is an image in Los Angeles of country being hick and there’s a Dees spouting off, reinforcing that.

“It’s just not a fair portrayal of people who enjoy this kind of music. I know Dees is under a great deal of pressure, but he’s wrong. Country music is America’s folk music. It’s an audio museum about the country and its people and those who listen are 180 degrees off his description.”

KLAC, which was purchased by Capital Cities Communications three months ago at the same time Carpenter was hired, will be giving KIIS a run for its money, Carpenter said.

But it will not do so by boozing, bungling and acting like a moron, he said.

Carpenter may take exception with the Dees/KIIS formula, but it’s tough to argue with the bottom line in a city where bucks and glory are all too often one and the same.

In what appears to be an industry first, Jim Duncan, the radio wizard of Kalamazoo, Mich., has come up with a statistical confirmation of all our worst . . . or best . . . fears concerning Los Angeles radio. Duncan, an ex-radio ad salesman who has made the cross-referencing of Arbitron statistics his life’s work, just published his first annual “Radio Market Guide” with the unsurprising conclusion that Los Angeles radio is the richest in the country and that KIIS is the richest station in Los Angeles.

New York still ranks No. 1 in total stations and audience served--something in excess of 8 million people.

But Los Angeles radio, with an audience of 7.6 million, brings in almost $20 million a year more in ad revenue than New York, according to Duncan. The five biggest radio markets in the United States, by Duncan’s figures, are:

--Los Angeles: $224 million

--New York: $208 million

--Chicago: $164 million

--San Francisco: $126 million

--Houston: $107 million

Three Los Angeles stations are represented among the 10 richest stations in terms of gross revenues, according to Duncan. In addition to KIIS, all-talk KABC-AM (79) is the third richest U.S. station with a gross of $20.7 million a year, and KFWB-AM (98) is the 10th, with annual revenues of $14.5 million.

And KIIS, the little radio station that could, is No. 1. The station built to cater to fun-loving overachievers with a taste for sexual innuendo, “Candid Phone” cruelty and lots of repetitious rock ‘n’ roll, finished 1984 with $29 million in billings, according to Duncan.

Not so many years ago, KIIS wasn’t even a gleam in Gannett’s broadcasting eye and the only rock ‘n’ roll game in town was something called “Boss Radio,” heard over KHJ-AM (93).

After 10 years of blitzing through dozens of on-air personalities and a half-dozen format changes, KHJ has been unable to resurrect those halcyon days of the early 1970s. Even the ubiquitous Mr. Dees couldn’t do it in 1980 during his short stint as KHJ’s morning deejay.

Boss Radio has fallen on hard times. Even KHJ’s recent attempt to gimmick itself out of the Arbitron Ratings cellar with its “Car Radio” approach to programming (traffic reports every 10 minutes between Top 40 music 24 hours a day) has failed to lift it within hog-calling distance of the top 20 stations in the competitive Los Angeles market.

But the good news is that a couple of the boss-est deejays are back on radio, even if it isn’t on KHJ.

The Real Don Steele, perhaps the loudest and most annoying afternoon drivetime personality to shout out his glory over a microphone, returns via KRLA-AM (1110) as of March 4. Steele, who dominated L.A. afternoon radio for almost 10 years, will again be doing a Monday through Friday program from 4 to 8 p.m.

That same day, over at KOST-FM (103.5), another Boss graduate takes the morning helm from 6 to 10 a.m. (Machine Gun) Kelly, (whose name is now shortened to M.G. Kelly, presumably to fit in with KOST’s “Soft Hits” format) has been occupying his time in recent years hosting a weekly Top 30 countdown for CBS Radio’s “youth network,” RadioRadio.

In the Boss days, however, he was as well known to Los Angeles audiences as Charlie Van Dyke and Billy Pearl.

Charlie Who? Billy Who? Well, they were Bossjocks too: radio stars as big as Rick Dees is today.

Rick Who?

MARATHON MEDIA: In his swan-song station promotion, KLOS-FM (95.5) program director Tommy Hadges is orchestrating a “Rock Relief for Africa Radiothon” next weekend to cash in on the charity publicity that has wed Ethiopian famine with pop music in recent months.

Beginning at 5 p.m. Friday and continuing for 46 hours, KLOS will host in-studio guests ranging from Mayor Tom Bradley to (Weird) Al Yankovic. A long list of pre-taped interviews and performances to be aired during the fund-raiser includes Glen Frey, Journey, Survivor, Bryan Adams and Joan Jett.

Hadges said the “Radiothon” was initially influenced by the group of British rock stars who released a Christmastime hit single under the name Band Aid with all proceeds earmarked for Ethiopian relief. American rock stars, ranging from Lionel Richie to Michael Jackson, similarly united last month to record a pop single, LP and video to benefit African famine victims.

KLOS will be soliciting donation pledges throughout the weekend over a special number: (213) 559-5770. It will be Hadges’ last official duty as the successful ABC-owned rock affiliate’s chief programmer. At the end of the month, he quits to fulfill every program director’s fantasy of independently programming his own stable of radio stations. . . .

Not to be outdone in the charity realm, KRTH-FM (101.1) sponsors a blood-a-thon March 2. The station will begin taking appointments from prospective donors today at (213) 937-5230. In addition to the usual Red Cross reward of punch and cookies, donors can expect to receive an “I GAVE . . . “ T-shirt in exchange for a pint of their platelets. . . .

Though it has nothing to do with charity, KPFK-FM (90.7) hosts its own marathon this weekend. The station climaxes Black History Month with an “Afrikan Mental Liberation Weekend” that also deals with Ethiopia, among other things. Beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday and ending midnight Sunday, KPFK listeners may count on hearing African views from Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the late Malcolm X and the late Martin Luther King Jr. A special treat airing just before midnight Saturday is the late reggae master Bob Marley in what KPFK producer Kwaku Lynn calls his “last concert on planet Earth.”