UNEASINESS OVER THE EASY LISTENING AT KBIG

As another mellifluous voice at “easy listening” KBIG-FM, Bill Ratner was one of the most-listened-to disc jockeys in town, soothing tens of thousands of KBIG aficionados.

Nowadays, though, he journeys to the Los Angeles Children’s Museum with the Dream City Puppets in hand to entertain a handful of pre-pubescents.

Ratner, 38, isn’t complaining about anonymity. He says he’s finally doing what he wants: to be creative, independent--and well paid.

Adding up the puppets and a busy schedule of free-lance announcing, Ratner now earns, by his estimate, triple his $43,000 KBIG salary. What’s equally rewarding to him, in quitting KBIG a few months ago, is that he’s escaped what he calls the oppressive corporate politics that seize broadcasting, and in particular, he says, the Mormon church-owned KBIG.

As Ratner tells it, KBIG-FM (104.3) operates in the shadow of the church. It’s quite a shadow too: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims 4 million members in the United States. Its Bonneville International Corp.--the owner of KBIG--is the largest church-owned broadcasting company in the country, operating 12 radio and two TV stations and grossing more than $100 million annually. Finally, the church is regarded as a formidably conservative political force.

The question: Is a happy marriage possible between church morality and a successful broadcasting enterprise?

KBIG is consistently ranked in the Top 10 in the Arbitron ratings, but its audience, though huge, is considered elderly in radio terms. KBIG draws an enormous share of the mid-life-crisis group--those 35 or older. As Bonneville senior vice president and former KBIG President Jack Adamson once quipped: “Whenever the hearse drives by, you know you’ve lost another listener.”

As any advertiser will tell you, old money isn’t as desirable as young money.

Accordingly, five years ago KBIG began to let down its hair in an attempt to attract younger, more ambulatory listeners.

Lawrence Welk, say hello to Al Jarreau.

KBIG abandoned its lush vocal covers, introduced some mainstream pop performers, added some news features and--most noticeably--launched the drive-time team of “Phil and Bill.” In “Phil and Bill” (Phil Reed and Bill Ratner), KBIG added humor to a mostly humorless format: Jokes replaced those golf-tournament-sounding whispers. The idea was novel to easy-listening radio; morning comedy is mostly a Top 40 concept.

“Phil and Bill” proved a hit. Behind the hit, though, were a few misses, Ratner says.

For comedy is sometimes enhanced--as Rick Dees, Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor can testify--by an occasional off-color remark. According to Ratner, at KBIG off-color is off-limits.

“We had to stay away from religion clearly, and from sex and from alcohol jokes,” Ratner says. “I would wait until (KBIG programming director Rob) Edwards was out of town, which was every other week, and I would literally plan around that. I would try not to take a smirky, wise-ass adolescent approach . . . but obviously there is humor to be found in--and points to be made about--alcohol, drug abuse, human relations, divorce. So although I was warned away from those sorts of things, I did start dealing with those subjects in a humorous but sincere manner. And the feedback from listeners was good.

“But whenever I would mention Eastern religion or meditation fads or far-out cults--in any way--I would be spoken to,” he says. “Whenever I would talk about male-female relations, either about dating between older couples, or something else, I would be gently warned away: ‘Next time avoid that.’ I was warned away from talking about the various and sundry Catholic saints. My darker thoughts would lie in wait until the program director was out of town.

“I was told to ask permission, to clear bits. I never did. It’s absurd. So I stopped being a good little boy and stopped asking permission. And they saw the ratings going up, so they loosened the grip.

“We didn’t constantly have a choke chain around our neck. At the same time we were told to be careful, we were also told that we had a new job for the station: to be creative, to be fun, to be personalities, to be ourselves.”

As KBIG General Manager Kari Winston tells it, the station’s laid-back listeners aren’t accustomed--or receptive--to risque comedy. Neither, Ratner adds, is the Mormon church.

Recognized Mormon views include a rejection of smoking, drinking, premarital sex, homosexuality and the equal rights amendment. The church also has a history of objecting to rock ‘n’ roll. Bonneville International Corp. radio stations are dominated by unlikely-to-offend, beautiful-music formats, although a Bonneville station in Dallas has recently abandoned beautiful music in favor of Top 40.

In any case, the church’s media, according to a Mormon church document reported in the Columbia Journalism Review, should communicate “the moral standards and vital ideals so essential in a wholesome society--ones that help strengthen the family and home.”

Obviously, in the church’s eyes and ears, a joke about, say, an extramarital affair doesn’t pass that criterion.

The influence of the Mormon church on KBIG programming is pronounced--or it’s non-existent. It depends on who you talk to.

(What’s not in contention is that KBIG carries what is known as a sideband, or sub-channel, a separate broadcasting frequency reserved for propagation of the faith. The church-generated sideband can be heard only by listeners who have obtained a special decoder. The sideband is carried on other Bonneville-owned radio stations, including KOIT-FM in San Francisco. “We have to get the message to our people,” says Mormon Church press spokesman Jerry Cahill.)

“I was always reminded,” Ratner says, “of the fact that 365,000 Los Angeles Mormons considered us their radio station and that ‘we should keep that in mind.’

“To me,” Ratner concludes, “there was a very centralized feel--both spiritual and corporate--at the station.”

General manager Winston believes Ratner grossly overstates the influence of the church. Winston, who came to KBIG less than two months ago, has been with Bonneville 14 years.

“From my vantage point--and I’m not Mormon--the corporate politics that Bonneville establishes are basically established once they have surveyed other major broadcasting corporations,” she says.

“We are more keyed into what kind of response we got over the phone and in the mail from listeners. In an easy-listening format, you don’t have latitude. We’re not going to be doing Zoo shtick (a hard-boiled drive-time concept popular at hard-rocking KMET-FM) on this kind of a format. I interpret the corporate policies and the overall thrust of the ownership as providing quality entertainment.”

Arch L. Madsen, the retired president and chief executive officer of Bonneville, put it this way a few years ago: “Our goal is to inform and entertain our listeners and viewers, not to offend their sensibilities.”

While at Bonneville, Madsen said that the company was “in business to make a profit, not evangelize.” But Madsen, a Mormon bishop, also defined broadcasting as a key tool for “building the kingdom.”

Church philosophy and broadcasting judgment have clashed before: The Bonneville-owned TV outlet in Salt Lake City, KSL-TV, encountered at least one reported incident in which the church had become involved with news and programming decisions. The case hinged on a documentary entitled “Mormon Women in Depression,” pulled from the schedule at the last minute by Madsen.

Some church members said they felt that the documentary portrayed the Mormons negatively.

Phil Reed, Ratner’s partner on “Phil and Bill,” says “the relationship between the station and the church cannot be denied,” that Ratner and the church “just drew lines in different places.”

Reed, who continues his role as straight man but with a new partner, Byron Paul, is quick to point out that some of Ratner’s material was clearly inappropriate for the format. “Listeners in the (KBIG audience) wouldn’t find some things amusing.”

Reed, who speaks fondly of Ratner, says “it seemed like Bill got warned a lot” about his on-air remarks. “Rob (Edwards) would explicitly warn Bill away from some things. . . . Sometimes the forces were not on Bill’s side.”

But then there were the times, Reed says, when neither he nor Ratner could clear their throats without upsetting some hypersensitive listener. “Not a week goes by,” Reed says, “where we didn’t have two outraged phone calls.”

Paul is a drive-time veteran who last worked at KFI. “I’m doing the same kind of humor at KBIG that I did at KFI,” he says, adding that he has yet to be reprimanded since coming to KBIG.

“I’ve never gone for flatulence jokes and I’ve never gone for sexual humor. They haven’t had to warn me because I don’t do those kind of things.”

Notes Reed: “Byron is a lot more cautious.”

We’ll soon see--when the summer Arbitron radio ratings are released later this month--if caution translates into higher ratings.

Ratner’s reason for leaving KBIG, he says, did not hinge on censorship. The decision lay somewhere between the church and the bank.

“After repeatedly asking for raises,” he says, “I was still not making a penny beyond scale.” Since Ratner was one of Los Angeles’ most popular announcers, he felt he should be paid like one.

When asking for raises, he says, he would be told that KBIG’s coffers were filled with “the church’s money” and that, consequently, the money had to be conserved.

According to Ratner, management was obstinate. “The argument that was put forth to me was, ‘How much do you think I make? How much do you think the chairman of the board of Bonneville makes?’

“And I said, ‘Frankly, I don’t care. I assume he’s comfortable and he dwells within the kingdom of God. I don’t. My interests are profane and vulgar.’

“I just wanted some sort of sign from corporate that they appreciated what I was doing,” Ratner continues. “I had to make a decision where my financial future was. And radio was not possible on what they were paying.”

Reed, Winston and Paul contend that the money at KBIG is outstanding, and their perception of Bonneville is favorable. Winston and Reed say they have never heard the phrase “It’s the church’s money.” Winston notes that turnover at KBIG is very low, an indication that most employees are content.

“The benefits and the pay are way up there,” Winston says. “Bonneville is an excellent company to work for.” Echoes Reed: “Bonneville has shown a real concern for individuals.”

Ratner didn’t see such concern, and abandoned the security of his weekly check for the ups and downs of free-lance work.

So how’s he doing? He can sleep in mornings whenever he wants as his savings multiply. Free-lance announcing, Ratner reports, is keeping himself and his checkbook occupied. He says he can now earn in one hour of free-lance announcing what he earned in two days at KBIG.

But don’t assume that Ratner no longer hurls a few choice comments at his audience. The title of his puppet show: “The Curse of the Gibberish.”