TALKRADIO FOUNDER HOBERMAN QUITS ABC RADIO

As KABC-AM (790) winds up its 25th anniversary year with a nostalgia contest and a daylong retrospective of 1960--the year it went all-talk--the architect who put the entire Talkradio concept together announces his resignation as ABC Radio president.

“I’m coming back home,” 63-year-old Ben Hoberman told The Times on Tuesday. “It will be effective with the consummation of the merger on Jan. 3.”

At 7:30 a.m. today, he is scheduled to speak via satellite to Ken Minyard and Bob Arthur about his resignation over the pair’s morning drivetime show on KABC. Though Hoberman declined to speculate on what Ken and Bob might ask him, the merger of Capital Cities Communications with American Broadcasting Cos. Inc. is certain to be among the topics.

Hoberman is only the latest, if one of the highest-ranking, ABC veterans to exit, pending the merger. While being lauded by Wall Street as the single biggest media mergers in U.S. history, the consolidation approved by stockholders last June has cost several hundred employees of both companies their jobs. It has also forced the sell-off of a number of radio and TV stations.

The radio network executive, who has been with ABC for 36 years, moved from Los Angeles in 1979 where he had been KABC-AM’s general manager since it became an all-talk station in 1960. For the last six years, he has lived in New York and run the network’s radio division, which controls ABC’s six specialized satellite radio networks, six AM stations and six FM stations, as well as such syndicated programs as Casey Kasem’s “American Top 40.”

Following the merger announcement last June, Hoberman temporarily teamed with ex-ABC-TV President Elton Rule and several other investors in an attempt to raise enough funds for a takeover of the entire ABC Radio Division. The Federal Communications Commission ruling allowing for waivers on the forced sell-off of some stations made their attempt moot, Hoberman told The Times. Hoberman refused to rule out the possibility of continuing to pursue that avenue.

“I have no specific plans,” he said. “I sit on several boards (of directors) which will keep me busy. I’ll be doing something, but I don’t know what yet.”

In Los Angeles, FCC cross-ownership rules forced Capital Cities to divest itself in August of KLAC-AM (570) and KZLA-FM (93.9). Malrite Communications bought the pair for $45 million.

ABC Radio obtained an 18-month FCC waiver last month so that its two Los Angeles stations--KABC-AM and KLOS-FM (95.5)--may remain with ABC/Cap Cities until as late as June, 1987.

Under FCC cross-ownership rules, group owners of radio and television properties may own an AM station and an FM station or a television station in the same market, but may not own a television station along with radio stations. ABC, which owns KABC-TV Channel 7, was able to circumvent the rule for many years because it owned all three--an AM, FM and television station--in Los Angeles before the FCC rule went into effect in the late 1960s.