Ratings Boost Is Goal of New KWIZ Owners

Two Los Angeles businessmen who last week bought KWIZ, Orange County’s oldest radio station, say they will meet with station managers and employees during the next three months in an effort to combat declining ratings.

Lenard Liberman purchased the 61-year-old, 5,000-watt station in Santa Ana with his father, Jose Liberman, for $6.25 million. They will take over operations in February, pending Federal Communications Commission approval of the sale.

Lenard Liberman said the first priority is to get KWIZ back to where it was about three years ago, when it was playing to about 9,000 listeners at any given time, according to Arbitron, the national rating service.

Since then, its ratings have dropped by more than a third.

Liberman said KWIZ (1480 AM, 96.7 FM) probably will keep its “adult contemporary” music format, a soft rock mix designed to appeal primarily to 25- to 54-year-old women.

He said he doesn’t know if the current staff will be changed.

The $6.25-million sale price was characterized as “somewhat low” by Jerry Del Colliano, a spokesman for Inside Radio, a weekly radio management newsletter based in New Jersey.

Liberman noted that he and his father have owned Spanish-speaking radio stations and that this is their first venture into the English-speaking market.