MEDIA / KEVIN BRASS : Radio Turns Advertising Dial to San Diego Buses

It seems unusual, that of all the businesses in San Diego, buses are particularly attractive as radio station advertising vehicles. Radio stations dominate local bus advertising, evidenced by the ads on San Diego Transit buses.

“Radio stations are 50% of my business,” said Jim Cox, vice president of sales for Michael Allen Associates, which handles advertising for San Diego Transit.

Buses have several attributes which make them appealing to radio stations. For one, barring unforeseen troubles, buses are outdoors, easily seen by people in cars and at the beach or parks. Most people listen to car radios. A station may not have the time or space to develop its image in a bus ad, but the ads provide an opportunity to get the stations call letters in front of people.

“Transit is not a medium to make a point,” KFMB promotions director Joan Hiser said. “It’s just call-letter reinforcement.”

All radio stations, from the elevator music of KJQY-FM (103.7)

to the hard rock of KGB-FM (101.5), target listeners in their cars. It doesn’t take a media genius to figure out that people see a lot of buses while they’re out in their cars.

“What is happening in San Diego is a tremendous increase in the time people spend in their automobiles,” KYXY-FM (96.5) general manager Jim Price said.

For smaller stations like KYXY, buses can represent a good chunk of their advertising budget.

“It’s the most affordable medium in town for the exposure you get,” Cox boasted.

The stations simply look at the bus ads as inexpensive, compared to other mediums. Cox said a large bus ad can cost between $88 and $108 per bus a month.

“Outdoor billboards are more expensive and I can’t get the quantity,” said Hiser of KFMB. “I can get on a lot of buses and be downtown, plus I can get the commuters.”

Advertisers seek to dominate or at least saturate a medium, Price said. Most of the smaller stations can’t afford to produce a television commercial, let alone saturate television.

“I have to spend $50,000 for a good commercial,” Price said. “I’m able to afford buses enough to dominate.”

Not all radio stations use buses. KCBQ (Eagle 105) marketing and promotions director Leslie O’Neal said she is considering using buses in the future, but recently opted instead for billboards. For one thing, she worries about the subliminal effect should a bus inadvertently cut off a commuter. She worries the driver would look up and see her station’s call letters.

In addition, “Buses go to bed at night,” O’Neal said. “If I’m going to spend money on advertising I want it to be available at night.”

When KCBQ (Eagle 105) afternoon disc jockey Bill Moffitt received a collect call from James Brown, he thought it was a joke, so he refused to accept the charges. As it turned out, it was the James Brown, currently serving a jail term for various bizarre transgressions. Eagle 105 had been trying to arrange a phone interview with Brown for several days. Ultimately, the station did get an interview when John Forsythe called the singer’s music company and Brown happened to be on another line. The next day Forsythe played a joke on Moffitt, calling him on the air to ask if he would accept a collect call from James Brown. Moffitt hung up.

KGTV (Channel 10) has moved “A Current Affair,” infamous for its in-depth exposes on women’s lingerie, into the 7 p.m. weeknight time slot, replacing “People’s Court,” which was moved to 3 p.m. “Current Affair,” which was running on weekends on Channel 10, may be the quintessential show of the Sleaze TV Era. It’s a ratings monster. Officials at Channel 10 only had to look at the show’s performance at 7:30 p.m. on KTTV (Channel 11), the independent station out of Los Angeles, to see what an early evening ratings power the show could be.

“It probably is the granddaddy of tabloid TV,” Channel 10 program director Don Lundy said. “But we think there is a market for it. If people want to watch, we will provide it for them.”

Warner Brothers, syndicators of “People’s Court,” encouraged Channel 10 to switch its show to 3 p.m., Lundy said. Channel 10 was one of the last stations in the country still showing “People’s Court,” the granddaddy of the TV Trial Era, at night.

NBC-TV has signed a new two-year contract extension with KNSD-TV, squelching rumors that the top-rated network was looking to switch to KFMB-TV (Channel 8). The announcement was made by the president of NBC Television, Pierson Mapes, who was hunkered down in La Costa last week with network executives. . . . XETV (Channel 6) has been sending out copies of its new show “Cops” to San Diego Police Chief Bob Burgreen and others to get their response to the show, the latest to bring real-life crime into the homes of Americans. . . . Channel 39’s “Third Thursday” will focus on abortion, 6:30 p.m., Thursday. . . .Channel 39 is moving Bernard Gonzales to the weekend anchor desk. He’ll team with Kim Devore. “I just wanted to strengthen our stable of anchors by developing new anchors,” Channel 39 News Director Nancy Bauer said. . . . Former Airwatch Traffic reporter Nina Reeba has joined KSDO-AM (1130) as associate producer.

Ernie Myers, dumped by KSDO in December after nine years with the station, is looking for work with the help of an agent in Los Angeles. He recently returned from a golf trip to Hawaii and he’s staying busy with free-lance work.

In a reversal of a two-year-old policy, the San Diego Sheriff’s Department is now giving reporters access to police reports. To the frustration of the local media, the Sheriff’s Department, in sharp contrast to other local law enforcement agencies, refused to make the “narrative” sections of reports available to the public, forcing reporters to rely on verbal reports from department representatives. A sheriff’s spokesperson told the Blade Tribune that the changes would bring the department’s policy “more in compliance with what was articulated in the government code,” but denied that the action was related to a recent lawsuit seeking information about sheriff’s operations and personnel filed by The Times or the threat of litigation from other papers over the legality of the old policy.