MEDIA : Operator Ousted by Station Fights Back in His Paper

Businessman Willie Morrow is continuing his efforts to turn the black community against XHRM-FM (92.5), the station he operated for 10 years before its Mexican owners dumped him last October after a series of disagreements.

“92.5 falls after racial remarks” proclaims the headline of the April 19 issue of San Diego Monitor News, the free tabloid published by Morrow. “Boycott brings station to its knees.”

Inside, another headline proclaimed “92.5 is dead!!”

The oft-referred-to “racial remarks” were made by station owner Luis Rivas Kaloyan, who simply said the station wanted to expand its audience beyond the black community, which makes up only about 7% of the San Diego population. When he took over the station, Kaloyan switched to a “power” music format, which further alienated members of the black community.

The articles in the Monitor, which refer to Morrow as the “former owner” of the station (he only operated it for the Mexican owners), repeat charges that Kaloyan “offended” the black community and hurt it by, among other things, taking a Sunday gospel show off the air.

The gospel show was dropped because the Mexican government forbids religious programming, Kaloyan said. He said his only goal was to expand the station’s audience. Thus far his efforts have been unsuccessful.

In the Arbitron ratings for the winter quarter released last week, XHRM fell from a 3.3 rating share to a 1.3, and Kaloyan admits he made a mistake changing the format so drastically. Talk of a boycott had an effect on the station, Kaloyan acknowledged, in the sense that it made it difficult for listeners to identify the station’s new identity.

“We had to make a point to the (advertising) agencies that we were definitely making a change, but we went at it wrong,” Kaloyan said. “Even though Willie Morrow did wrong administratively, we can’t displease our listeners.”

With newly hired general manager Lee Mirabal at the helm, the station has started playing more “urban” music in an attempt to woo back some of the black and Hispanic listeners.

Morrow was not available for comment Friday, but in an “exclusive” interview with the Monitor, he made his position clear.

“The station will never be successful no matter who operates it,” he is quoted as saying. “Somebody has to come back to me and make it right. I left the vengeance to the Lord, and he let me know that he will repay every man accordingly.”

When KNSD-TV’s (Channel 39) Neil Derrough and the general managers of several other NBC affiliates sit down for dinner with NBC head honcho Bob Wright in a few days, football will be a primary topic of discussion.

Specifically, the executives will want Wright to explain NBC’s surprise announcement that it might ask affiliates to help with the $752 million it agreed to pay for the rights to broadcast American Football Conference games for four years.

Shortly after signing the deal, NBC announced it expected ad revenues to fall a mere $130 million short of the $752 million it is paying for the games.

“Obviously we don’t like it,” Derrough said.

Perhaps less radical than some of his compatriots, Derrough is willing to acknowledge that it might be time to change the relationship between the network and its affiliates, that it might be appropriate for the affiliates to help with the network’s financial load.

But NBC, Derrough said, didn’t inform most affiliates about the football deal until the last day of negotiations.

“If anything, there is going to be enormous resentment about it,” Derrough said. “The last day doesn’t qualify as reasonable consideration.”

The matter will likely come to a head in June, when NBC is scheduled to stage its annual affiliates meeting.

XHTZ (Z90) morning disc jockey Bryan Jones, aware the station was going to drop rock ‘n’ roll the next day, last Monday did something he’s always wanted to do. He spent the morning playing his favorite music. Z90 listeners got a taste of the Sex Pistols and several tracks from the new Public Enemy album.

“It was the greatest show I’ve ever played in my life,” Jones said.

Some Z90 listeners thought Jones was fired because he wasn’t on the air the rest of the week. But Jones, who also wondered about his future, was named interim operations manager until the arrival this week of new program director Rick Thomas.

Jones said he “pulled the plug” on all the disc jockeys to allow the new program director a chance to make decisions about style and content. He even had the request line unplugged for several hours.

“I didn’t want (the disc jockeys) to have to take calls from white, 32-year-old males who wanted to listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd,” he said. “I’m not sure what direction we want until the new program director gets here. There’s no need to back ourselves into a corner.”

Jones said he couldn’t argue with the decision to change formats, especially considering Z90’s dismal .8 rating share.

“I don’t think San Diego needs another hippy rock station,” he said.

The Federal Communications Commission approved the sale of KUSI-TV (Channel 51) to Michael McKinnon last week, a major step toward McKinnon assuming control of the station. There are still several procedural steps before the sale is finalized, but McKinnon’s promise to form a news department has started a feeding frenzy of television journalists looking to hook up with the station.

It also has sparked a flood of rumors. One has former ABC News executive and KGO-TV (San Francisco) news director Pete Jacobus hired to head the KUSI news operation. McKinnon compatriot Al Ittleson, also a veteran of ABC News, said Jacobus has been hired as a consultant for McKinnon’s stations in Texas, and will probably be involved at Channel 51 in some way.

A second rumor has former New York anchorman Roger Grimsby, another ABC alum, heading to San Diego to head the new news team. Ittleson said plans are far from finalized.

He and Grimsby have discussed San Diego “casually,” he said. “It may be possible.”

Channel 51 hopes to have a 10 p.m. newscast on the air by early August.

Two months after joining Fox affiliate KTTV (Channel 11) in Los Angeles, former KNSD-TV (Channel 39) reporter Bill Ritter has a new gig. He’s going to be an investigative reporter for Fox Entertainment News. He will be developing business stories on the entertainment beat, he insists, not covering Madonna’s love life. Fox is planning a national half-hour weekly entertainment show. . . .

Ken Cinema patrons attending Tuesday night’s screening of “Roger and Me,” the acerbic documentary chronicling the devastating impacts of General Motors’ policies on the city of Flint, Mich., will be in for a surprise. Michael Moore, the creator of the film, will be on hand for an unannounced visit. He is scheduled to be in town visiting relatives, who contacted local Landmark Theaters manager Steve Russell.