Former KROQ-FM Owner Is Buying 2 Other Stations

Kenneth J. Roberts, the former concert promoter who built KROQ-FM in Los Angeles into a rock radio giant before selling it for a then-record $45 million in 1986, has jumped back into the local broadcast scene with the acquisition of two small FM stations.

Roberts said Thursday that he has agreed to purchase KOCM-FM in Newport Beach and its sister station, KSRF-FM in Santa Monica, for $17.7 million.

The two stations, both broadcasting at the same frequency--103.1 megahertz--now are owned by companies controlled by businessman Steven Udvar-Hazy, broadcast executive Jack Siegal and attorney Leonard Weinberg, all of Los Angeles.

Roberts said the transfer of ownership should be completed by March 1 but depends on the Federal Communications Commission, which must approve the change of ownership application. That process normally takes 30 to 45 days.

Roberts has been in the market for a new Southland radio property since late 1988, when an agreement not to compete with KROQ expired.

He said the two small stations are potential challengers for a big slice of the Los Angeles radio audience, despite the fact that each is licensed for only 3,000 watts--compared to 50,000 watts of broadcast power for most of the top Los Angeles stations.

“I intend to make this just as competitive in the market as KROQ was,” he said, by adjusting the current easy-listening formats to attract a larger audience and by treating the two stations as one property. Each now carries separate programming.

Roberts declined to discuss his plans for format or personnel changes, but he said the Los Angeles audience seems to favor “urban contemporary and happy music. People want to dance.”

Roberts said he was attracted to the deal, proposed by Glendale media broker John McLaughlin, because so few Los Angeles radio properties are sold in any year and because, with the same frequency and overlapping broadcast ranges, the two stations “give me 70% of the (potential) audience of a (larger) station for about 30% of the cost.”

He said he intends to put “considerable” amounts of money into promotions and advertising to help boost ratings and establish a common identity for the stations--which by law must operate under separate call letters.

Roberts already has committed about $500,000 for new equipment, McLaughlin said. The broker said that KOCM, in Newport Beach, is the stronger of the two stations, with about 100,000 listeners. No figures were available for KSRF, he said.

Officials at the two stations declined comment Thursday.

Roberts is a former New York concert promoter who in 1974 gained a minority share of the year-old KROQ in payment for bringing a rock group, Sly and the Family Stone, to Los Angeles for a concert sponsored by the station.

He soon was named president of the station by his partners--none of whom had any radio or even music business experience--and after a near-bankruptcy that took the station off the air for two years, built it into one of the Los Angeles Basin’s major radio properties.

He sold the station in 1986 to its current owners, Infinity Broadcasting of New York, and set up shop in his 114-acre Mandeville Canyon ranch.