COVER STORY : Off the Charts : With funnier deejays, aggressive promotion, better equipment and a surging Latino population, Spanish-language radio explodes

It’s radio quiz time.

Which of the following Southern California radio stations draws the most listeners?

* News-heavy KNX-AM.

* New-wave rocker KROQ-FM.

* Spanish-language station KLVE-FM.

If you guessed KNX or KROQ, you lose.

In fact, another Spanish-language station, KWKW-AM (1330), is also more popular than either KNX (1070) or KROQ (106.7). In the most recent Arbitron ratings for the Los Angeles-Orange County areas, KLVE (107.5) ranked seventh among more than 80 stations and KWKW ranked ninth. (KNX and KROQ tied for 10th.)

KTNQ-AM (1020), KLVE’s sister station, doesn’t fare quite so well, yet it has more listeners than KRTH-FM (101.1), KLSX-FM (97.1) or KODJ-FM (93.1). (So much for oldies.)

Though Spanish-language radio has been in existence in Los Angeles since the 1950s, it is now undergoing an unprecedented explosion.

“This is really a coming-of-age for Spanish-language radio,” said Jorge Jarrin , who broadcasts traffic reports for Spanish-language stations KSKQ-AM (1540) and KSKQ-FM (97.9), and for English-language KABC-AM (790).

KLVE, the top-rated Spanish language station, has 61,200 listeners in any given fifteen-minute period. The market’s No. 1 station, KOST-FM (103.5), has 90,400 listeners for the same interval, according to Arbitron ratings data.

The audience figures translate into big money. The seven Los Angeles-based Spanish stations generated an estimated $40 million in combined advertising revenue in 1990, according to Jim Duncan, an Indianapolis-based analyst who publishes an annual Radio Market Guide.

“The Spanish stations are all making money,” said radio analyst Allen Klein. “They have million-dollar months. They are big-time players now.”

In 1990, co-owned Spanish stations KTNQ-AM and KLVE-FM together generated $19 million in advertising revenue, making them the ninth highest in billing in the Los Angeles market, just behind KFWB-AM (980), Duncan said. Only five years earlier, the two stations had just $6 million in advertising revenue.

A combination of factors have propelled this growth: improved technical facilities and signals, more aggressive promotion and publicity campaigns, a widespread interest in the Spanish language and in Latino culture and, most of all, a huge surge in the Latino population.

Southern California’s Latino populace has undergone a dramatic jump in the last decade. The latest U.S. Census figures show 3.3 million Latinos living in Los Angeles County alone--up from 2 million in 1980 and now representing 38% of the county’s population.

“When you look at the projected figures over the next 20 years, Hispanics are the fastest-growing minority, so it’s boom time in Spanish-language media, particularly radio,” said Evelyn Fiero, public relations consultant for Spanish Research and Marketing Advertising Agency. (Fiero said that the company she represents, Centro Proteccion Legal, currently spends $1.6 million to advertise on local Spanish-language radio stations.)

“Three times as many people listen to Spanish radio today as they did five years ago because we’re three times as good as we used to be,” said Ken Wolt, general manager of both KTNQ and KLVE. “It used to be the records were scratchy and they played CDs that skipped. Now, competition is heating up, so we’ve gotten better. The music is better-produced, the contests are better, the deejays are funnier. I have a better technical facility than 99% of the stations in Los Angeles. The quality of the product is better. It’s not just another little Mexican radio station anymore. This is the big time.”

Despite the diverse makeup of the Latino population, the most successful of the Spanish-language stations cater primarily to the already large and constantly expanding Mexican-born and Mexican-American contingent.

“The dominant group among Hispanics continues to be Mexican,” said Jarrin. “Therefore, if you’re not going to play directly to their interests, then your numbers aren’t going to be as big.”

The strategy to reach the Mexican audience at KWKW starts with its self-imposed moniker, “La Mexicana.”

“Listeners feel ‘La Mexicana, that’s my station,’ ” said KWKW program director Alfredo Rodriguez. “The majority are immigrants who want to be kept informed on what’s going on. . . . That’s why we can’t disappoint them. We can’t let them down.”

KWKW officials, in conversations about the station, often express that kind of personal concern for their listeners.

Despite being part of a 15-station chain, KWKW likes to project the image of “un amigo de la gente” (a friend of the people). Its style is informal and accessible, the deejays sound like chatty neighbors and, occasionally, lend a helping hand to listeners. During the Immigration Reform and Control Act’s amnesty period in 1987 and 1988, KWKW featured weekly updates from top INS official Ernest Gustafson, who took calls from listeners. The station also aired daily warnings against specific unscrupulous lawyers who preyed on eager immigrants.

These days, the station provides health forums and information on employment, crime and minority-related issues. Station personalities even pay regular visits to downtown factories, bearing free lunches for factory employees. If someone calls up and has an apartment to rent, the deejays might just take on the role of real estate broker, getting the specifics (“How much?” “Is it clean?”) and, ultimately, finding a tenant via the airwaves.

“We try to open our studios to anything and anybody that will provide something to benefit our listeners,” said Rodriguez, who has worked at the station for 11 years. “We try to see radio from a more human point of view.”

Arch-rival KTNQ likes to position itself as appealing to a more-upscale audience. High-profile promotions and giveaways are its cornerstones. In the last three years, the station has given away $1 million annually to listeners.

KLVE, its sister station, also likes to project an upscale image, playing to a sophisticated and acculturated audience--a category that general manager Wolt likes to refer to as spuppie , meaning a Spanish-speaking yuppie. Appealing to a wealthier group lends his business an added legitimacy, Wolt believes, and gives him an edge in an increasingly competitive market.

Now that the stations have come into their own as a group, the race is on among them to make it to the top of the ratings charts.

Nearly all of the stations regularly sponsor daylong concerts in an effort to win the loyalty of the Latino community. The events feature a wide-ranging roster of entertainers, like KSKQ’S upcoming “Applauso 98,” whose lineup includes such widely disparate performers as balladeer Jose Jose and Spanish rapper Mellow Man Ace.

Seemingly everywhere, colorful stickers advertising Spanish-language stations adorn the bumpers of cars and trucks. Almost as ubiquitous are billboards and busboards featuring the goofy grin of KTNQ morning personality Humberto Luna.

Though they have traditionally operated quite differently from their English-language counterparts, Spanish stations have recently begun to adopt the practice of promoting morning personalities, such as Luna, KLVE’s Pepe Barreto and KWKW’s Jaime Pina.

“The deejays are getting better, doing better radio because of the competition,” Luna said.

And competition to find the best and brightest on-air personalities has forced Spanish-language broadcasters to pay the kind of inflated salaries that English-language deejays receive. For the first time, Spanish-language stations are trying to market personalities along the lines of such radio superstars as KIIS’ Rick Dees or KLOS’ Mark Thompson and Brian Phelps. Luna reportedly earns $1 million a year and recently was the first Spanish radio announcer given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Still, Spanish-language radio faces some weightier challenges than marketplace competition if it is to build upon its current pattern of success: attracting a more youthful audience and grappling with the threat of listeners’ assimilation into the Anglo culture.

In contrast to the current narrow casting trend in radio, the music broadcast on Spanish stations is an eclectic--even jumbled--mix of contemporary ballads and up-tempo numbers combined with the more traditional Latin musical styles of salsa , ranchera , mariachi and norteno .

Some of the standard artists heard on KWKW, KTNQ, KKHJ-AM (930-AM) and KSKQ include such mainstream Latin acts as Julio Iglesias, Juan Gabriel, Roberto Carlos and Los Bukis. Because of the focus on balladeers, the stations mostly appeal to middle-aged listeners.

Research reveals that few teens and young adults listen to radio in Spanish. Rather, a large percentage of young Latinos listen to popular dance music stations KPWR-FM (105.9) and KIIS-FM (102.7). In fact, Latino listeners contribute heavily to the ratings success of both those English-language stations.

According to analyst Klein, 55% of KPWR’s audience is Latino, as is 38% of KIIS’ audience.

Said “Radio y Musica” publisher Alfredo Alonso: “One of the things that Spanish-language stations have to do is start addressing some of the younger people. . . . Eighteen- to 34-year-olds are not listening to Spanish-language radio. Older people do listen because they only speak Spanish. But there are now so many young people (whom stations) could attract as well.”

An exception is KLVE, whose playlist includes more contemporary artists, many of whom play hard-driving “Rock en Espanol.” KLVE also plays such non-Latin artists as Madonna, Michael Jackson and the Moody Blues when they record songs in Spanish. Consequently, it has more 18-25 year-old listeners than the other Spanish-language stations, according to ratings data.

Most station officials maintain that it is unrealistic to expect to attract large numbers of teen-agers.

“The kids in school, they’re not going to listen to us,” Wolt said. “They’re going to start listening to Spanish radio when they start to get pride in their ethnicity.”

Wolt’s sentiments are echoed by other officials at Spanish-language stations who believe that a majority of Latino adults will eventually tune into Spanish-language radio.

“We don’t fear assimilation, not among Hispanics,” KWKW’s Rodriguez said. “Most Hispanics speak Spanish at home. They go to school and learn English, but as soon as they begin to grow up in high school and college, they realize the importance of being bilingual and then they try to rediscover their roots. They go back and try to learn more Spanish, read Spanish papers and listen to Spanish radio.”

Said Wolt: “We have done study after study that shows as people get older, they revert to what Mom did or what Dad did. This 16-year-old kid may be listening to KPWR now. But when he gets to be 25 he is going to rediscover KLVE.”

And the steady flow of immigrants over the border guarantees a substantial audience for Spanish-language broadcasters, most say.

“About five or six years ago, I wondered what was going to happen with the next generation,” Rodriguez said. “But immigration won’t stop. Laws are different and the rules have changed, but still, more and more immigrants are coming every year.”

As the number of listeners has skyrocketed, the stakes have grown substantially higher for Spanish-language radio. Suddenly, advertisers have discovered its potential.

This is helped, in part, by stations’ slick sales pitches and promotional materials.

Wolt turns to a glossy brochure that reads: “We all know Los Angeles is the nation’s second largest market. Filled with 15 million active, mobile consumers. However, there is another Los Angeles. And it has 5 1/2 million active, mobile, family-oriented, brand-conscious consumers. . . . This is Hispanic Los Angeles. If Hispanic Los Angeles were a city it would be the fifth largest metro in the U.S.A. . . . Hispanic Los Angeles is filled with a population that has a disposable income in excess of $30 billion.”

Advertisers are drawn by the promise of these sought-after demographics. They are also drawn by the promise of getting a deal. For despite their high ratings, Spanish-language stations are forced to charge less than their English-language counterparts.

The reason for the disparity is rooted in recent history.

“Ten years ago it was much more difficult to market Spanish radio,” explained KWKW’s Rodriguez. “We used price as an incentive and now it’s very difficult to go to advertisers and ask them to double or triple the rate.”

But station operators have grown frustrated that their bigger ratings have not led to equally larger ad revenues.

“Many radio stations we beat (in ratings) outbill us,” Wolt said. “In combination (KLVE and KTNQ are) the third largest radio station in Los Angeles. . . . But we cannot command the rates that English-language stations can. If I could get half of what some Anglo stations get, I’d be happy. I get $600 a spot and yet I’ve got a larger audience than stations that charge $2,000.”

Station officials have to contend with what amounts to monetary racism, according to Wolt. Yet station operators do acknowledge that their lower prices increase advertising volume.

“From a business viewpoint, the Spanish stations do command a lesser rate than English stations, but that also adds an appeal because you can reach so many people who are very active consumers for a lesser cost,” said Jim Kalmenson, KWKW’s vice president of marketing. “Ultimately, that’s what’s attracted many (advertisers) to Spanish radio. The audiences are gigantic. And the cost to reach those people is substantially less than English stations.”

There is disagreement about how Spanish-language radio will evolve in the ‘90s.

“Radio y Musica’s” Alonso believes they will have to emulate their English-language counterparts and narrow their programming formats to succeed in an increasingly crowded field.

He predicts, for example, that there will be a Spanish talk-radio station in Los Angeles. Miami already has such a station. Another possibility, he suggests, is bilingual radio, which has developed in Texas.

Bilingual deejays and musical selections might be the best way to corner the Los Angeles market by luring young listeners away from dance stations.

“Bilingual is the way to market your station if you’re going to try and attract young people,” Alonso said.

His programming suggestion: “mixing Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul with Mellow Man Ace.”

Though they expect to see more stations crop up--and are poised for heightened competition--the top-rated Spanish stations cling to the tried-and-true monolingual approach. Instead they are focusing their efforts on improved technology--stronger signals and state-of-the art studio facilities.

But, mostly, these stations are simply savoring their newfound financial stability and enjoying a greater measure of respect.

“There used to be a condescending attitude,” Wolt said. “I would hear, ‘But you all speak Mexican.’ We were treated like second-class media. But now that’s changing. Poco a poco , that’s changing.”