XTRA Beefs Up Lineup to Cover Southland Sports

The evolution of XTRA-AM (690) into an all-sports format was completed Wednesday, when the station announced a new lineup designed to focus exclusively on Southern California sports.

XTRA, which carries the Kings, Chargers and San Diego State Aztec football and basketball games, switched to sports in October, 1990. But it still aired non-sports talk shows, most notably Rush Limbaugh’s syndicated program.

Beginning Monday, Steve Mason, most recently from Houston and Toledo, Ohio, will anchor a new morning sports show. He replaces Dan Butt, who will remain with the station in the role of “Dan the Fan,” doing “man on the street segments,” according to Tom McKinley, station general manager.

In addition, the afternoon talk show of Chet Forte and Steve Hartman will move into the 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. time slot, moving ahead one hour.

Limbaugh’s syndicated talk will move to KSDO-AM (1130).

Lee Hamilton’s weeknight talk show also moves ahead one hour, running from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., followed by a new nightly show hosted by Jim Rome from 7 to 11 p.m.

Larry King’s syndicated talk show will begin at 11 p.m. weeknights.

XTRA’s moves follow closely the announcement that KMPC in Los Angeles was switching to an all-sports format.

“We’re going to kill them,” Hamilton said. “They’re a day late and a dollar short.”

The move to all-sports was “always part of the plan,” according to McKinley. “Clearly Limbaugh was not going to be staying with the station for long.”

Limbaugh is extremely popular around the country, but his acerbic show did little for XTRA’s ratings.

“The ratings in San Diego clearly indicate that sports programming was out-pacing Rush,” McKinley said.

Mike Shields, general manager for KSDO-AM (1130), said his station took Limbaugh from XTRA. He expects Limbaugh to begin on KSDO next Monday, replacing Michael Reagan from noon to 3 p.m. weekdays.