A Few Hours on Radio Is Honest Day’s Work for KMPC’s McDonnell

In broadcasting, sometimes that nice person you see or hear on the air is really a jerk.

In the case of KMPC’s Joe McDonnell, it’s the other way around.

McDonnell goes through some kind of transformation when he gets behind a microphone. Nice-guy Joe suddenly becomes an ogre. He has been described as a Howard Cosell without brains--or worse.

But the real Joe McDonnell, who has been working in sports radio in Los Angeles since 1975, is generally liked by athletes, coaches, fellow media members and others who come in contact with him.

“I love Joe,” KMPC partner Doug Krikorian said without a trace of the biting sarcasm that permeates his radio work. “He’s a great guy. He really is.”

McDonnell has called Krikorian everything from Sirhan Sirhan to Saddam Hussein. And McDonnell likes Krikorian.

Imagine what McDonnell says about people he doesn’t like. You don’t have to imagine if you’ve been listening. You know.

“I’m honest,” McDonnell said.

That honesty, if that’s what you want to call it, has gotten McDonnell into hot water more than once with his KMPC bosses, Bill Ward, the general manager, and Len Weiner, the program director.

Weiner said not long ago that he was trying to reel in McDonnell, to tone him down and give him a little sophistication.

Well, it seems to be working.

“I’ve been refined,” McDonnell said. “I’m now a kinder, gentler Joe McDonnell.”

McDonnell no longer calls anyone an idiot, formerly one of his favorite words.

“It’s no longer in my vocabulary,” he said.

McDonnell, 36, started in radio at KGIL in 1975, when he was 19. He left KGIL in 1982 and became a free-lancer, working for AP radio, UPI radio, Mutual radio, NBC radio and Unistar.

In the summer of 1988, he went to KFI to become a producer for his close friend, Chris Roberts, who did a nightly sports talk show. In December of that year, McDonnell began doing his own weekly sports show on Sunday nights and also did fill-in work on general talk shows.

“At KFI, I was weaned on combative radio,” he said. “The program director thought that was the only way we could compete with KABC.”

Said Roberts, now a KMPC colleague: “In my nine years at KFI, I worked for seven different program directors. The one who was there when Joe first went on the air wanted the on-air people to create controversy. He’d say, ‘Once you take a call, it’s time for combat.’ We followed Tom Leykis and we were supposed to be like him.”

Said McDonnell: “At KMPC, they want me to be a nicer guy. And I’ve changed, I really have. The real me is coming out.”

KMPC management, besides working with McDonnell on his on-air persona, is also working with him, and encouraging him, regarding a weight problem.

KMPC’s Ward insisted that McDonnell get into a program, and McDonnell signed up at the Sports Performance and Rehab Center in Brea.

“It’s a complete program, including exercise,” McDonnell said.

“I’m not into it full-blown yet. So far, I’ve just undergone a lot of tests. Fortunately, I’m healthy.”

Ten years ago, McDonnell got into a program and lost a lot of weight. Problem was, he put it all back on--and then some.

“I don’t want the same thing happening again,” he said. “This time, I want to do it right.”

The people who like McDonnell and Krikorian like their irreverence.

The other day, they were all over colleague Larry Kahn, arguing that the signing of relief pitcher Roger McDowell by the Dodgers to a two-year, $3-million contract was a waste of money.

Things got heated, to say the least. Afterward, Scott St. James, leading into a news segment, said, “I quit drinking two years ago, but after hearing that, I thought I was back in a bar.”

Most professional broadcasters would call it bad radio. But whatever it’s called--bad radio, honest radio, combative radio--it isn’t boring.

Also, the “McDonnell-Douglas Show,” as it is called, almost always has an impressive list of guests. A high point was when McDonnell and Krikorian got Magic Johnson to take calls at the height of the controversy surrounding his re-retirement.

This week, McDonnell and Krikorian auctioned off a jersey signed by Magic for $6,000, with the money going to the Magic Johnson Foundation and AIDS research. Even their critics would have to admit that was good radio.

TV-Radio Notes

There are two attractive boxing shows on television this week. Michael Carbajal, fighting in his hometown of Phoenix, heads a pay-per-view card at 6 p.m. Saturday. And Sunday at the Mirage in Las Vegas, Julio Cesar Chavez, Terry Norris and Greg Haugen are in separate bouts that will be televised by Showtime at 10 p.m., a delay of three hours. . . . Oscar De La Hoya’s second professional fight is part of Saturday’s pay-per-view show, which promoter Bob Arum is essentially distributing himself in partnership with the card’s headline fighters.

Arum will pay Carbajal only $100,000, but the fighter will get $1 per pay-per-view subscriber among a universe of 20 million homes. Tommy Morrison, who is also on the card, will get $60,000 and $1 per subscriber. “By doing it this way, everyone shares in the profits and we reduce the risk of anyone losing money,” Arum said.

Arum is guaranteed a profit on this one. He has already made $220,000 in foreign sales, $150,000 from the live gate, $55,000 from closed circuit and $35,000 from Budweiser, the fight’s sponsor. “That’s put us even,” Arum said. “Everything made on the pay-per-view is profit.” . . . Arum said the plan is for Carbajal, if he beats Saturday’s opponent, unbeaten Robinson Cuesta Murillo, to fight Humberto (Chiquita) Gonzalez in a light-flyweight unification bout March 13 at the Forum on pay-per-view. “We’ll follow the same format for that one,” Arum said.

If this is a trend and promoters start regularly handling the pay-per-view production and distribution, that’s not good news for such outfits as TVKO and Showtime Entertainment Television, the pay-per-view arms of HBO and Showtime. Seth Abraham, the president of Time-Warner Sports, which owns TVKO, will discuss this and other matters with Irv Kaze on his KIEV show tonight at 7. Kaze’s other guest will be Don Andersen, the executive director of the Freedom Bowl.

CBS will not be able to show San Francisco at Minnesota, possibly the NFL game of the day on Sunday, in Los Angeles because the Rams are at home. Only one CBS game, Dallas at Washington, is being shown here. . . . There will be NFL football on Saturday. NBC has a decent game, Denver at Buffalo at 9:30 a.m., but CBS has a dud, the New York Giants at Phoenix at 1 p.m.

Following the Broncos and Bills on NBC Saturday will be the Heisman Award Show. The award will be presented at the end of the half-hour show. Top candidates Gino Torretta, Marshall Faulk and Garrison Hearst will be on hand at New York’s Downtown Athletic Club for the ceremony. . . . Roy Firestone scored a coup this week, getting all three Heisman candidates together for an “Up Close” taping on Monday. The show was televised Thursday.

Channel 2’s “L.A. Football Company” is just what this market has always needed. Producer Steve Feld and his crew deserve bouquets--it’s an excellent show. And it’s a hit. The first show got a 3.1 rating and subsequent ratings have been as high as 6.0, sometimes beating CBS’ “NFL Today.” Bob Chandler, Henry Lawrence, Rod Martin, Mike Haynes and Howie Long, who were on the Raider teams that won the 1981 and ’84 Super Bowls, will be on the show Sunday.

Pat O’Brien is the host of a GGP-produced college basketball season preview that will be on Channel 2 Sunday at 4:30 p.m. . . . Recommending viewing: ESPN, in its outstanding “Outside the Lines” series, will examine the current status of African-Americans in sports next Thursday at 4:30 p.m. Bob Ley and Robin Roberts will serve as co-hosts, with Tom Jackson and ABC News’ Armen Keteyian contributing reports.

An interview with the Washington Bullets’ Don MacLean will be shown on Prime Ticket’s “Press Box” after tonight’s Laker-Bullet telecast. . . . Because of the series’ popularity, Prime Ticket has expanded “Baseball’s Greatest Games” to year-round. . . . Radio station KGIL, undergoing management and format changes, will end an eight-year relationship with UCLA women’s athletics after this weekend’s West Regional volleyball championships at Pauley Pavilion.

Video beat: Indications are that between 300,000 and 400,000 copies of the recently released “World Series Video” will be sold. About 120,000 copies of last year’s “World Series Video” were sold. The difference? A huge sale in Canada. . . . A new release is Raycom’s “Royal Blue: a Video History of Duke Basketball.” . . . According to Billboard magazine, the hottest-selling sports video in the United States is the NFL Films’ “NFL Rocks,” featuring rock music and football footage. More than 65,000 copies have been sold. . . . Another is “Pro Football’s Hottest Cheerleaders.” It was supposed to be called “The NFL’s Hottest Cheerleaders,” but the league didn’t want its logo on the video. Now that’s hot.

Poor taste: On XTRA Wednesday morning, after Steve Hartman read a bulletin about Florida Marlin President Carl Barger collapsing after suffering a heart attack (he later died), Chet Forte said: “They probably told him of the (Benito) Santiago (deal) going through and he’d have to come up with $4 million.”