Rome’s Empire Wasn’t Built in a Day

It has been quite a year for Jim Rome. In February, XTRA gave him his own show, at night. In August, he was moved to the more desirable mid-day slot.

And since then Rome has become, well, huge.

Rome, who bills himself as “the huge one,” is a radio phenomenon. He went from part-timer to top billing at XTRA (690) in less than a year.

Sure, Lee Hamilton and the “Loose Cannons,” Steve Hartman and Chet Forte, maintain their loyal listeners, but the 28-year-old Rome has his own cult following.

Need proof? Just check out one of Rome’s stops on what he calls his “world tour.”

One of six stops in an eight-day span two weeks ago was at Reuben’s in Arcadia on a Monday night. The place was packed and going nuts. Madonna couldn’t have attracted a wilder crowd.

“It’s like that wherever he goes,” said XTRA program director Howard Freedman. “He always fills a place beyond capacity. Some of his best friends are fire marshals.”

Rome works a room better than the most-polished politician and has the energy of Robin Williams.

Mark Hoherd, 37, one of the older patrons at the Arcadia stop, said: “I’ve been listening to sports-talk shows for 20 years and there’s never been anyone like him. I’ve never heard anyone so unique, so entertaining. I love his glossary. I love everything about him.”

Sure, there are people who don’t like Rome. Their complaints are that he tries to be too hip, too cutesy, or, as the Raiders’ Howie Long said this week, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And it is irritating when Rome tells a caller, “Talk to me.”

But it seems Rome’s fans far outnumber his critics.

The secret to Rome’s success is that he is obsessed with being a success. Every waking hour, Rome thinks about his goal of being a broadcasting superstar and what he can do to be one.

Ever since he was growing up in Hidden Hills, through his years at Calabasas High and UC Santa Barbara, Rome says, he has thought about only one thing--a big-time broadcasting career.

In college, while his friends had Playboy centerfolds on the walls of their dormitory rooms, Rome had posters of Tom Brokaw and Bob Costas.

After he graduated in 1986 with a degree in communications, he worked for his family’s garment manufacturing company until he landed a sportscasting job at Santa Barbara radio station KTMS. He soon had his own talk show.

He had reached goal No. 1. But he was hardly satisfied.

Rome, a relentless self-promoter, almost weekly sent tapes of his work to everyone he could think of.

Said Nick Zaccagnino, Rome’s producer at KTMS who now works for rival KMPC: “He’s unbelievable. The guy just never lets up. He’s got so much energy. He’s the same off the air as he is on the air.”

When the Santa Barbara fires of June, 1990, broke out, Rome positioned himself by the newsroom switchboard at KTMS. He figured other news outlets would be calling to interview someone. Why not him?

Good thinking. XTRA, then a news and sports station, was among those that put Rome on the air.

Rome soon began pestering Judy Carlough, then XTRA’s general manager, for a job.

What finally impressed Carlough was that Rome had been mentioned in a Sports Illustrated story about sports talk shows. His PR work had paid off there, too.

Rome was so fired up about his interview with Carlough that he rented a car to drive to San Diego. He was worried that his old clunker might break down on the way.

He was hired in December, 1990, as a 30-hours-a-week guy. He did sports updates and a Saturday talk show.

As he developed, Rome began to speak his own language.

In Romese, huge means good, very good. The Clippers are the fat farm. The Raiders are the Ducks , first called that by New York Giant linebacker Pepper Johnson. Marge Schott is the mutt.

The Chicago Cubs are the Coke bottles because of Harry Caray’s glasses. The Dodgers are the Indians because they play as badly as Cleveland traditionally does. Mike Ditka is Woody because he’s about to pull a Woody Hayes and snap.

Some people might call Rome high-strung. Others might call him odd.

“I’m manic all the time,” he said. “I’m never depressed. It’s weird.

“I walk around in a zone. I go to bed late and get up early. I’m always setting goals and driving myself.”

Rome once told a girlfriend he couldn’t relax until he had reached his goal.

“She told me, ‘After you reach one goal, you’ll still be striving for another. You’ll never stop,’ ” Rome said. “I told her she was right, and she split.”

So what’s Rome’s next goal?

“My vision is to do a national television sports show that is a combination of Dennis Miller, Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh,” he said with a straight face.

Pretty heady stuff.

“My attitude is, what’s to stop me?” Rome said. “You can’t lose if you don’t give up.”

But Rome is not going anywhere, at least not until the end of 1993. XTRA this week picked up the one-year option on his contract.

“We’ve got him so locked up he has to sleep in his office,” Freedman said.

Radio ratings: The latest Arbitron trends, which run through two-thirds of the current rating period, continue to show that Los Angeles is a tough market for sports talk.

In the men and women, 12-and-over category, KMPC has a 1.0 rating, up from a 0.9, and XTRA, in Los Angeles, has a 0.5, down from a 0.6.

In men, 18 and over, KMPC has a 1.7, up from a 1.6, with the afternoon “McDonnell Douglas Show” getting the highest rating, a 2.2. XTRA overall has a 1.0, down from a 1.2.

But in San Diego, XTRA is doing better than ever. In men, 18 and over, XTRA has a 5.5, and ranks second among the nation’s all-sports stations behind WIP in Philadelphia and fourth among all San Diego stations. The “Loose Cannons” rank fourth in their time slot, Rome ranks fourth and Hamilton ranks fifth.

TV-Radio Notes

CBS announced Thursday that Greg Gumbel will be the prime-time host of the 1994 Winter Olympics at Lillehammer, Norway, and also will replace Dick Stockton as the No. 2 play-by-play announcer on baseball, working with Jim Kaat. Tim McCarver, who remains on the No. 1 baseball announcing team with Sean McDonough, will be a reporter at large at Lillehammer, and Paula Zahn, his partner in prime time during the 1992 Winter Olympics, will work as a host with Harry Smith in the mornings.

Marv Albert and Bill Parcells originally were scheduled to work Saturday’s game between the Kansas City Chiefs and New York Giants for NBC. But because of all the turmoil and rumors about Parcells returning to the Giants, Parcells begged off. So Dick Enberg and Bob Trumpy drew the assignment. . . . Los Angeles won’t get Sunday’s Washington-Philadelphia game on CBS because the Raiders are at home. Los Angeles gets the Rams at Green Bay at 10 a.m. on CBS, with Stockton and Randy Cross reporting; and a real dud, Seattle at Denver, at 1 p.m. on NBC, with Jim Lampley and Dan Hampton reporting. Remember when the Seahawks and Broncos were on Monday night recently? It couldn’t be any worse than that, could it? It’s the kind of Sunday that makes one yearn for NFL pay-per-view. Los Angeles is also deprived of Minnesota-Pittsburgh and New Orleans-Buffalo.

If ABC knew Marcus Allen was ready to unload, the network is not saying. But a source outside the network said ABC’s Al Michaels, who lives in Brentwood, was well aware of the situation, pursued Allen and convinced him that “Monday Night Football” was the perfect vehicle. By the time the cameras were rolling, Michaels knew what was coming, the source said. It’s known that last Thursday Michaels asked that a recent column on Allen by The Times’ Jim Murray be faxed to him. ABC spokesman Mark Mandell said the Murray column was what got the ball rolling on the interview.

Heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe has agreed to a six-fight package with HBO and TVKO that could be worth at least $50 million and possibly as much as $100 million. The first fight is scheduled for Feb. 6 on HBO, possibly at Madison Square Garden. Potential opponents include Alex Garcia, Michael Dokes, Alex Stewart and Francesco Damiani. The first pay-per-view fight may be in the spring against Ray Mercer. Lennox Lewis might come later. The HBO-TVKO deal eliminated the possibility of Bowe’s fighting on the Fox network during halftime of the Super Bowl. . . . The pay-per-view card at Phoenix last Saturday, featuring Michael Carbajal, reached between 70,000 and 80,000 homes, a buy rate of 0.4%, which was better than expected.