KGIL Signs Off : The Mission Hills-based station has been sold, ending the talk radio format it had broadcast since 1985.

A frantic Carole Hemingway, already five minutes late for her weekday talk show, hurried to restore order.

She apologized to listeners for the delay, and blamed traffic. She telephoned the show’s scheduled guests in Washington, and blamed technical difficulties.

Finally, about 15 minutes later, as talk centered on the crisis in Somalia, Hemingway savored the triumph of her own rescue operation.

“This is what I’m going to miss,” said Hemingway, who for six years interviewed national newsmakers on KGIL-AM (1260) in Mission Hills. “Every show is a performance.”

The performance is over.

Talk radio on KGIL ended last week and will be replaced officially later this month by an all-music format of adult standards, such as Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. Its sister station, KMGX-FM (94.3), will continue to simulcast its signal on 1260-AM until Tuesday.

The new owner, Mount Wilson FM Broadcasters Inc., purchased KGIL from Buckley Communications Corp. in October for $2.5 million, and immediately saw a chance to fill a void created when KMPC-AM (710) switched to an all-sports format last spring. KMGX will not be affected by the sale.

“When KMPC dumped it, it had a huge audience,” said Saul Levine, whose company also owns KKGO-FM (105.1), a classical music station in Westwood. “We know we’ll pick up some of that audience. If the talk-show format had been successful, we would have kept it. But there is really no way to compete with KABC and KFI.”

Over the years, KGIL has served as the outlet for several well-known radio personalities, such as Larry King, Tom Snyder, game-show host Wink Martindale, psychologist Dr. Joy Browne and financial adviser Bruce Williams.

Besides Hemingway, other local personalities who broadcast from the 5,000-watt station included food expert Jackie Olden and morning talk-show host John Swaney. KGIL also covered Valley sports, such as Cal State Northridge football games, which will move to KMGX.

Levine also plans to switch KGIL’s call letters to KJQI to make it more consistent with its new music format.

“Music brings joy,” Levine said.

He will also spend $100,000 to build a new transmitter in Mission Hills, and simulcast the station’s programming with another he owns--KOJY in Costa Mesa (KOJY was formerly known as KJQI). That way, listeners from Thousand Oaks to California’s eastern border will be able to tune in to adult standards and advertisers will buy spots that will reach many more consumers.

That news doesn’t console the 16 employees at KGIL who will lose their jobs because of the sale. About another dozen will stay on at KMGX.

Despite persistent rumors for two years that the station was likely to be sold, the announcement in October was a shock. The KGIL staff contend that the San Fernando Valley is losing an important voice.

Former General Manager Tom Mosher said the station, which debuted in 1947, was considered too small to be competitive in the Arbitron ratings, but estimated that its audience in the last two years has ranged between 125,000 and 175,000 regular listeners from Valencia to Costa Mesa. KGIL switched from big-band music to the talk-show format in 1985.

“This station has been here for a long time,” said Debbie Farr, who headed programming at KGIL. “The overwhelming reaction we got from listeners was disappointment.”

Added Mosher: “There are certainly an abundance of music formats. Maybe we have sour grapes, but this is our life. What this station has meant to the Valley for almost 50 years will be gone.”

As KGIL broadcast during its final weeks, there was plenty of reminiscing around the office.

Ed Zeil, the former news director who spent 17 years at the station, recalled a trip he and former disc jockey Dick Whittington made to New Zealand in the late 1970s.

“Whittington felt the Valley was unrepresented in L.A.,” Zeil said. “So we had a sky-watch reporter who was a native of New Zealand. We went there, and met the prime minister. We figured there we would be appreciated. We were allowed to do some crazy things.”

Others reflected on the station’s more serious moments. After the Rodney G. King beating, KGIL invited police officers to defend the department’s sinking reputation. Though Swaney and Hemingway are considered liberals, the station has definitely leaned to the right in editorial policy, Mosher said.

“We felt the media wasn’t conveying the whole story,” Mosher said. “The ultra-liberals, after hearing the LAPD for the day, got a little different picture from our Police Department, that they are really good citizens who were hurt that a few bad apples had created this negative image.”

John Swaney, a host on KGIL’s morning talk show--it featured interviews with newsmakers, along with traffic, sports and the weather--since 1986, said KGIL combined hard news with occasional silliness.

“There’s room on the radio for everything--country music, headlines, shock radio,” Swaney said. “And there should be room for people who want to hear this, but there won’t be anymore.”

Mosher, who came aboard in 1990, said the recession severely hindered KGIL’s efforts to compete with KABC-AM (790) and KFI-AM (640), the top two all-talk stations in Southern California.

“If we could have had the money to promote,” Mosher said, “we could’ve given them a run for their money.”

Olden, the host on the station’s call-in food show, has already found a new job at her former employer, KNX-AM (1070), but both Swaney and Hemingway aren’t sure what their future in broadcasting will be.

Swaney, who abandoned his law career to take the KGIL job, said interest in his show has been expressed by a satellite broadcasting network and other stations in the Los Angeles market, although no formal negotiations have begun. He does not consider returning to law an option.

Hemingway started a media consulting business in 1989, advising lawyers, doctors and entertainers how to “present themselves to the media.” She said she will continue to develop her company--Carole Hemingway Media--and look for other employment possibilities in radio and television. She said KGIL was a liberating experience.

“I’ve been able to grow so much here,” said Hemingway, who made her debut in Los Angeles talk radio on KABC in 1974. “Being in a smaller, less intense atmosphere has allowed me to be myself. I will miss my audience so much.”