Everyone’s Singing a Different Tuna at KMPC This Week

Charlie Tuna has been going around all week saying, “I’ve died and gone to radio heaven.”

He is ecstatic about his new job as the morning host at radio station KMPC, and station management is equally pleased.

Tuna is just what the doctor ordered. He is pleasant, upbeat, professional, and with his 26 years in Los Angeles radio, brings credibility to a station that has had declining ratings ever since switching to an all-sports format 1 1/2 years ago.

Tuna may be just the guy to turn things around.

Tuna, in his first week at KMPC, has been having fun, and so have his listeners. He is a welcome breath of fresh air in the morning.

KMPC could call his show “Fun and Games” because, mostly, that’s what it is. It’s not strictly a sports show, but the emphasis is sports. And that suits Tuna fine.

“My two loves in life are sports and radio,” he said. “Now I’ve got the best of both worlds. I’ve got marks all over my body where I’ve been pinching myself.”

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A few weeks ago, Tuna was told that his contract as a morning disc jockey with KCBS-FM, which went through a format change, would not be picked up.

KMPC Program Director Scott O’Neil, himself a former disc jockey, saw the opening. Tuna, O’Neil reasoned, had a name and a following, and would be perfect for KMPC’s morning slot.

Suddenly, everything is much rosier around KMPC.

The appointment two months ago of the straight-shooting and well-liked O’Neil, who was and still is the program director at sister FM station K-LITE, brought up morale around the station, and more smiles came with the arrival of Tuna.

“Doug Krikorian stopped me in the hall the other day to tell me I was his boyhood idol,” Tuna said, laughing. “I thought that was a nice thing to say, but then I found out Doug is a year older than I am.”

Tuna, 49, came to Los Angeles in 1967 to work at KHJ and became one of the town’s big-name disc jockeys back when there were only about five major radio stations.

Tuna, from Kearney, Neb., played sports in high school--he set a school record of 155 feet 11 inches in the discus--and, as an adult, has coached youth soccer and basketball in the San Fernando Valley. His four children--two boys, two girls ages 13 to 27--all play or played soccer, and Tuna is still coaching soccer, which is one of his favorite on-air topics.

His real name is Art Ferguson, and, no, he doesn’t mind if it is in print.

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Tuna and his energetic producer, Lisa Fredlender, lined up a variety of guests during his first week. Thursday’s lineup included goalie Ron Tugnutt of the Mighty Ducks, USC football Coach John Robinson, and baseball historian Roger Kahn, who has written a new book.

Showing that he will at times deal with serious topics, Tuna also talked about President Clinton’s health plan with Dr. Daniel Johnson of the American Medical Assn.

The addition of Tuna is not the only positive change at KMPC.

Krikorian and Brian Golden will take over the midday slot today. They were supposed to start Monday, but with afternoon host Joe McDonnell out because of a sore throat, Krikorian was paired with fill-in Geoff Witcher in the afternoon and Golden with his old partner, Paola Boivin.

Krikorian and Golden should work well together, since it is a good guy (Golden)-bad guy (Krikorian) matchup, rather than a bad guy-bad guy pairing, which the station formerly had with Krikorian and McDonnell.

Krikorian was up to his old ploys on Wednesday, mocking the Lakers’ signing of 35-year-old Kurt Rambis. Rambis’ wife, Linda, was so upset with Krikorian that she called him at the station in tears.

Krikorian went back on the air and delivered a lengthy apology, albeit tinged with his usual sarcasm.

Krikorian and Golden initially will do their show from the World Series, where they are on assignment for their respective newspapers, the Long Beach Press-Telegram and the Antelope Valley Press.

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Besides McDonnell, Scott St. James has also been on the disabled list.

St. James, who flipped on his motorcycle last Friday when he hit a pothole or something--he’s not sure--is recovering from facial injuries. He credits his reinforced sunglasses with saving his right eye.

St. James is expected to return to the morning show sometime next week.

Andre Aldrich, formerly a sports producer and occasional on-air reporter at Channel 4, has been filling in for St. James.

Jim Healy goes on the disabled list Monday, when he will have cataract surgery. He will be out for a couple of weeks. KMPC, to its credit, has decided to not play “the best of Healy” in his absence.

McDonnell will be out for a couple of weeks after next Thursday, when he will have knee surgery.

TV-Radio Notes

Now that the Mighty Ducks have answered one question--yes, they will win a game in their first season--another is: When will television play-by-play announcer Chris Madsen pop a vocal cord? Please, someone give Madsen some sedatives. He got so carried away when the Ducks beat the Edmonton Oilers Wednesday night, you’d have thought they had won the Stanley Cup. . . . When the Ducks lost to the New York Islanders in overtime Sunday night, Madsen noted: “It’s just another loss in the win column.” Look out Jerry Coleman and Ralph Kiner, you’ve got company. . . . The Ducks seem to have a winner in television commentator Brian Hayward, a former goalie with Winnipeg, Montreal, Minnesota and San Jose. Hayward did some radio and television broadcasts for the San Jose Sharks over the last two years after injuries forced him off the ice.

If you have watched any of the Duck telecasts on Prime Ticket or Channel 9, you probably have noticed that the Disney cartoon character Tinkerbell sometimes appears on the screen to sprinkle pixie dust on a Duck after he has scored a goal. It’s really hokey hockey, but producer Lisa Seltzer defends it. “Sports are supposed to be fun,” she said, adding that the players love it. Apparently, Tinkerbell is here to stay.

Southern California Cable Assn. President Greg Watson, who is also the regional manager of Crown Cable, which serves 105,000 subscribers mostly in the San Gabriel Valley, said cable companies were not at fault for a snafu on Oct. 3 when the start of the Dodgers’ season finale against the San Francisco Giants on ESPN was missed. Watson said that, after a two-week investigation, he learned that ESPN fed the wrong signal to cable companies that use an automated system. “Cable companies seem to take a lot of heat, so I wanted to set the record straight,” Watson said.

Speaking of taking heat, the CBS announcing team of Sean McDonough and Tim McCarver, which will work the World Series, is taking less than it did last season. McDonough is growing on viewers and McCarver seems to have cut back on the verbiage. Overall, CBS did a good job during the playoffs. Now that the network seems to have mastered baseball, it will no longer do the sport after this season. Greg Gumbel, in particular, was outstanding during the American League playoffs.

Channel 2’s Jim Hill and Al Davis got into quite a spat in the Raider locker room last Sunday. Witnesses said Hill did not back down when Davis jumped him for, in Davis’ view, glorifying Marcus Allen. . . . Regarding the kickoff for USC’s homecoming game against Oregon State on Saturday being changed to 3:30 p.m. to accommodate the Prime Network, Coach John Robinson told Charlie Tuna: “With television dictating everything, maybe someday we’ll be playing at 2 in the morning.” . . . The USC game will be broadcast by radio station KJOI (540 and 1260 AM) since KNX picks up CBS radio World Series coverage at 5 p.m. . . . L.A. will get an extra NFL telecast Sunday since the Rams played Thursday and the Raiders will play Monday night. If either team were at home Sunday, no network could televise more than one game in L.A., but in this case CBS has a doubleheader, including San Francisco-Dallas at 1 p.m. . . . There will be no TNT game Sunday night because of the World Series.

Recommended viewing: The always outstanding “This Is the NFL” will be on Channel 2 Saturday at 3:30 p.m., as long as the station doesn’t preempt it for commercial programming, as it has done in the past. For this week’s show, Kansas City Coach Marty Schottenheimer and Tampa Bay Coach Sam Wyche were both wired--a first--when they met in the season opener. . . . John Daly, Fuzzy Zoeller, Tom Kite and Davis Love III recently went on a jet-setting tour of 18 of this country’s best golf holes to tape a Dick Clark-produced show for ABC. The first nine holes will be on Sunday at 10 a.m., the second nine the following Sunday. . . . Saturday at 1:30 p.m., NBC will showcase six of the most important races leading up the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita Nov. 6.