<i> Hablando Espanol</i> on a Radio Network

Juan Andres deHaseth has made a midlife career switch that would give most people whiplash. “I spent the last 25 years in cosmetics,” said the Laguna Beach resident, holding up the tip of one finger. “We made 180 items for that little area of the body right there.”

Shifting from fake fingernails to broadcasting, he now works from a corner office of Hollywood’s CNN building as president and owner of Radio LABIO, the nation’s first Spanish-language talk radio network.

Launched Nov. 1, the 24-hour syndicated network is already heard in five of the top 25 Latino markets in the United States, from Dade County, Fla., to San Francisco--although, as yet, it has no outlet in Southern California.

DeHaseth’s switch started two years ago, when he was approached about selling the cosmetics company he had started and still ran. “They made me a pretty decent offer,” DeHaseth said, and he accepted, but as part of the deal he had to sign an agreement that forbids him from starting another similar company.

So he went back to school, took radio classes at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo and began hosting a Latin music show on the college’s radio station, KSBR-FM (88.5). Upon graduating, he weighed his options and decided he was unwilling to start a new career at the bottom.

Being a cub reporter didn’t attract him (“I can’t compete with the younger guys and can’t survive on the salary”), and he figured he didn’t have time to work his way up to a management position as station manager or news director. “At 50 years of age, by the time I put in 25 years, I’d be 75 years old,” DeHaseth said.

The solution, he decided, was to start a business of his own, and after some research he came to the idea of an all-talk Spanish-language radio network.

Spanish-language music radio is booming nationally in areas with large Latino populations, according to Reed Bunzel, executive editor of Florida-based Radio Ink, a trade magazine focusing on marketing and management. In fact, a Spanish-language music station--KLAX-FM (97.9)--now tops the ratings for all formats in the L.A. market.

According to studies cited by Bunzel, Latinos nationally listen to more radio than the average listener and have higher-than-average station and product brand loyalty--facts that are beginning to catch the attention of national advertisers, who are “beginning to understand the value of the Hispanic radio listener,” Bunzel said.

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Of an estimated 24 million Latinos in the United States, 43.1% prefer to listen to Spanish-language radio rather than English-language formats, according to a report released this year by the Arbitron ratings service.

Spanish-language talk shows have made only limited inroads, but in English-language radio, talk is “the hottest format in radio right now, because it is a participatory format. It gives people a voice,” said Valerie Geller, a former executive director of talk station KFI-AM in Los Angeles and now a New York-based radio consultant.

Spanish-language talk radio has racked up impressive ratings in some cities, particularly New York and Miami, but has been slow to catch on in the West. Geller, who toured the studios of Radio LABIO recently, said she believes the format’s “time has come” and pronounced herself impressed with the Radio LABIO lineup.

“I think they have some really terrific personalities,” Geller said. As with any new venture, she predicted, time will bring changes. “I think it’s in its formative stage. It’s a new baby--it will get better.” Talk stations in New York and Miami serve primarily the Puerto Rican and Cuban populations, respectively, of those two cities. DeHaseth said that until Radio LABIO went on the air, there was no all-talk station or network targeting Latinos of Mexican and Central American descent.

Southern California was home to one earlier effort, KPLS (830 AM), which shut down last February after a year on the air. Owners of the Orange-based station, known as “La Voz” (“The Voice”), said it was well-received but changed to a less-costly format (English-language children’s programming) after being denied county permission to expand their antenna facility in the foothills east of Orange.

DeHaseth, born and reared in Panama, said that one reason there haven’t been more tries to launch Spanish-language talk radio on the West Coast is the expense. Equipment and personnel costs for live call-in and news broadcasts are higher than for music radio.

Although a handful of Spanish-language disc jockeys are well-paid celebrities, most deejays are considerably cheaper to hire than the lawyers, doctors and other professionals that dot Radio LABIO’s lineup.

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That’s one reason a network makes sense, DeHaseth argued--costs that would be prohibitive for a single station can be shared among many. He declined to say how much money it is costing him to launch and operate Radio LABIO, but he did give a hint: “It’s expensive. It’s very expensive. It’s awfully expensive. Can I use any more dramatic description?”

Bunzel agreed that talk radio can be prohibitively expensive, especially for stations outside the major markets. “Talk radio is typically the most expensive format to produce,” Bunzel said. “It’s a natural move to pick it up off the satellite.”

So far, Radio LABIO (which stands for Latin American Broadcast Industry Assn., although labio is also Spanish for “lip”) has signed up eight stations (with another on the verge). That is more than DeHaseth said he expected to have by this point in the venture.

“We’re pleasantly surprised, really,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but I’m tickled pink. I’m very happy.”

DeHaseth is moving slowly in the largest markets, preferring to pick up stable affiliates with strong signals, but said he would like to be on the air in the Los Angeles and Orange county areas in a year.

Many stations are watching the project with interest but are cautious about dumping a format to climb aboard. “It’s a hard decision to make,” DeHaseth said. “I can understand the caution.”

Increased competition led one station to make the switch, KTRB-AM in Modesto, a 50,000-watt station covering much of Central and Northern California, which had been a country-music station for almost 60 years. Station manager Pete Culver said, “The pie was just getting cut up too many ways. AM has not been that successful in the music market for the last few years.”

Just weeks after going on the air with the new format, businesses and listeners were responding strongly. “It’s overwhelming,” Culver said, adding that advertisers in the station’s market report that as much as 30%-50% of their business comes from Latino customers.

Unlike most nationally syndicated radio networks, most of Radio LABIO’s programming is produced live and relayed to stations by satellite. That allows listeners anywhere in the country to participate in the call-in programs through a national 800 number. DeHaseth said the network logged 2,600 calls in its first month and is up to about 1,000 calls a week now.

The programming on Radio LABIO was developed over about six months, with staff members spending “a lot of time standing around in malls” asking people what they would like in a talk-radio station. They also studied successful talk formats in Central and South America.

About half of the on-air personalities were recruited from the defunct “La Voz.” As DeHaseth said: “It turns out that ‘La Voz’ was able to give us a test market” for the format.

Daily programming on Radio LABIO includes a program on health and nutrition, news programs, a show about legal issues and a morning drive show. A show about natural foods generates the most phone calls. “Our community is just waking up to health foods,” DeHaseth said. “It’s a big issue with us.”

There is also an opinion program hosted by a Los Angeles educator, Francisco Avelar, whom DeHaseth jokingly calls “the Latino Rush Limbaugh.” Actively courting controversy is “very unusual for Hispanic radio,” DeHaseth said, and Avelar generates plenty of phone calls, pro and con: “He makes people think.”

When he started his research, DeHaseth was surprised to find there was not already a national network featuring Spanish-language talk radio. He attributes his prospects for success as much to timing as anything.

“I think all the hard work in the world wouldn’t make it happen if you’re not in the right place in the right time,” he said.