KMPC Moves From Locker Room to New Talk Format : Radio: The sports station will switch next month to familiar voices aimed at a younger audience. It will compete with KFI for listeners.

Sports station KMPC-AM (710) will change to a talk format the first week of May and will feature several voices already well known to Southern California radio listeners.

Dubbed “710 Talk,” the station will fill its morning slot with Peter Tilden and Tracey Miller, who currently have an afternoon talk show at KABC-AM (790), and the afternoon drive-time slot with former KFI-AM (640) talk host Tom Leykis.

KMPC was recently bought from Gene Autry by Capital Cities Communications, which owns KABC-AM and KLOS-FM (95.5). The station had adopted its sports-oriented format in April, 1992, but the move turned out to be a ratings disaster.

The new format will begin in waves. On Monday, May 2, Leykis goes on from 3 to 7 p.m. Filling in the remaining hours will be a variety of “produced vignettes” that preview the kind of programs to be heard on the station, as well as open auditions for talent. The auditions are intended largely as a publicity stunt, but station officials said dynamic performers may be hired for weekend slots.

The remainder of the weekday lineup will begin May 9. It will include the married couple of Leslie Pam and Ann Christie from 10 a.m. to noon, talking about relationships and sexuality; Republican and Latino activist Xavier Hermosillo from 7 to 9 p.m.; and from 9 to midnight, Tavis Smiley and Reuben Navarrete, both of whom have appeared on KABC-AM. Hermosillo also has had a weekend show on KABC-AM.

Still unfilled Thursday was the noon-to-3 p.m. weekday slot.

KMPC will continue to broadcast games of the California Angels, Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Rams.

Meanwhile, KABC reportedly plans to replace Tilden and Miller in the afternoon with either a sports talk show or a general-interest show with regular fill-in hosts Steve Edwards and Joel Roberts. KMPC afternoon-drive host Joe McDonnell has also been interviewed at KABC, according to sources.

The new KMPC, with its talk format aimed at a younger audience than now sister station KABC, will be competing with KFI, which ranked fourth among all Los Angeles-area stations in the quarterly Arbitron ratings released this week. (KABC was in fifth place.)

KFI officials said they are ready for another competitor and downplayed the possibility that fans of Leykis may tune out KFI and tune in KMPC.

“The ratings of the whole radio station have about doubled starting the month Leykis left, so I guess that speaks for itself,” said KFI program director David Hall. “We at the station have soared to new heights and never looked back.”

Leykis’ first guest will be former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, who replaced Leykis when he was fired from KFI in September, 1992. (Two months later, Gates’ show was scaled back and the team of John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou was put into Leykis’ former slot.)