Ex-KLOS Deejays Say Goodby--on KLSX : Radio: Fans and veteran personality Jim Ladd air their support for dismissed Joe Benson and Bob Coburn.

In 1987, when the entire staff of rebel rocker KMET-FM was summarily dismissed, Joe Benson, a colleague at rival rock station KLOS-FM, extended the fired deejays a sentimental--and unusual--offer: to appear on his show and say goodby to their audience.

Tuesday night, KLSX-FM’s Jim Ladd, one of those fired KMET deejays, returned the favor: He played host during his KLSX-FM (97.1) show to fired KLOS deejays Benson and Bob Coburn.

Both Coburn and Benson were dismissed last week after 14 years on the air at KLOS (95.5). The station, which has been steadily slipping in the ratings, is making a greater effort to reach a younger audience by bringing in new deejays (some from hard rocker KNAC-FM) and playing more current rock music.

“In a nutshell, they wanted to take the station in a different direction and we were not part of that direction,” Coburn said. “We were perceived as part of the past, part of the old.”

Benson used hyperbole to make his point more simply: “The audience we’ve come to know over the past 712 years is an audience they weren’t looking for anymore.”

Amid the strains of the Who’s “My Generation” and a new Tom Petty song titled “A Higher Place,” Coburn and Benson took the high road, choosing not to knock their former employer but rather to focus on the good times.

That made for an unusual talkfest--one filled with reminiscences, laughter and no shortage of appreciative words from listeners over the course of several hours.

“I’ve been listening to you guys forever,” said one caller. “And all of a sudden there was no B.C. and no Uncle Joe. A big part of me, it seemed like it died.”

“I’d like to say thank you for all the time we spent together, all the wonderful years,” another caller offered.

“In radio there have never been two better deejays or two better people or two better friends,” gushed another.

“I’m a little ashamed of what they’ve done to you,” lamented still another.

The fired deejays were philosophical about their fate but stressed that what they would miss most is “connecting with the audience.”

“In any form of business, these things happen,” Benson said. “But I really enjoyed getting to know people and getting to be a part of people’s lives.”

Ladd, on the other hand, took some shots at the new KLOS strategy--calling it “lamebrained”--and at station management for “grinding up two human beings.”

KLOS program director Carey Curelop explained in an interview Wednesday that the decision to drop Coburn and Benson--along with 10-year KLOS veteran Gino Michelini a few weeks earlier--was the toughest he has had to make in his radio career.

“I have great respect for Joe, Gino and Bob, but if we’re going to present a more up-tempo, more current approach, we need talent that at least comes up to the level of the music in terms of energy,” Curelop said.

Coburn, who had been on the air from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., was replaced by another KLOS deejay, Randy Maranz, while Benson’s 6-10 p.m. slot was filled by former KNAC deejay Remy Maxwell. Michelini’s 2-6 p.m. job went to former KNAC deejay Long Paul.

Coburn and Benson acknowledged that KLOS needed a musical change.

“I had a problem with the music sometimes,” Coburn said Tuesday night. “I could tell at the beginning of the decade that we needed to update our music. I could tell we were going to die playing ‘Layla,’ that we had to cultivate young, new artists we could grow with. I knew this was coming. . . . But I’ve stayed current over the years and I do think I could have played that music.”

Essentially, Coburn told the KLSX audience, KLOS will now play less of “the Who and the Beatles and more Pearl Jam and Soundgarden.”

Despite Ladd’s descriptions to the contrary, Curelop insisted that KLOS has not changed format.

“KLOS has always had a balance of new rock and classic rock, and the pendulum has swung slightly in favor of new material because the quality of the music demands that we expose more of it,” he said. “Format-wise, that’s all we’ve done. We’ve just instituted a policy of playing a few more new records.”

Coburn and Benson said they have spoken with radio stations in Los Angeles and other cities but do not yet have new jobs lined up. Coburn told listeners: “I’d like people to know we’re not dead and buried. We are going to be around. After all, it’s the only thing we know how to do. I’m completely unqualified for anything else.”