New Management Foresees No Changes at KNX, KFWB : Radio: All-news stations will continue to compete despite consolidation of Westinghouse, CBS operations.

So, let the competition between KFWB-AM (980) and KNX-AM (1070) continue.

Shortly after he was named head of the combined Westinghouse and CBS radio stations last week, Dan Mason confirmed that he has no intention of changing the formats of Southern California’s two leading news stations.

“I see them as their own unique products, totally separate,” Mason declared in an interview. “They’re both very successful news stations in the market, and I see no reason to change.”

Asked whether he was going to keep the top management at the longtime rivals--general managers Chris Claus at KFWB and George Nicholaw at KNX--Mason said: “We intend to.”

He added that having “two individual general managers responsible for two profit centers” mitigates against the possibility of employees from both stations thinking of themselves as a single unit.

Mason, formerly head of Westinghouse’s Group W Radio, which operated KFWB, took on the new title of CBS radio station group president last week after Westinghouse acquired CBS for $5.4 billion. KNX had been owned by CBS.

“I’m trying to take this company away from a network/corporate-driven mentality,” Mason emphasized. “Radio is so local. I want these radio stations to function as individual units.

“Everybody has the same financial goals, and as long as the stations achieve their financial goals, they’re pretty much autonomous.

“If there were any consolidation at all,” he added, “it would probably be in a process that would involve ‘back-room’ [functions]--billing and traffic systems.”

And not in the news-gathering operation? “Correct.”

Mason’s comments seemed to ease concerns of key KNX executives about the station’s future--and their own. “It sounds as though we will continue to do what we’ve been doing,” News Director Robert Sims said happily.

*

Sims foresees no problem continuing the longstanding rivalry between the two all-news stations.

“You’re talking to Macy’s and Gimbel’s,” he explained. “I don’t care if the same guy signs everybody’s checks. This is the news business, and the reporters, editors and writers at our two newsroom areas are conscious of who’s doing a better job, who’s first--far more so than listeners. It’s like a two-newspaper town, and it doesn’t matter if ownership is mutual.

“Reporters are still hustling to beat each other,” Sims continued. “Everyone wants to be first and best. Everyone wants to win the awards, have the most ratings, make the most money. I don’t think it will cross anyone’s mind at all that we happen to be listed as the same company on the stock exchange. We remain determined to stay in front of KFWB.”

Greg Tantum, KFWB program director and executive editor, agreed, saying his staff will continue to work “just the way we do it today. That spirit [won’t] change at all.”

*

Mason noted that there are differences in the stations. He likened KFWB’s “give us 22 minutes, we’ll give you the world” approach to cable television’s CNN Headline News channel, whereas KNX is more like CNN itself--”a little bit longer-form, a little bit more talk interspersed. So you have two very unique news products with these two.”

Mason said he intends to visit all the CBS radio properties acquired by Westinghouse within the next 45 days. He implied that he would speak to as many employees as possible, much as he did when he took over Group W Radio in 1993 and met personally with more than 300 of some 800 employees.

With the merger, the CBS radio group now consists of 18 AM and 21 FM stations in the United States. Current regulations prohibit a company from owning more than 20 stations on a frequency, but CBS won a 12-month waiver from the Federal Communications Commission to see whether Congress will pass telecommunications legislation next year that eases those limits. If it doesn’t, CBS will have to sell one of its FM stations.

Mason gave a clear signal that neither of CBS’ FM stations in Los Angeles--”Arrow 93” KCBS-FM (93.1) and “The Wave” KTWV-FM (94.7)--would be put on the block.

“Nobody sells FMs in Los Angeles these days,” he noted in tribute to profitability.

KNX’s Sims, meanwhile, said the months of anxiety about what might happen when the Westinghouse-CBS deal was concluded may have its positive side.

People in the news business are often doing stories on “mergers, consolidations and enormous layoffs,” he noted, “and now and again the people who gather and present the news find themselves in [similar] situations. So it’s probably a good thing. It puts us a little closer to the people we’re talking about.”