On a New Wavelength?

The new order at the trio of Walt Disney Co.-owned radio stations on La Cienega Boulevard is evident in the parking lot.

In the prime president and general manager spot is a boxy white Cadillac, belonging to Bill Sommers, who took over Dec. 3 at KABC-AM (790), KTZN-AM (710)--since renamed KDIS, for Radio Disney’s children’s programs--and at rock station KLOS-FM (95.5), where he worked for 23 years, and which he managed from 1978 until his retirement to Idaho 18 months ago.

Relegated to a visitor slot is the sporty gray BMW convertible of Sommers’ predecessor, Maureen Lesourd, in charge just 19 months. Though she “resigned to pursue opportunities outside of Los Angeles,” as announced by ABC, she’s here through January to help with the transition.

You see the two of them, chatting amiably in his office, then she retreats to another office. She wants to see the reporter afterward.

Sommers, 58, and Lesourd, 49, are longtime friends--along with his wife, Joey, a former retail sales manager at KNX-AM (1070), and Lesourd’s husband, Dave. Lesourd and Joey Sommers have vacationed together; Bill Sommers jokes that they’re like “Thelma and Louise.” Indeed, he recommended Lesourd--who had managed rock stations on the East Coast and was a senior vice president at ABC-TV--as his successor at KLOS.

Lesourd so impressed ABC Radio officials that she was given responsibility for all three stations. That had not happened here before.

From the firing of KABC morning co-host Roger Barkley four months after her arrival, through the summary replacement in August by Radio Disney of her primary project--the female-driven, lifestyle-oriented KTZN--Lesourd’s regime was turbulent. Her rockiest passage came in July when she removed Michael Jackson from the morning slot he’d occupied for 30 years, demoting him to weekends. She drew some miserable media coverage.

In a brown pullover, Sommers--an immigrant grocer’s son who grew up in Boyle Heights and dropped out of Los Angeles City College in 1961 to stack records at KHJ--presents a peppy, jovial image. But one soon senses an inner core of toughness.

He makes it clear, as he told the corporate brass, that he won’t discuss Lesourd’s run. “One of the things I stipulated is, ‘I don’t want to know what had happened in the past. I don’t want to know what may or may not have been. Let me evaluate what I think I need to do.’ ”

From ABC’s initial call in early October--while he and his wife were driving through Utah on their way to Los Angeles in a new motor home--the Sommers were determined “not to harm this friendship.” “With one hand on the cell phone, the other on the wheel,” he initially turned down the offer, though he did agree to meet. After a second meeting at the end of October, he says he learned of Lesourd’s intention to resign. As talks grew more serious, “I had to ensure that they would tell her . . . that I did not come after this position and pursue it.”

Sommers is no transition figure. While he serves at ABC’s pleasure, he hopes he’s here for “the longer haul” or at least three years. But don’t expect him to immediately lay out programming plans. Give him “a good two, three months.”

“Everybody wants to get ahold of you, and they want to know immediately what changes you are making. Realistically,” Sommers says with a laugh, “what changes are you going to make after 72 hours? I haven’t read the research. I mean, give me a break. Who comes into a company and says, ‘I’m going to make changes tomorrow?’ ”

When Jackson’s name is raised, he responds blank-faced: “Who?”

Yes, he’s kidding. “Any time there’s a change,” he allows, “somebody is going to object to it--I don’t care if it’s good or bad.” Asked his intentions about Jackson, he says: “I’m going to look at his past performance, to see what the new performance [of Ronn Owens] has done compared to that. I need to evaluate both sides.”

He shrugs off the loss of Dodger baseball. “OK with me,” Sommers says. “It got to a point where rights fees were so out of line we were doing it like a loss leader.”

He indicates he’s happy with Lesourd’s changes at KLOS, softening its former heavy-metal focus so that it’s more appealing to an older demographic and to women. “It seems to be on the right track, because you can see the growth” in Arbitron’s recent trend reports.

With all three stations, his goal is to increase revenue and make them “profit centers. Make ‘em successful--and make a mark in the community.”

And ratings? “That’s part of making ‘em successful. If the ratings come up, revenue comes up.”

Still, he allows that he does not expect KABC--currently ranking 11th among listeners 12 and older with a 3.1% share of audience--to beat KFI-AM (640), fourth at 4.1%, “now or three months from now.”

But he does intend to restore the stations’ image, and “make a mark in the community” through blood drives, drives for cancer research and such. “I really care about Los Angeles. . . . I want that image back again. So when you think of a KABC, even KLOS as a rock station, [you think], ‘There’s a station that cares about people, that cares about a community. Because that comes back to you, in my opinion, tenfold.”

Which, he adds, fits Disney’s image.

Lesourd’s Take: The afternoon before we meet Sommers, Lesourd phones and says she does not want to rehash the past. She particularly won’t discuss Jackson or negative articles about her.

She, too, sees a ratings turnaround at KLOS, calling it a “huge accomplishment. We didn’t have our lineup in place until this fall. The format was readjusted from active rock to classic rock, and the talent we have now is more in keeping with a mature audience. The growth we’re seeing is in [the] 30-plus [demographic].”

Regrets? “I never look back; I’m too optimistic a person.” Asked about KTZN, she does allow that “it was a tough thing to say goodbye to. . . . I guess if I regret anything it’s that we changed the format to the Zone before we realized what [test] results were going to be on Radio Disney. That was the right business decision.”

The hardest question--did she resign, or was she pushed? “No,” she says quickly, “I resigned.” She’ll find another general managership, she says. “I’m good.”

Next afternoon at KABC, she says only that when she submitted her resignation in October, “at that point, it was pretty mutual.”

Hear the Beloved Country: You wouldn’t know it from the local market, but around the nation, country music remains far and away the leading radio format. Of the 10,350 commercial radio outlets, 2,491 air country, according to M Street Corp.’s recently released National Formats Trends Study.

Among the 80-plus stations in the Los Angeles-Orange County market, however, the only country outlet is KZLA-FM (93.9), which ranked 14th in the most recent Arbitron ratings with a 2.5% share of the audience among listeners 12 and older.

The second most popular national format is adult contemporary music, with 1,508 stations. Nevertheless, both country and adult contemporary lost stations since 1996--with country down 34 and adult contemporary down 64. There are 1,331 stations using a news, talk, business and/or sports format--a gain of 59 over last year.