Michael Jackson Waits for the Call

In the background is the sound of Christmas music.

Michael Jackson, Los Angeles’ longest-running talk-show host, is at home. Not to worry if you tune to KABC-AM (790), where since late July he has been hosting Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and hear instead Gloria Allred or anyone else. He’s taking a year-end vacation break.

With his demotion July 2 to the outback of weekends after 30 years in the morning slot at KABC, Jackson was the Southland’s biggest radio story of 1997.

He is hopeful that his fate may change under Bill Sommers, named to replace Maureen Lesourd on Dec. 3. Sommers, clearly noncommittal, said recently that he will examine both Jackson’s ratings and those of his replacement, Ronn Owens, who simulcasts on Walt Disney Co.-owned KABC and on sister station KGO-AM in San Francisco. Owens, who consistently beats Rush Limbaugh in the Bay Area, has been broadcasting there since 1975.

For Jackson, it has been quite a year, and he knows that his future remains uncertain.

“I’m willing to accept any challenge this coming year,” he says softly, “and I will make it the best ever.”

His public face of unbridled optimism belies the anguish and turmoil he endured after then-President and General Manager Lesourd pushed him to weekends. In countless conversations with family, friends and reporters, he debated: Should he take the weekend slot and do what he loved best, or just go? Even after he seemingly had decided to stay, he flip-flopped some more. But the love of work prevailed.

It certainly wasn’t Jackson’s ratings that gave him stature. Rather they did him in. For years he was on top, but since 1991, Limbaugh had been besting him on rival KFI-AM (640). Indeed, at the time of his demotion, the most recent Arbitron ratings showed Jackson ranked 12th with 2.9% of the audience among listeners 12 and over, while Limbaugh was first with 6.8%. And in the key advertising demographic of 25- to 54-year-olds, Jackson was 23rd with a 1.4% share, while Limbaugh was third with 4.7%.

But Jackson was signature Los Angeles, both through the quality of talk and the guests he was able to bring, by phone or in person, to his microphone. Moreover, listeners cared. Such was the depth of distress of his fans at the time of the switch that phone lines at KABC were jammed, and pickets showed up.

“What a year of contrast,” Jackson observes, noting that just before his demotion he had been named talk-show host of the year by the National Assn. of Radio Talk Show Hosts and had been honored by the Los Angeles City Council and Mayor Richard Riordan.

“This [weekends] is not what I planned, not what I expected, and I think truly that it’s a passing phase. . . . The outpouring of support that I have received has been far more than I could have dreamed possible.

“Wherever I go--I’ll give you an example: There was the first annual block party on Rodeo Drive for the Museum of Television & Radio several weeks ago. There were 700 people under this enormous tent. Pictures came up on these massive screens of Bob Hope and Carol Burnett, Dick Van Dyke, Candice Bergen, Edward R. Murrow. There was wonderful, sustained applause for all of them.”

He puts his wife Alana on the phone--he prefers she tell the rest. “When a clip of Michael came on at his 30th anniversary [broadcast] at the museum,” she says, “it just brought the house down. It was a thunderous ovation.”

Back on the phone, Jackson says he makes it a point of working a five-day week--going into the office Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays to prepare for the weekend broadcasts. “I am determined to keep as busy, and make the show as varied as it was. I am still getting first crack at all the authors because they know I read the books. Nobody says no to me, even though it’s a weekend show.”

The weekend shift has also given him, he says, “the opportunity to do something a little different.” Jackson has become spokesperson for “Plug in, California!,” the state’s education program on deregulation of electricity, which begins next year. “I am flying all over the state doing television and radio--I’ve become their poster boy,” he says with a laugh.

In addition, he has moderated a conference on the future of Los Angeles, another on international water disputes, with Mikhail Gorbachev among the participants, as well as the first El Nin~o conference run by the federal government, with Vice President Al Gore.

Among the highlights of his weekend show: “One morning I’m talking about the world of homosexuality, and Ellen”--he pauses a moment--”DeGeneres called. In the middle I heard a little giggle on the other extension, and it was Anne Heche. We did 45 minutes together.”

His last Saturday broadcast before vacation was on scene for opening ceremonies and events at the Getty.

“So I’m doing the best I can,” he notes. “And I am determined, somehow, somewhere, that I will be back on daily. I don’t know if I should say this, but the station knows how I feel. I mean”--and he pauses--”I am Los Angeles. . . .”