KABC Pulls Plug on Ronn Owens’ Radio Show
Little more than a year after replacing local radio staple Michael Jackson on the morning shift at KABC-AM (790), talk-show host Ronn Owens has been ousted from the station.
Drew Hayes, KABC’s new program director, said Owens’ last show was Friday. Owens will continue to broadcast at his home station of KGO-AM in San Francisco, with which he’d been simulcasting since joining KABC in July 1997.
The move is the first on-air switch at KABC by Hayes, who arrived last month and quickly warned the staff that some significant changes would soon be implemented to improve the ratings for the struggling station.
Hayes indicated that Owens had not lived up to expectations in the 9 a.m.-noon slot. “Since we’re making strides and growing, we want to make things better for the continued pleasure of our audience,” Hayes said in an interview. “Ronn’s show had limited growth potential, and KGO had interest in having him exclusively. There was just not a lot of upside to us.”
Owens, a popular fixture in the Bay Area, had been brought to KABC by previous management because he consistently beat syndicated rival Rush Limbaugh in the ratings there, a feat that Jackson had not accomplished since 1991.
But although Owens’ ratings had improved slightly in Arbitron’s most recent three-month survey period, he remained substantially below where KABC had been a year ago--25% lower in the overall rankings and 12% lower in the 35-54 age group that many advertisers target--and had less than half the audience of Limbaugh on talk station KFI-AM (640).
Owens, a 30-year radio veteran, said Wednesday that his departure was the convergence of two factors.
“KGO really did want me back exclusively,” he said. “But KABC is also moving in a direction that is not really me. Drew has made it clear that he wants the station to be more in-your-face, confrontational, and that’s not really me.”
Owens added, “I feel bad that I wasn’t able to say goodbye to my listeners. I was given the understanding that it would take me a year to match Michael’s numbers, and I had done that. Given the chance to continue, I would have grown and gotten a bigger audience. But it was a business decision, I understand it, and I wish KABC nothing but the best.”
Hayes said no replacement had yet been determined, “but there are a number of people we want to hear, and the listening audience will be the beneficiary of that.” A variety of guest hosts started filling in on Monday for Owens, who had left for a regularly scheduled vacation.
On the possibility of Jackson, who was moved to the weekends after losing his weekday slot to Owens, returning to the shift he held for 30 years, Hayes was noncommittal. “Everyone always links Michael and Ronn, and I don’t see them as being linked,” he said. “I hear Michael on our station. At this point, anything is a possibility.”
