Mega 100 Parties On

Apparently Bob Visotcky likes to celebrate. Or maybe it’s just that, in his short tenure as vice president and general manager of KCMG-FM (100.3), there’s been much cause for celebration.

Either way, Tuesday he treated his staff to a long lunch that featured toasts all around to mark another milestone ratings period for his station’s unique format of urban, rhythmic oldies. And next month, he’s treating 8,000 of his closest friends to a party at Disneyland to mark KCMG’s first birthday.

When Visotcky introduced the station last November, the launch party featured synchronized swimmers, so in just 12 months KCMG has gone from nose plugs to mouse ears. It’s also gone from a 1.7 Arbitron rating and 23rd place in the market--the last figures posted by dance-music station KIBB, which previously broadcast at 100.3--to a 3.2 rating and 11th place.

But more significant is the fact that Mega 100, as the station is known, improved for the third straight ratings book and finished second among English-language broadcasters in the key 25-54 age group demographic most sought by advertisers, beating such established stations as KRTH-FM (101.1), KPWR-FM (105.9), KROQ-FM (106.7) and KIIS-FM (102.7).

“When you have a two-to-three book average that shows you’re still growing, it proves to the audience that you’re for real,” Visotcky said. “To be the No. 2 station in such a short time shows something. And we haven’t peaked yet.”

Although morning show co-host Monica Brooks, formerly of KPWR, and midday deejays Cristina Kelly and Mario DeVoe, have built loyal listenerships, the real impetus behind KCMG’s success is the music. The station’s well-defined playlist of rhythmic oldies by the likes of Santana, War, Kool & the Gang and Marvin Gaye, plus slow jams from Heatwave, the Stylistics and others, has allowed it to cross ethnic lines and build a multicultural audience of Latinos, white, blacks and Asians.

It has also established Mega 100 as a “flanker station,” one that doesn’t directly compete with any other in the marketplace, but rather draws listeners away from a number of stations--in this case, from urban music and classic oldies stations.

This isn’t the first time Visotcky has turned a station around. In 1994, when he took over Chancellor-owned KWLD-FM (107.7) in San Francisco, the station was struggling to hold its 2.9 share of the local audience. But by the time Visotcky left three years later, that number had nearly doubled.

“He’s a great motivator,” remembers Kathy Adams, KWLD’s executive assistant to the general manager. “What makes the success of his stations is he knows how to make a team.”

Oh, and there’s one other thing Adams remembers about her former boss.

“Bob,” she says, “loves an excuse to party.”

Renaissance Man: The new station managers at KIEV-AM (870) gave Raul Martinez an unusual gift last August to mark his second anniversary on the air. They gave him a pink slip, canceling his weekly cigar-themed interview show.

But after a month of uncertainty, Martinez has come to view his sacking as an opportunity--one that led him across town to KLSX-FM (97.1), where his show has been given the 11 p.m.-midnight time slot on Sundays.

“I don’t take it personally,” says Martinez, whose show made its FM debut Oct. 4. “It’s business.”

And it’s a business that’s likely to grow for Martinez. Not only has his show expanded by a half-hour, but KLSX’s younger-skewing demographics seem much more appropriate for Martinez’s unique, lifestyle-oriented program. Not to mention the fact that KLSX’s affiliation with CBS radio should give him a step up in his goal to syndicate the show.

“Realistically, I have a guest list nobody in L.A. radio--much alone the nation--has matched,” Martinez says. “The fact the program is a cigar lifestyle show makes it all the more intriguing.”

Especially for his guests. The invitation to talk at length about cigars has smoked out such diverse interview subjects as Francis Ford Coppola, Milton Berle, Dean Stockwell and Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, the man who once allegedly ran Las Vegas for the mob. Martinez has even upstaged the big boys, outmaneuvering two television networks by arranging an exclusive interview with smugglers who have grown wealthy by running the U.S. embargo on Cuban tobacco.

“CBS and Telemundo came into the studio and filmed the show,” he says proudly.

Martinez, 39, got his start on radio as a student at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, where he produced a daily jazz program for KUNV-FM (91.5). After college, he worked for a while in his family’s two Southern California nightclubs and eventually became enamored with the social side of cigar smoking.

“It’s an opportunity for people to get together to talk,” he says. “Any time you light up a cigar, you’re talking about a commitment of time. You’re talking about 35 minutes. It’s a chance to relax and talk.”

Martinez briefly entertained thoughts of opening a tobacco store before a more natural approach revealed itself.

“One day it just hit me,” he says. “I thought, ‘I’m going to take my experience in radio and promotion and do a cigar show.’ ”

The timing proved fortuitous. Not only has the cigar craze continued to mushroom, but in the last two years California’s ban on smoking in bars and restaurants as well as the 37-year-old economic embargo of Cuba has given the hobby an air of civil disobedience.

“There are people driving around [Cuba] in ’57 Edsels. We’ve made our point,” Martinez says of the embargo. “Even though cigars are . . . very, very in vogue right now, Cuban cigars are . . . at the top of this whole cigar craze. Although not nearly as dangerous, Cuban cigars have really become the cocaine of the ‘90s. They’re really a very popular status symbol.”

There’s not much he can do to affect U.S. policy toward Cuba, but Martinez has entered the fray of Proposition 10, the California initiative that would dramatically increase the state tax on cigars. He’s used his show as a bully pulpit to rally opposition to the proposal, which will be on the Nov. 3 ballot.

Also, as part of the show’s expansion to an hour, Martinez and co-host Jeanette St. John are expanding the program’s content by adding regular segments by Steve Knight, a longtime restaurant critic and host of another canceled KIEV program, “The Broadcast Bistro.”

“We want to further the latitude of the lifestyle aspect,” Martinez says. “It’s not just about cigars, but basically about the good life.”

For Martinez, however, doing anything more than simply talking about the good life would appear to be a distant goal for the time being. Because he leases his air time from KLSX, an agreement similar to the one he had with KIEV, Martinez has been putting in solid 70-hour workweeks selling ads, booking guests and “doing everything from soup to nuts” to keep the show going.”

“It’s like the old days of radio,” he says with a laugh. “The show is the easiest thing I do.”

Still Kicking: In the wake of its successful monthlong broadcast of last summer’s World Cup soccer tournament, fledgling Radio Unica, the nation’s only full-time Spanish-language radio network, has secured broadcast rights to the next two Copa America tournaments, the next two Gold Cup tournaments and qualifying matches for the 2002 World Cup.

The Miami-based network, which went on the air Jan. 5, purchased the rights from Inter/Forever Sports Inc., an international marketing company headquartered in Florida. Radio Unica, which is heard in Southern California on KVCA-AM (670), said in a release that it plans to broadcast approximately 175 international soccer matches, beginning next July, as a result of the deal.