Controversial Najera Gets Second Chance at KTNQ

When the National Hispanic Media Coalition filed a petition to deny the license renewal request of Spanish-language radio station KKHJ-AM (930) 16 months ago, some of the loudest huzzahs came from the offices of Heftel Broadcasting, programmer for three of KKHJ’s chief rivals.

At issue was Alfredo Najera’s adult-relationship show, “Alfredo Contigo,” which, the petition claimed, was “crude, vulgar and graphic.” Najera’s show had originated at Heftel-owned KTNQ-AM (1020), but the program was canceled and its host fired amid pressure from the coalition. When the media watchdog group’s scrutiny followed Najera up the street to his program’s new home, some Heftel officials weren’t beyond echoing the condemnation of their former employee.

Now fast-forward to last month. KTNQ, stung by the defection of deejay Humberto Luna to KLAX-FM (97.9), is suddenly without a well-known name for its morning show. Najera, let go by KKHJ following its second major format switch in as many years, is suddenly without a job.

So . . . say hello to Alfredo Najera, the newest member of KTNQ’s morning drive-time team!

“One thing about this business, particularly in Los Angeles, is there tends to be a high degree of recycling,” says David Gleason, vice president of AM programming and networks for Dallas-based Heftel. “And maybe because of that, the second, third and fourth chances seem to be acceptable.”

Well, a second one, at least, agrees Amalia Gonzalez, KTNQ’s director of programming.

“I always believe you should have a second chance. On anything,” she says. “I don’t see why not with Alfredo.”

Besides, it’s not like they’re bringing the show back. Just the host.

In his return to KTNQ, Najera joins an energetic and diverse morning team in a structured environment that appears to leave little room for him to wiggle back into any bad habits--not that he hasn’t been tempted in the six weeks since he came on board. On a recent morning, for example, he turned a news item that involved prostitutes and impotence into a short string of crude jokes aimed at co-workers.

“I still give my sex thing,” Najera admits. “It’s in me.”

But that’s not what he was hired for, Gleason cautions. “Ownership is very, very positive and strong in their desire to be at all times sensitive to the community,” he says. So Najera’s main task, he promises, will be to provide “unusual insight into the news.”

In that role he joins sports anchor Hipolito Gamboa and Rafael Sigler, a former television game-show host, to give the 5 to 10 a.m. program a format Gleason likens to English-language morning television fare.

“They have a friendly and light atmosphere, deal a little bit with the hard news, a little bit with human issues, lifestyle issues,” he said. “This is what our core news-talk listeners were waiting for. They really wanted a current events-based program, a topical program, a news and lifestyle program in mornings rather than a fantasy world of humor and character voices.”

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A fantasy world of humor and character voices is exactly what KTNQ listeners heard each morning during the 24 years Luna was the station’s drive-time deejay. And it’s what they would have continued to hear had Luna not walked out on the final eight months of his contract a week before Christmas. (The station went to court but was denied a restraining order that would have kept him off the air until the pact expired.) But then, Luna was only following his audience, much of which has defected to the music-heavy FM band in recent years. KTNQ has lost half its listeners since 1992--a slide it only partly arrested by switching from music to a talk format three years ago. (Those listeners who have remained are loyal, however, tuning in for an average of 10 1/2 hours a week, among the highest rates in the market.)

To draw an audience back to the AM band--once the backbone of Spanish-language radio--many station managers have concluded that they must virtually reinvent their programming. Which, Sigler says, is exactly what KTNQ is doing with its morning show.

And, speaking of reinventing themselves, that’s also what Najera is trying to do.

A veteran news reporter who has interviewed presidents and says he was the first reporter to confirm tejano singer Selena’s death four years ago, Najera insists he has always been a journalist first. In fact, before losing his job in KKHJ’s most recent format switch last month, he was hosting four hours of news talk each weekday.

But he sometimes found work difficult to come by because, in Gonzalez’s words, “he was just one of the bunch.”

He certainly separated himselffrom the pack at KKHJ--though not necessarily for the better. Which is why Alex Nogales, the former chairman of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, who was instrumental in bringing the still-pending petition against KKHJ, dismisses the idea that Najera hasbeen rehabilitated.

“He’s never going to be reformed,” Nogales says. “He’ll show his colors. It wasn’t like he did it for two or three weeks. He did it for a long period of time.”

Najera hardly seems repentant. In fact, he blames the whole controversy on Nogales, whose wife, Ana Nogales, writes a newspaper column on health issues and is frequently consulted as an on-air medical expert by many radio stations, including KTNQ.

“On a couple of TV shows, I confronted him,” Najera said. “I told him, ‘Why is it that you don’t say anything about your wife? Because she talks about sodomy and oral copulation and so on. So what’s this, man? Gimme a break.’

“He used me to get his name around. He just used me. And he took advantage of my position and the success of the show. I’ll tell you one thing, though. Everybody has a skeleton in the closet. Everyone. And he’d better stop it or I’ll pull it out.”

Nogales laughs off the remark about his wife and issues a threat of his own:

“We will monitor you. If you step out of line like you did over at the other station, we will take you to the FCC. And we’ll make it stick,” he promises.