John & Ken Prepare to Wing Their Ways to KABC Mornings

Pressure?

How about taking over L.A.’s most legacy-laden morning talk radio slot, going head-to-head with such ratings dominators as Howard Stern, Mark and Brian, Kevin and Bean plus Rick Dees? How about launching it with a very public debut broadcast from the stage of the House of Blues? How about being looked at as the final piece in the puzzle of a yearlong make-over for the station you’re moving to, so much that there’s a countdown clock on its Web site ticking off to your premiere in concurrent totals of days, hours, minutes and seconds?

That’s what’s facing John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou next Thursday, when their “John & Ken” program, a popular afternoon presence on KFI-AM (640) for the past five years, debuts in the important 5-9 a.m. slot at KABC-AM (790)--a shift occupied for nearly 25 years by another Ken.

This was the home of Ken Minyard, first for 17 years with Bob Arthur, and then with Roger Barkley following Arthur’s 1990 retirement. Minyard was then paired with Peter Tilden in 1996 until last year, when new management made good on a threat to figuratively “blow up the station” if ratings didn’t improve, letting both Minyard and former 9-to-noon main-stay Michael Jackson move to KRLA-AM (1110).

“It’s the beginning of the new millennium for us,” declares John & Ken’s new boss, KABC program director Drew Hayes, whose first-year anniversary at the station falls on the same day--just to add a bit more significance. “We’re starting early, July 1.”

With that almost messianic buildup, you’d figure that Kobylt and Chiampou would be burning the midnight oil making plans for their launch.

Nah. With just a week to go, they’re both kicking back.

“I’m already soft and flabby, having been off since May 21,” jokes Kobylt, 38, who’s taking the last week to visit his family in Florida. “A few more days won’t make it worse.”

His partner, meanwhile, just got back from his own vacation and is spending his time house-hunting and getting some dental work done. They’re not worried that there will be any problem getting in gear.

“I’ll click back in quickly,” says Kobylt, adding that just because he’s off the air doesn’t mean he’s out of practice. “These days I just rant to myself. I see things in the paper and just talk to myself.”

Yeah, well, what if they wake up next Thursday morning and find there’s nothing interesting to talk about?

After all, there’s no O.J., no Monica, none of the kinds of things that really drive talk radio in the headlines these days. What are they going to discuss? The latest movements as refugees return in Kosovo? The turmoil on the L.A. city communications commission? Not exactly electrifying fodder.

“I said to everyone at KABC that I’m excited about the first show--big production,” says Chiampou, 42. “But the next 500 after that are what matters. A lot of people have e-mailed me excited about our return. But what counts is three years later, and I want to be there for a long time.”

Concurs Kobylt: “I assume every day when I wake up that nothing’s going on and we’ll have to make a show out of nothing. When an O.J. happens, you get a lot of extra listeners, and when that’s over, they’ll leave. We try to build a base that just wants to hear us talking no matter what and make that sellable to the advertisers.”

That’s exactly what they did for their time at KFI, and what they’ve done the 11 years total they’ve been a team, starting on the morning drive shift at a Top 40 station in New Jersey. Too intelligent and current-events-oriented to really fit on a music station, the pair developed an on-air relationship that was perfectly suited to discussion of issues, whether of global significance or merely pet peeves. The conflict and occasional heat comes from their own real personalities.

“No one likes to think too deeply, so it’s really easy to have a formula people lock into where they think John’s the bad guy and Ken’s the good guy,” Kobylt says. “Well, it’s naturally my personality. I dislike humanity in general, but I like people individually. Ken hates people individually, but likes the concept of humanity.”

But can that be enough to survive in the L.A. morning shark pool of high-power, controversy-courting personalities (Stern, Imus) and wacky, schtick-heavy circuses (Kevin & Bean, Mark & Brian, Dees)? Compared to those, even the most angered rants from John & Ken seem almost low-key. And they’re also going head-to-head with their former KFI colleague Bill Handel, whose issues-oriented talk show has picked up consistently good ratings.

What can John & Ken offer the others don’t already?

“I don’t think anyone covers stories the way we do, from the heart, ad-libbed and passionately,” Chiampou says. “You can turn on the news and get the facts, but we talk about it the way people do at the dining room table.”

Says Kobylt: “When we were thinking about making a move, my thinking was there was a hole for a show that’s smart and funny, though not goofy--a kind of smart, funny attack.”

*

Hayes says that the addition of John & Ken finalizes the moves that have been made--many to the great displeasure of the station’s listeners--that he’s overseen. Before his arrival, KABC had been slipping, having lost its longtime reign among L.A. talk outlets to KFI.

He let Minyard & Tilden go, pushed Michael Jackson out the door and started to build a new-model KABC from a foundation of Larry Elder’s afternoon show--ironically, the head-to-head competition for John & Ken at KFI. Over the past year he solidified a lineup with some bite and attitude at all hours--Elder’s generally conservative take complemented by moral philosopher Dennis Prager now on mid-mornings, sociopolitical analyst Al Rantel on early afternoons, satirist-comedian Stephanie Miller in evenings and the nationally syndicated paranormal paranoia of Art Bell at night.

The morning show, though, remained unsettled, with Mr. KABC (Mark Germaine) and Joe Crummy taking turns as temporary hosts while Hayes focused on securing the one team he thought would be the right fit.

“I always thought from when I came to the marketplace that John & Ken sounded like a morning team,” Hayes says. “It’s not fist-pounding, but always about something--entertaining, great humor and very real.”

Now that he’s got them, he says, those who thought the station adrift during the transition should now be able to get a clear sense of the master plan.

“It’s a smart and funny radio station--relevant, interesting, big personalities talking about stuff people are interested in,” Hayes says.