All News, Most of the Time

Is there a difference between the Southland’s two radio news outlets, KNX-AM (1070) and KFWB-AM (980)? Larry Mantle thinks so.

“I [generally] listen to KNX because it’s a more traditional approach to all-news coverage,” says Mantle, program director at KPCC-FM (89.3) and host of its weekday afternoon “AirTalk” program. “Whether stories are longer or not, they seem longer. There is an impression of somewhat greater depth. It’s a little less frenetic. KFWB gives you the information very quickly. I go there for quick headlines.”

Indeed, with its quick-hit signature slogan, “Give us 22 minutes, we’ll give you the world,” KFWB emphasizes its slightly faster pace. KNX, after all, is the station that takes an hour out at 9 p.m. for its un-newsy feature, “KNX Drama Hour,” airing vintage radio series such as “The Lone Ranger,” “Lux Radio Theater” and “The Jack Benny Program.”

There are other differences. KNX uses CBS Radio for national news; KFWB has CNN. KNX simulcasts “60 Minutes” on Sunday nights and “60 Minutes II” on Tuesday nights, while KFWB offers “Larry King Live” weeknights at 8, two hours after it has been shown on CNN. KNX carries National Football League doubleheaders on Sundays and the Monday night NFL game as well. KFWB has “Dr. Bruce Hensel’s Medical Minute.”

KFWB airs traffic every 10 minutes, “on the ones”; KNX has traffic every six minutes.

KFWB brings “Ask Mayor Riordan” about once a month; KNX, more a station of record, carries live presidential press conferences as well as President Clinton’s Saturday-morning radio address at 7:05 a.m., followed by the Republican response at 9:05.

But to many listeners, especially during morning and afternoon drive, when both stations are running through the day’s news, the differences are minimal.

Bryce Nelson, a journalism professor at USC’s Annenberg School of Communication, said he regards KFWB and KNX as “alternative stations to get the traffic reports.”

For the Employees, It’s a Rivalry

“I find both acceptable for what they do,” Nelson says. “They don’t drive me away by errors of fact or taste. A lot of the television stations do drive me away.” For more substantive coverage of the news, however, he says he tunes to public radio.

Whatever their similarities and differences, KNX and KFWB personnel say they remain rivals, even though they’ve both been owned by CBS for the past four years.

“They are independent stations, and they each have independent staffs and budgets,” declares Dana McClintock, CBS Corp.’s vice president of communications.

“We’re as competitive as we have always been,” says Bob Sims, director for news and programming at KNX. “Being owned by the same company doesn’t mean we are no longer trying our best to get the stories.”

And from KFWB’s newsroom, reporter-anchor Steve Kindred notes: “We still compete with them for stories, just as we do with all the other stations--and television, newspapers and the Internet. We still have the same hustle. . . . We have a friendly competition. They do their thing and we do ours. Their coverage is more long-form, and we’re more summary-oriented.”

Sims allowed that, at first, the two stations “talked about ways of taking advantage of our mutual ownership. We looked at things like, ‘Can we get by with one technical director or one finance person?’ We looked at buying office supplies to see if we could save a few bucks. But most of those things were better handled at a corporate level, and it was difficult for two radio stations to make much of a [financial] difference.”

The only time the two stations shared anything was during the O.J. Simpson civil trial several years ago, when KNX had an open spot in a trailer across from the Santa Monica courthouse. “I had rented a trailer,” said Sims, “and there was room in there for four desks. KFWB was looking for a place to land, so they wound up having one of the desks. But it wasn’t like we were involved in each other’s coverage.”

Competitive though they may be, the stations don’t publicly bad-mouth one another.

In fact, KFWB news director Chrys Quimby, who worked at KNX for 10 years before switching affiliations in May 1995, said that she and her boss, program director Dave Cooke, would have to decline being interviewed for a story comparing the two outlets. Speaking for Cooke and KFWB’s vice president and general manager, Roger Nadel, she said, “We don’t want to be in a position that could be construed as critiquing any other company stations.”

Sims said he doesn’t listen to KFWB all that much, adding: “I promised myself that I wouldn’t do comparison things that, by any stretch of the imagination, would put my competition in a negative light and come back to bite me.”

Only at interview’s end, escorting his guest out, did he offer: “I try to give news the length of time it deserves. There are two schools of thought. One says that listeners need the constant stimulation of a very high story count. Headlines, in other words. Headlines are important and give you a quick overview, but the truth is, headlinesdon’t make you much smarter. I’m less concerned about a high story count than I am making sure our listeners are well-served with a thorough treatment of the important stories.”

As an example, Sims cited the recent unanimous California Supreme Court ruling that held the news media couldn’t be compelled to turn over notes and other unpublished information in a criminal case. KNX did a 2 1/2-minute story and interview package on that during its 2:30 p.m. newscast Nov. 2. On Nov. 1, he added, it did 4 1/2 minutes on the EgyptAir disaster, including a pair of family interviews, during the 12:30 p.m. newscast. (But KFWB says it also devotes similar hunks of time to major stories, noting, for example, that it gave 4 minutes and 26 seconds to the EgyptAir crash shortly after 8 a.m. on Oct. 31.)

KPCC’s Mantle notes that the KNX-KFWB emphasis on headline news creates a “big hole” for local, in-depth news coverage in the style of National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.” It’s an opportunity he hopes to exploit if Minnesota Public Radio wins approval to take over operation of KPCC from Pasadena City College. Minnesota has promised to establish a full-time news staff at the station.

CBS’ McClintock notes that the KNX-KFWB situation is mirrored in New York with WINS and WCBS. WINS, much like KFWB, is more of the “quick hit, utility-type station,” while WCBS, like KNX, “does slightly more in-depth features,” he says.

Still, does it make sense from a dollars-and-cents point of view in a fragmented market to maintain two news entities?

McClintock answers with a resounding yes.

Using figures from the most recent Arbitron ratings--which showed KNX with a 2.4% audience share and KFWB with 1.7%--McClintock explained that there is more air time for advertisers available with two stations than there would be with one, even though it could charge higher rates with a combined 4.1% share.

“There are two revenue streams,” he said. “If you were to consolidate and make one station, who’s to say somebody else won’t [create] another station to compete? And all of a sudden, your 4.1 becomes [less] and now your loss is total.”

His conclusion? “Both [KFWB and KNX] are successful, both are profitable. Nothing’s broken. No need to fix it.”