The Real Crossover

Los Angeles is widely regarded as the international hub of rock en espanol, or Spanish-language rock. The top bands record here. Many leading acts are managed by local agencies. And rock en espanol shows here--in such celebrated venues as the Greek Theatre, and in the more than 30 local nightclubs devoted to the genre--regularly sell out.

Strange thing is that until last month Los Angeles had no commercial radio outlet for the music. Perhaps even stranger: Now that a station has finally stepped in to fill the void, it is not one of the Spanish-language giants, but an English-language alternative rock station.

KLYY-FM (107.1), with an average of 650,000 listeners each week, began airing a one-hour weekly rock en espanol show, “The Red Zone,” last month.

After a deluge of supportive calls and e-mails about the first show, the station’s general manager, David Howard, upped “The Red Zone” slot to 2 1/2 hours every Sunday, starting at 5 p.m.

“I was amazed that no one was promoting or playing this music commercially already,” Howard says. “I’ve [lived] here my whole life, and I figured the Spanish broadcasters would be doing it. But they’re not, for a couple of reasons. One, the ownership of the Spanish stations is a little more conservative, and two, they’re doing well as it is and don’t need to change.”

In recent years, at least two commercial Spanish-language stations in the Los Angeles area had tried programming some rock en espanol. One, Ritmo Latino KRTO-FM (98.3,), changed format to English in 1997 under new ownership, after just one year of offering alternative Spanish-language genres from hip-hop and tropical to rock. The other, Super Estrella KSSE-FM (97.5), occasionally offers pop rock but rarely features more hard-core alternative bands.

Industry observers are not surprised to see an Anglo station broadcasting rock en espanol, rather than a Spanish one, and many believe there is more hope for the genre on an English station than on a Spanish one.

“This market is going to break from the Anglo side, not the Latin side,” says Gustavo Fernandez, former director of sales for the WEA Latina label and now president of his own Miami-based marketing company, De La Nuca, which specializes in what he calls “alterlatino” music.

“Why should you expect a Mexican regional or a salsa station to play alternative music?” Fernandez asks. “It doesn’t make sense. . . . The understanding of this music is going to come from the Anglo side, because the [station] managers are used to the sounds. A lot of the people running Spanish radio didn’t grow up with rock.”

Howard’s exposure to rock en Espanol came thanks to sales assistant Chelina Vargas, who left work as a community activist for a nonprofit organization in East Los Angeles to work at the station.

During her lunch breaks, Vargas would play rock en espanol recordings on a player at her desk. Howard heard the music, liked it and one day asked her what station she was listening to.

“I heard this cool, vibey music, very in line with what we were playing, sonically, and thought it was a Spanish competitor,” Howard says.

“I told him it wasn’t a station but CDs,” Vargas recalls. “Then he started asking all these questions. He asked if there was enough of this music to do a show.”

There was.

The Recording Industry Assn. of America tracks the growth of the overall Latin music market but does not track rock en espanol specifically, making it tough to gauge exact growth. When the organization begins publishing Latin music statistics by genre later this year, rock en espanol will be folded into the pop category, just as it is in Billboard magazine.

Performers Sign With Mainstream Agencies

But anecdotal evidence indicates steady growth of the genre, especially in Los Angeles.

For example, the House of Blues nightclub in Hollywood books rock en espanol acts for about 20% of its shows, according to John Pantle, a talent buyer for the club who calls the genre “a steady part of our musical diet.”

And in the last year, several major rock en espanol acts have signed on with mainstream talent agency giant Creative Artists Agency, including Mana, La Ley and Cafe Tacuba. Nationally, rock en espanol shows are popping up on college and public radio stations from Providence, R.I., to Waco, Texas.

A recent metal rock show on MTV featured a video in Spanish by Puerto Rican rock group Puya. The Conan O’Brien show recently booked rock en espanol act Cafe Tacuba for a Dec. 3 appearance, and Newsweek called that band’s most recent album the most artistic statement in rock since the Beatles.

At Howard’s request, Vargas researched the state of rock en espanol on U.S. radio waves and put together a presentation, including marketing and demographic information, such as statistics listing the station’s listeners as 33% Latino.

Vargas says she could not believe her own findings, which revealed, among other things, only two commercial radio outlets for rock en espanol in the United States and only one major national magazine on the subject, La Banda Elastica. Nonetheless, she saw albums and shows selling out.

Says Vargas, “As I was researching this, I kept thinking, because of the feedback and demographic information, ‘This can’t be right. If this is true, why hasn’t anyone done this [show] already?’

“What I found out is that even though there’s a great underground support network for the music [through the Internet], the reason why traditional Spanish stations haven’t been doing it is just that: They’re traditional.”

Howard was sold on Vargas’ presentation and asked her to produce a show.

Vargas enlisted the help of Tomas Cookman, president of the North Hollywood talent agency Cookman International, which manages bands such as Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, King Chango and Aterciopelados.

They, in turn, asked writer and teacher Josh Kun and film actress Yareli Arizmendi to co-host the show.

An English professor at UC Riverside, Kun wrote his dissertation on the rock en espanol movement and is a frequent contributor on rock en espanol to Rolling Stone and other publications.

Kun and Arizmendi host the show mostly in English. Cookman says English was the best language choice because most of the Spanish-speaking listeners are bilingual or English-dominant, and the non-Spanish-speaking listeners will not feel left out.

“We had one call the first week from a guy who said he wouldn’t have even noticed the songs were in Spanish unless we told them,” Cookman says.

Howard says that, so far, his station has received only a handful of calls and e-mails from listeners hostile to Spanish-language music on the station and that 90% of the listener response has been positive.

“You’re not going to please everybody,” Howard says. “But the scales are tipped in our favor. I think our audience is into hipness and newness. Being in the know.”

Already, two songs introduced on “The Red Zone” have been incorporated into the general playlist, according to Vargas. They are “Como Vez” by the local band Ozomatli and “Brown and Proud” by San Francisco band Los Mocosos.

Most surprising, Howard says, has been the almost immediate response his station has gotten from major corporate advertisers. With only three weeks on the air, “The Red Zone” was approached by Miller Genuine Draft, which has signed on as a sponsor.

Sean O’Neill, the station’s general sales manager, says he has also spoken with McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Univision, and they’re all also interested in sponsoring the show.

Fernandez says the station shouldn’t be surprised by advertiser enthusiasm.

“Companies like Mountain Dew have been dying to reach the alternative Latin market,” he says. “There just haven’t been the commercial outlets for it.”

Revised Host Parade: Even the experts don’t always get it right. Such is the balkanization of the Southland radio market--and the power of Spanish-language radio--that our list of the 10 most-listened-to hosts here last week failed to include three names.

So here is the revised list from Premiere Radio Networks of the Los Angeles-Orange County radio personalities with the largest number of listeners per average quarter-hour, based on the recently released Arbitron ratings for the summer quarter.

Morning-drive host Renan Almendarez Coello on Spanish-language KSCA-FM (101.9) remains in the top slot. His 5-11 a.m. weekday show drew an average of 212,700 listeners per quarter hour.

Now taking second place is Martha Shalhoub on Spanish-language KLVE-FM (107.5), whose weekday 10 a.m.-3 p.m. slot averaged 146,100 listeners. She was not on the list that Premiere initially supplied.

Rush Limbaugh on talk station KFI-AM (640), 9 a.m.-noon, drops back to third place with 133,400 listeners, followed by KFI’s Laura Schlessinger, noon-3 p.m., with 121,000 listeners.

KLVE’s morning drive guy Pepe Barreto, 5-10 a.m., who had been ill during much of the ratings period, is in fifth place with 116,100 listeners per quarter hour. He’s followed by KSCA’s Maria Nava, also not on the original list, whose 11 a.m.-3 p.m. show averages 114,400. KLVE’s Pio Ferro, also not named last week, drew 104,100 listeners on his 3-7 p.m. afternoon drive show.

The remaining three are Howard Stern on KLSX-FM (97.1), 91,500; Rick Dees on Top 40s KIIS-FM (102.7), 86,400; and Kevin and Bean of rock outlet KROQ-FM (106.7), 76,900.