Angels score a new home with KDIS-KSPN switch

This past season, the Anaheim Angels ended up in a place they’d never been, among the company of major league baseball’s world champions. Next season, their fans will find them in a more familiar spot: back at 710 on the AM radio dial.

The move is part of a reshuffling that takes effect Wednesday when the Southland affiliates of Radio Disney and ESPN -- KDIS-AM (710) and KSPN-AM (1110) -- switch frequencies. Fans of sports talk and live game coverage will have to spin a bit farther to the left to hear the likes of Dan Patrick and his colleagues, while the kids and parents who are the target audience of Disney’s family-friendly pop will have to ratchet up their dials a few more kilohertz.

The move is a homecoming for the Angels, who had 710 AM as their flagship station for 36 years, when its call letters were KMPC. In a way, the team owes its existence to the station.

Cowboy crooner Gene Autry owned a string of radio stations, including KMPC. In 1961, after the Los Angeles Dodgers left KMPC for a rival station, Autry went to the baseball owners’ winter meeting hoping to replace them by securing the broadcast rights for one of the upcoming season’s two new expansion teams. When a prospective team owner dropped out, Autry stepped in and came home with the Angels as well as programming for his station.

KMPC was the Angels’ home until 1997, when Disney bought both. It moved the Angels to KLAC-AM (570) and turned KMPC into KDIS, Radio Disney. Disney/ABC, which also owns ESPN, turned the former KRLA-AM (1110) into an ESPN Radio affiliate in 2000.

The Angels are leaving KLAC, which also carries the Lakers and had bumped the Angels several times when game times conflicted. In addition, the ESPN-Disney station switch places the team on the outlet with the stronger signal of the two.

The station locked up the Angels for five years on their heritage frequency, said ESPN Radio spokeswoman Linda Bernson.

Meanwhile, Disney/ABC officials are confident that Radio Disney fans will find their station at its new location. “KDIS has no direct format competitors,” Bernson said. “There was no concern they would get lost on the dial.”

And though baseball season is still far off, the new ESPN radio will launch with much fanfare Wednesday, carrying a full slate of New Year’s Day college football bowl games, including the Rose Bowl at 1:30 p.m. The station will also air the Fiesta Bowl at 4:30 p.m. Jan. 3, with the Miami Hurricanes and Ohio State Buckeyes meeting for the national championship.

The ESPN switch is just one change that sports radio fans will have to reckon with in the new year. Clear Channel Communications is merging its all-sports stations in L.A. and San Diego, KXTA-AM (1150) and XTRA-AM (690), respectively. The company is consolidating staff and will simulcast programming.

“We wanted to create the biggest sports station in Southern California,” said Robin Bertolucci, director of AM programming for Clear Channel-Los Angeles. “Our signals are both in the same area, and instead of fighting for the same audience, we decided to make one superstation.”

The merger had been scheduled for mid-December but was pushed back to Jan. 6.

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Art Bell will be saying farewell

Art Bell, whose overnight radio program “Coast to Coast AM” explores unexplained phenomena ranging from UFOs to Bigfoot, will relinquish the show following his New Year’s Eve broadcast next week.

It’s not paranormal forces, nor agents of the shadow government controlling the country that are forcing him off the air, but something far more mundane: a chronic bad back that makes it unbearable for him to sit in a chair for several hours a night broadcasting.

His replacement, George Noory, is a kindred spirit and a familiar voice to “Coast to Coast” listeners. Noory began filling in for Bell two years ago and became his regular guest host when Bell’s back trouble meant he missed more and more shows.

When he announced his plans to leave in October, Bell said, “It’s not fair to listeners for me to be gone so much.” Noory was already host of the show three nights a week, with Barbara Simpson the host on Sunday nights.

“Noory’s ratings for when he’s filled in have kept pace with Art’s ratings,” said Keven Bellows, spokeswoman for Premiere Radio, which distributes “Coast to Coast.” She said officials there hope Bell’s audience will remain with the new host.

Bell started the show in 1993 and broadcasts to more than 500 stations from his home studio outside Las Vegas. Locally he’s heard from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. weeknights on KFI-AM (640).

His final regular show will be his annual New Year’s Eve prediction program, with visions for 2003 and a review of what was expected for 2002. He will return periodically to fill in for Noory.

Noory comes from KTRS in St. Louis, where his show “The Nighthawk” has aired since 1997, examining many of the same unusual topics covered on “Coast to Coast.”

Though much of his 30-year broadcasting career included stints as a television news producer and director, the two shows hark back to his teenage fascination with unidentified flying objects.

“ ‘Coast to Coast AM’ may just be the most unusual show I have ever witnessed or been a part of,” Noory said in a statement. “You really almost have to be born into that arena, I think, to handle it. I was very lucky in that’s the way I was guiding my own career. It was this thirst to really get to the bottom of some of these stories that kept pushing me.”

The retirement is actually Bell’s third. He left in 1998 because of what he called a “threatening, terrible event” that happened to his family, according to his cryptic farewell message. It turned out his son had been kidnapped and assaulted by a substitute teacher, and Bell left to deal with the event and the ensuing trial. Bell returned, only to quit again in 2000 after he was falsely accused of child molestation. He returned in February 2001.