A Maverick Goes Against the Tide Again

Saul Levine is willing to try just about anything--except retirement.

The 70-year-old station owner has brought Southern California the all-traffic format and the all-Beatles format. He tried to challenge the news-radio duopoly of KNX and KFWB. He ran the nation’s only commercial jazz station, until March, when he changed it to contemporary standards--bringing Sinatra and Tony Bennett back to the Southland airwaves and adding modern vocalists such as Harry Connick Jr. and Diana Krall. And for 44 years he’s owned what is now one of the country’s few commercial classical stations, “K-Mozart,” KMZT-FM (105.1).

“I’ve had the luxury of experimenting with formats, which the big corporations don’t do,” said Levine, a rare independent operator in an age of consolidation and chain ownership.

“I love all music--you name it, I enjoy it,” Levine said, but “I have a special affinity for classical, and the community needs it. There’s just such a great need for culture on the dial.”

To Deborah Borda, managing director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, simply keeping the station as an outlet for Mozart, Strauss, Beethoven and Vivaldi is a gift to Los Angeles, when Levine could easily reap millions by selling to a company that would change to more mainstream programming.

For that reason, and for the support he gives the orchestra in free advertising, broadcast time and other ways, the Philharmonic will honor Levine on Wednesday with its first Distinguished Service Award.

“He’s an original. He’s one-of-a-kind,” Borda said.

“Some think I’m eccentric when I could be living on the beach somewhere,” Levine said. “From the time I was 10 years old, I’ve had the inclination to own a radio station.”

After World War II, AM stations gobbled up the newly available FM frequencies, but surrendered them when they saw no potential for the band--in spite of its long range and lack of static. But Levine did, buying the 105.1 frequency in 1958.

“I was able to get a channel just by filing for it. I did all the work myself,” said Levine, who had recently received his law degree from UCLA. “Today I couldn’t afford to go out and acquire the station. All it took was about $25 in paperwork.”

FM, of course, succeeded, and took almost all music on the radio with it, leaving AM with sports and talk. But Levine again sees potential--for a return of music to AM.

After tinkering with various formats on his station at 1260 on the AM dial, Levine made it KJAZ in March 2000, playing all jazz. But with negligible audiences and little support from record labels and local promoters, he changed the format again this year, snuffing what the trade press said was the only commercial jazz station left in the country.

With Clear Channel Communications switching KLAC-AM (570) from adult standards to talk in August, Levine saw an opportunity. In March, KJAZ became KSUR, “K-Surf,” what he hopes will be a fresh, laid-back, Southern Californian approach to adult standards. No more “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?” or “Mule Train.”

“There are these songs that are so tired--I hate to say this--that they could make one nauseous hearing them over and over again,” he said. K-Surf, on the other hand, will feature Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis and Barbra Streisand. “It has kind of a hip sound to it, and doesn’t have that stigma of ‘my grandmother’s music.’”

He hopes that older listeners will enjoy the familiar music, while younger ones, just getting hip to Tony Bennett and others of the genre, will appreciate the style and presentation of the singers and the station. And his confidence is exhibited by the $500,000 he spent to quadruple the station’s power output last month, from 5,000 to 20,000 watts.

When asked about a previous interview, in which Levine--who also owns a station in San Francisco and one in San Diego--was quoted as saying he was interested in making only “a modest profit,” he laughed. “Our profits are extremely modest,” he said.

It took 20 years for KMZT to get in the black--a decade longer than Levine promised his skeptical mother. With the 100-mile reach of his facility atop Mt. Wilson, Levine said he could be billing advertisers $40 million a year if he were playing a mass-appeal format. Last year KMZT billed $4 million.

“It used to be, 20 years ago, a classical station would get a premium because of the audience,” Levine said. Now, advertisers don’t seem to care about KMZT’s demographic of PhDs with $75,000 salaries, and are obsessed with youth and ratings. Even so, in the latest ratings period, KMZT beat out the area’s two classic-rock stations, KCBS and KLOS, as well as KZLA, the country station that claims to have the nation’s biggest audience for that format.

“I think what happens, when people reach 40, people look for something more substantial, and they’re not being served,” Levine said.

His property became especially valuable after the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which changed the FCC rules about how many radio stations one company could own overall, and in a single market. As soon as companies could acquire more stations, they wanted to, and the frequencies became hot commodities.

“Since the deregulation happened, there’s been a lot of buying and selling of stations. A veritable frenzy,” said Brenda Barnes, president and general manager of L.A.’s other classical music station, the non-commercial KUSC-FM (91.5). “The price of radio stations went through the roof. If you’re going to buy a station for $150 million or $200 million in a major market, it’s pretty difficult to meet the debt load and run it as a classical station.”

So commercial classical station WQXR-FM in New York is owned by the New York Times Co., KING-FM in Seattle runs on a foundation endowment, WFMT-FM in Chicago is operated commercially by the city’s public television station, and WGMS-FM in Washington, D.C., belongs to Bonneville International Corp., which owns two other stations in the city. Few individuals are devoted enough to classical music to eschew the advertising revenue that a Top 40 format could generate, or bypass the payoff from a conglomerate looking to expand.

Levine said the broadcast chains have gotten the message that he has no plans to sell, and have almost quit asking. But one executive calls faithfully every six months to see if he’s changed his mind. Levine always consults with his wife of 30 years, Anita, and always declines.

“A hundred million dollars is a lot of money,” Barnes said. “Obviously I’m never going to be in that situation, but I think it would be hard to say no to.

“He’s not running the station because he’s looking to make as much money as he possibly can,” she said. “I truly admire Saul Levine for his commitment to classical music. I don’t know many people who would make the decisions he’s made.”

Levine said it’s simply a matter of doing what he loves best. His two children are grown--Stephanie, 25, is a law student at Loyola Marymount, while Michael, 22, is a liaison in Gov. Gray Davis’ office--and he has few hobbies, apart from a love of raising Golden Retrievers. Even when a head cold keeps him from going to work, he finds energy to take 2-year-old Archie on a drive around town.

“I have no plans to retire, and my father worked until the day he died, and he was 85,” Levine said. “I’m a broadcaster; it was a dream I had as a child. I enjoy going to work every day, I enjoy serving the public, and some things are worth more than money.”