Spanish-language station tries English

Any day now, the music will stop, all those still dancing can take a breather, and a DJ will interrupt the relentless beats on radio station KDL -- in English.

That’s significant because KDL, at 103.1 on the FM dial, is owned by Entravision Communications Corp., the Spanish-language broadcaster based in Santa Monica.

When the company shifted its Super Estrella format of Spanish-language rock and pop from 103.1 to another station and started playing “high-energy dance music” such as Kylie Minogue, Moby and No Doubt, the move not only signaled a shift in Entravision’s focus but also in the makeup of who lives in L.A.

“This is just the evolution of the market and its changing tastes and its diversity,” said Entravision Chief Executive Walter Ulloa. “L.A. is becoming more diverse every day. It’s becoming more bicultural, more bilingual. There absolutely is a cross-over.”

Spanish-language radio traditionally played regional Mexican music or Mexican oldies that appealed to older audiences. Many young Latinos weren’t getting what they wanted on those stations and dialed in the English-language hits on KIIS-FM (102.7), KPWR-FM (105.9) and others. Now Entravision wants to get some of them back.

“It makes sense. Young people tend to be English-dominant, even if they’re bilingual,” said Ron Rodrigues, editor of the trade magazine Radio & Records. He noted that about half of the audience of KPWR is Latino, and it’s one-third or more for alternative rocker KROQ-FM (106.7).

“It’s one thing to be a Spanish-language broadcaster, and it’s another to be a broadcaster that’s going to serve the Latino community,” he said. “For a broadcaster to want to cover the Latino population in L.A., you’re going to have to do a couple of English formats.”

The shift at KDL reverses the trend of English-language stations flipping to Spanish programming -- at least four in the past six years -- to cater to an underserved Latino audience. After all, the 2000 census showed that Latinos make up 45% of Los Angeles County’s population, up from 38% a decade before, and are now the region’s largest ethnic group.

So in casting a net for the 18-to-34-year-old audience, KDL will naturally grab a large number of Latinos, but it wants to haul in Anglos, African Americans, Asians and anyone else interested in the music.

“It’s going to have big Hispanic appeal, but it’s going to have big non-ethnic appeal also. The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive,” said Haz Montana, Entravision’s vice president of programming.

The station debuted Jan. 17 as “the New Party Station” on KDLD in Santa Monica and KDLE in Newport Beach, and announced it would play 10,000 songs in a row -- no commercials, no DJs, no interruptions. That has since been changed to 10 in a row, with the arrival of commercials earlier this week. DJs will come on board shortly, company officials said, but they seem to be in no rush.

“No one ever complains when a station plays too much music,” said Entravision Radio President Jeff Liberman.

The company first tried the English-language, dance-music approach in Dallas, where it debuted KKDL-FM in August with 20,000 songs in a row. KKDL went from not even registering in the summer Arbitron ratings to a 1.4% share of the audience in the most recent, fall numbers -- a jump that placed it just outside the top 25 in that market. And Entravision said it increased its share of the 18-to-34-year-old audience that advertisers covet by 64% from summer to fall.

But Rodrigues warned that the relatively weak combined signal of KDLD and KDLE, along with its niche audience, might mean ratings no higher than what the company has already seen in Dallas.

“There’s nowhere in the country where a dance station is successful,” Rodrigues said. “Then again, all the other good formats are taken.

“There are quite a few variations of dance music, too -- house music, techno, electronica. They’re pretty distinct, and people tend to like what they like.”

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In what Ulloa cited as another example of Entravision trying to diversify its offerings, the company debuted another station in the Southland this week: KLYY-FM (97.5), “La Cumbia Caliente.”

He described the cumbia format, which originated in Colombia and has since spread through Central America and Mexico, as a tropical, sensual style of dance music. KLYY had also been simulcasting the Super Estrella format, until the switch Monday.

“Don’t confuse it with Miami and the East Coast. This is not salsa,” Ulloa said, but a subgenre of the Mexican regional format. “We felt the popularity of this sound is only going to get bigger.”

And he said the presentation of another niche format signals the maturation of Spanish-language radio, which instead of being homogeneous and limited to a few stations is working to broaden its offerings.

“It’s becoming just like English-language radio,” Ulloa said.