Schwarzenegger owes a debt to talk radio

In many ways, Arnold Schwarzenegger has AM talk radio to thank for his election as governor, as program hosts from San Diego to Los Angeles to Sacramento sparked and fanned the flames of the recall and supported his candidacy.

And though the shows will surely move on to other topics, from Kobe Bryant to the presidential race, the hosts aren’t about to take their eyes off the capital.

“Frankly, I don’t think the recall issue is over with,” said Al Peterson, news-talk-sports editor of the trade magazine Radio & Records. Those who supported it, and supported Schwarzenegger’s candidacy, will keep talking about him and his administration. Meanwhile, “those who are unhappy will probably try to make some waves.”

Industry observers predict that talk radio, especially the most conservative anti-tax hosts, will keep an eye on how Schwarzenegger addresses the state’s budget problems.

John Kobylt of “The John & Ken Show” on KFI-AM (640) said on election night that the best thing about the governor-elect is that “he’ll stop further tax increases. I don’t expect him to unravel all the problems in the next, you know, 90 days or anything of that nature. It’s going to take a long time.”

Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine, the talk radio industry’s trade journal, said talk shows that don’t hold Schwarzenegger’s feet to the fire the way they did with Gray Davis’ risk losing audience members who aren’t strictly hard-core.

“There’s a tendency among some hosts to view the politicians they support as the home team and turn a blind eye,” he said. But “political foibles open doors for new hosts and new points of view.”

Perry Michael Simon, news-talk-sports editor of AllAccess.com, an online trade journal of the radio industry, was program director at the New Jersey station where Kobylt and his partner, Ken Chiampou, worked before they moved to L.A. There they hammered then-New Jersey Gov. James J. Florio on his tax policies. Then they reloaded when Christine Todd Whitman defeated him in the 1993 election.

“The whole staff turned its eye on the new governor and examined what she did,” Simon said. “Arnold will have a honeymoon period, but he’ll be under tremendous scrutiny from the talk-radio hosts.”

Bill Handel, on his KFI program Thursday morning, alluded to this after playing a clip of Schwarzenegger thanking the media for covering him and asking them to stick around so he can get his message out.

“That may change as soon as they start attacking him,” Handel said. “The media has been pro-Arnold in many ways.”

Simon added that the recall saturated talk radio more than most issues the medium takes on, and not because it’s only the second time in American history that voters have recalled a governor. He said the cause was uniquely suited to talk radio.

“It lent itself to the form. People angry at the government had a place to vent,” he said. “It’s one thing to sit around and complain about Clinton or Bush or the mayor; it’s another thing to realize you have the power to effect change.”

Harrison said that talk radio is truly a driving force in only a few issues and that the recall was one of them.

“It isn’t often that something happens due to talk radio,” he said. “If there were no talk radio, I don’t know if there [would have been] a recall.”

Peterson agreed that talk radio deserves its fair share of credit for stoking the recall issue.

“Let’s face it, I don’t think anybody who hosts a talk radio show claims to be anything but a commentator,” he said, so they’re free to be partisan “and not ‘fair and balanced,’ if you’ll pardon the term. Do they take a victory lap now? I guess some will, and maybe that’s deserved.”

On election night, Kobylt and Chiampou talked about their trips to the polls to vote for the recall and for Schwarzenegger, with the former saying he relished his chance to remove the governor, whom the hosts continually deride as a cartoon character: “Aiming with that little stick, right into Gumby’s heart, I punched my chad with glee.”

However, talk radio can’t afford to rest on whatever laurels it thinks it deserves for the part it played in the recall.

“This is a tough act to follow,” Simon said. “Most of the hosts understand that self-congratulation for a long period of time will probably lose them listeners. It’s not that interesting. That will die down pretty quickly. They’ll find something to discuss, to rail against, to carry them into the next round.”

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Executives fired at KFWB and KNX

On the eve of one of the biggest news stories in California history, the governor’s recall, the company owning KFWB-AM (980) and KNX-AM (1070) fired the top executive at each of L.A.’s all-news stations.

Roger Nadel and George Nicholaw, general managers of KFWB and KNX, respectively, had their jobs eliminated by Infinity Radio, the subsidiary of Viacom, which owns CBS and a chain of 185 radio stations nationwide, including both KFWB and KNX, and five other outlets in the L.A. market.

Most KFWB listeners are probably unfamiliar with Nadel, but KNX listeners know Nicholaw’s name and voice from his editorials aired on the station. He had overseen KNX since 1967, even before it went all-news in April 1968, trailing rival KFWB by a month. Nadel, before taking over KFWB in 1996, oversaw a pair of stations in Detroit and worked at KNX from 1976 to 1989 as a news writer, editor and executive news producer.

Infinity spokeswoman Karen Mateo said the job cuts would be effective by the end of this week. She said the company had no comment about the reason. Nadel didn’t return calls seeking comment, and Nicholaw said he couldn’t talk about the moves.

“It’s been a great long run for me, but I’ve enjoyed the bumpy ride,” said Nicholaw, the nation’s longest-tenured general manager of a commercial station, who started with CBS in 1955. “I’m leaving with a great deal of sadness but also joy at accomplishing a great deal with KNX. I really believe it’s a great radio station.”

In August, Infinity moved Pat Duffy from his role as general manager of the company’s KRTH-FM (101.1) to vice president of its two AM all-news stations in L.A. At the time, he told trade journal Radio & Records that Nadel and Nicholaw were staying. A month later, Infinity hired David G. Hall, formerly of KFI and Premiere Radio Networks, which syndicates talk shows, including Rush Limbaugh’s and Laura Schlessinger’s, to program the two news stations.

Although talk station KFI has leapt to near the top of local ratings, even major news events such as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and this year’s war in Iraq nudged audience figures for KFWB and KNX only slightly.

“It certainly appears, to this observer, the company is interested