Positive thinking comes to AM radio band.

The folks at Personal Achievement Radio Inc. are feeling pretty good about themselves after launching an unusual new radio format in the Los Angeles market last week.

Putting a unique spin on the concept of talk radio, the company on Feb. 26 began empowering Angelenos to vaporize those unproductive mental frameworks that form roadblocks to personal success. In other words, it started broadcasting motivational speeches from positive attitude gurus like Anthony Robbins and Deepak Chopra on two soon-to-be acquired AM stations that between them cover the entire L.A. basin.

Personal Achievement Radio is a division of Palo Alto-based Douglas Broadcasting Inc., which until recently was known primarily as the parent of 13 Asian-language radio stations in California, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois and Texas. But last week's format changes for KYPA, which simulcasts from two stations in Pomona and Los Angeles located at 1230 and 1220 on the AM dial, marked the beginning of an experimental foray into the profitable business of making people profitable.

Douglas has formed an alliance with Chicago-based Nightingale-Conant Corp., a publisher of personal development books and tapes, to bring the company's authors to the airwaves. Some of the best-known names in the New Age motivation and success movement, including Robbins, Chopra, Leo Buscaglia, Wayne Dyer, Zig Ziglar and Denis Waitley, publish their works through Nightingale Conant.

Four for sale

Douglas is in the process of selling four FM stations it owned in Southern California, including KMAX in Pasadena, to help pay for the acquisitions of the new AM stations in Los Angeles and other stations around the country that it plans to convert to the personal development format. Douglas President and CEO John Douglas said his emerging personal success radio empire will eventually cover one-third of the country.

The new stations will be funded partially by between $25 million and $50 million in venture capital from Stamford, Conn.-based TSG Capital, Douglas said. Bank loans and funds from joint venture partner Nightingale-Conant will supply the rest of the capital needed to buy new stations.

Although the purchase of KYPA in Los Angeles has not yet been finalized, Douglas has already switched from the station's former gospel music format to personal development under an agreement with its current owners.

KYPA is not the first station in the country to try a personal development format. Joe Nuckols, chief operating officer of Personal Achievement Radio and vice president of programming in the company's Los Angeles office, started a nationally syndicated motivational broadcast in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in 1987. But last week marked the first time the format has ever been broadcast on a 24-hour basis, Nuckols said.