Santa Clarita's only radio station files Chapter 11: KBET sings the blues, reporting debts of $2.3 million.

Santa Clarita's only radio station files Chapter 11

KBET sings the blues, reporting debts of $2.3 million

Santa Clarita Valley's only radio station is changing formats, staff and owners in an attempt to rise from the ashes after filing for a Chapter 11 financial reorganization.

On July 23, Canyon Country-based Canyon Broadcaster Inc., owner of KBET-AM, filed for reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles, claiming $2.3 million in debt and $275,000 in assets. The radio station had been on the air for little more than a year.

Last week was the station's first week with its new, narrower rock-oldies format. The station's old format, which included everything from "Chuck Berry to Bon Jovi," was a major problem, said Carl Goldman, a consulting expert assisting with the company's restructuring.

"It's the kiss of death to be as broad as the station was trying to be," Goldman said. "We did research and decided the population wanted oldies like the Beatles, the Beach Boys and Motown."

Canyon Broadcasters is in negotiations to sell the station to another, unidentified party, said Paul Rossilli, one of the company's investors. "It (the reorganization) was one way of making the transition easier," he said.

The station, which broadcasts at 1220 on the AM dial, has also laid off its five on-air personalities and hired four new salespeople. The station has 10 employees.

KBET will still face the disadvantage of having a music format on the primarily talk, news and information AM waveband. "Any new startup AM radio station with a music format is coming into the world with a severe handicap," said Allen Klein, president of Media Research Graphics, an Encino-based radio sales consulting firm.

Most successful radio stations with music formats are on the FM band. Most stereos in homes, where half of the Los Angeles market listens to radio, are not equipped with AM stereo.

The station has faced intense competition from stations based in Burbank and the San Fernando Valley.

Goldman said that the station will also focus on attempting to service the local community -- "we can do lost pets and football games."

That, said Klein, is the station's best hope for profitability. "A way to get one leg up is to become a community station. That has to be their road to follow, but you need community service and involvement and that doesn't happen overnight."

Another station owner agreed with Klein's analysis. "I think it's a matter of getting people used to tuning to AM music and becoming as community-involved as possible," said Dick McGeary, vice president and general manager of Mission Hills-based KGIL-AM, with an news-talk format, and KMGX-FM, with an adult contemporary music format. Klein said that a heavy advertising investment will be necessary to attract new listeners to the station.

Klein said that the decision to narrow to rock oldies may also be a wise move, given that formats appeal to the young listeners moving to the outlying valleys to raise a family.

KBET, with 1,000 watt capacity during the day and 500 watts at night, reachs the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys to the east and Fillmore to the west but cannot penetrate into the San Fernando Valley.

KBET had a painful birth in June 1989, six months late and after the ouster of co-owner Larry Bloomfield of Canyon Country, who was fired as KBET's president by the station's two other owners two months before the station's debut.