Warming up: General Manager Roger Nadel brings Dodgers broadcasts to KFWB, even as ownership of the Infinity news station remains a question mark. (People).

AFTER 35 years of "all news, all the time," radio station KFWB-AM (980) has diversified. The station's five-year contract to carry the Dodgers is not merely a programming switch--it signals a modest change of identity for one of the city's oldest broadcast outlets. As explained by Vice President and General Manager Roger Nadel, KFWB is counting on the Dodgers to help it reverse a long spell in which it has trailed rival KNX-AM (1070) in the ratings race.

The change comes during an odd period for KFWB. Owner Infinity Broadcasting, which owns eight local stations, one more than federal rules allow has applied to the Federal Communications Commission to put KFWB into trust. If the application is accepted, KFWB would continue to be owned by Infinity, but the company would have no voice in its day-to-day management. If it's rejected, Infinity would likely have to sell one of its eight local stations.

Question: Why did you go after the Dodgers?

Answer: This made sense as a way to expand in a compatible way. What better way to grow the KFWB brand than to affiliate it with the best brand in major league sports? The Dodgers, conversely, were looking to grow beyond their fan base. (Dodgers President) Bob Graziano has been quoted as saying that one of the things that attracted them to KFWB was moving away from the limitations of an all-sports radio station. When you're talking to an all-sports listener base, it's like preaching to the choir.

Q: Radio listeners have felt shortchanged over the past couple of seasons because Vin Scully only called the first two innings on radio. Will that change?

A: Vin has agreed to a third inning. That's valuable real estate for us. To have him in afternoon drive for a third inning is a big bonus.

Q: Will there be noticeable differences in Dodgers broadcasts?

A: The traditional way of doing a pre-game show is you get a couple of people down at the ballpark who sort of chew the fat and talk about last night's game. Our goal for the hour-long pre-game show is for it to sound more like KFWB. The goal is to give listeners enough news to keep them content and gradually phase in Dodgers programming. It will have all of our normal news utilities: Traffic on the is, sports at 15 and 45, business news. But it will also have other features that are more oriented toward baseball. Our goal isn't to trade our half-million afternoon listeners for the Dodgers audience. Our goal is to take that half-million and grow it.

Q: Have any of your listeners complained about the switch away from all news?

A: Yes, we have received some complaints. There are people who have been listening to our station for 35 years, and change is uncomfortable. We explain that we have been looking for ways to grow the station and this is a way to do that with the least amount of impact on our news identity. And we tried to do it in a way that would have the least impact on the morning, afternoon and midday periods, which in that order are the three most important times of the day for us.

Q: KFWB has trailed KNX in the ratings for some time. Will the Dodgers help you catch up?

A: I think so. In New York, we have two news stations as we do here. Last year, WCBS, our sister station, became the flagship station for the Yankees. Their evening ratings went through the roof.

Q: There was a time when KFWB ran ads that poked fun of KNX for not being an all-news station.

A: Those were the days when the stations were owned by different companies. We're part of the same company and our goal, frankly, is to grow our two stations. We want to grow the news audience in Los Angeles.

Q: It's an oddity of consolidation that your main competitor, KNX, is also owned by Infinity.

A: Yes, but it's also the reason that we made the decision to go after baseball. We felt it was an opportunity to expand beyond our existing listener base. Because baseball is primarily a night and weekend event, it comes at a time when news listening tends to be at its lower ebb.

Q: As part of the same company, do the two stations confer on prgramming decisions?

A: Both stations report to the same management, but we program our stations independently. I do not program KFWB based on KNX's schedule.

Q: Did the decision to put your station into a trust leave you feeling a bit like the unwanted stepchild in the local cluster?

A: Just the opposite. What it says to me is that they have enough confidence in the way we're running the radio station for the period of time where the station is put into this trust environment.

Q: If the FCC were to reject the application and decide that Infinity must sell a station in this market, would KFWB be the one to go?

A: It's a question you need to ask people at corporate headquarters. But there is no correlation between the application to put KFWB in trust and how the company would necessarily come into further compliance.

Q: Infinity is part of CBS, which is in turn owned by Viacom Inc. Does being part of a multi-platform media giant help you?

A: Having a company that has radio stations, TV stations, TV networks, Blockbuster Video, MTV, Paramount Pictures gives us an ability to package opportunities for advertisers. We probably are just scratching the surface of the cross capabilities.

Q: How do you balance coverage among local, national and international news?

A: On an average day--and we haven't had an average day here since September 2001--you'd like to have a balance of about 60 percent local and 40 percent national. But we understand that people use radio differently now than they did two, three, five years ago. We need to be much more in tune with people's awareness levels, people's fears and anxieties. We play a little bit of a different role now. It's not just an information resource. It can be a source of comfort. How do we help you cope, how do we get you around the traffic problem, how do we get people in a fire zone to a Red Cross shelter.

Q: How have you been preparing for war with Iraq?

A: As opposed to a Sept. 11 kind of attack, which was a total jolt to our systems, this is not going to be unexpected. We have contingency plans for the outbreak of war in that part of the world. We have a second contingency plan for hostilities or terrorist attacks in the United States, especially here in Los Angeles. We have a third contingency plan for a major tragedy like an earthquake ... We'll do a lot of CNN coverage, as we did when the planes went into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But we'll balance CNN coverage with a lot of local coverage.

Q: How is the station affected by the lead up to war?

A: Our gasoline prices are up through the roof. We can't not go out and cover news, but we budgeted based on what prices were in November. We all have to figure out how to accommodate the changes in this economy.

Q: What about sales?

A: Nobody has looked down and said, "Oh boy, this war is going to be changing things, we'll adjust accordingly." We're out there in the streets every day and, while some advertisers have telegraphed to us a concern about what happens in the event of war, my own sense is that the U.S. economy is going to freeze in place for a long period.

Q: When you are part of a continuous 24-hour news broadcast, how do you keep the programming fresh?

A: Our goal is to be everyone's second favorite radio station. We understand that the news format unto itself may not be something that you want to listen to for four hours at a stretch. But in that four hours, if you are checking back every few minutes for a traffic reports, updated sports scores or a vote in the United Nations, that works for us.

INTERVIEW

Roger Nadel

Title: Vice President and General Manager

Organization: KFWB-AM (980)

Born: 1950, Washington, D.C.

Education: B.A., psychology, University of the Pacific

Career Turning Point: Being hired at KNX in 1976.

Personal: Married, two sons.

Hobbies: Photography, surfing the Web.