They tried country. It didn’t work. They tried Rick Dees. That didn’t work either. Now the station has found a Mexican partner and is trying Spanish.
Executives at the station’s owner, Emmis Communications Inc., think that’s going to work because the Spanish market is a growing island in the shrinking ocean of radio.
The recent switch of KMVN-FM (93.9) to Spanish-language music brings a new competitor to the L.A. radio market while also ousting local icon Rick Dees the DJ who ruled the airwaves in the 1980s from the Burbank station.
Emmis has done a lease-with-option-to-buy deal with Cadena Radio Centro, a Mexican broadcaster that owns 11 stations in Mexico City.
For Emmis, the Cadena deal represents an abrupt flip-flop. In 2006, Emmis renounced the country format and hired Dees to introduce the experimental Movin’ format on KMVN. The format features songs with a bouncy beat from any musical genre or historical era.
Articles in trade publications covering radio have speculated that the failure of Movin’ could be the swansong for Dees, who landed at KMVN after being replaced by Ryan Seacrest on KIIS-FM (102.7) in 2004.
In response to an e-mail from the Business Journal, Dees indicated his company Dees Entertainment will soon announce a future project, but not necessarily in mainstream radio.
“The future of audio entertainment goes way beyond FM that’s your first hint,” he said by e-mail. “But I love performing comedy on the radio, and the L.A. audience is wonderful, so let’s see what happens.”
When the format switch was announced in April, Emmis Chairman Jeff Smulyan said, “In these challenging times it is the right decision for Emmis.”
Enter ‘Exitos’
Under the station management deal, Cadena will rent the Burbank station from Emmis for a payment of $7 million per year for seven years. Cadena can buy the station for $110 million at any time, provided it finds a U.S. partner since federal regulations prohibit foreigners from owning broadcast stations.
Carlos Aguirre, chief executive of Cadena, said the new station, nicknamed “Exitos” or “Hits,” has plenty of opportunity to develop an audience.
Latinos represent more than 40 percent of the population in the L.A. radio market. All Spanish speakers represent only 28 percent of the radio audience. That means there should be room for another Spanish-language station.
“There is a gap that we think we can enter,” he said. “Los Angeles is the largest radio market in the world and we see an opportunity here.”
Exitos will also try an experimental format that Aguirre has devised specifically for the local market. In general, it will fall in the Spanish adult contemporary category, but will mix songs from the pop and Mexican genres, including rancho, grupero and regional.
Michael Saffran, adjunct professor of communication at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, said that stations have to experiment because the radio audience is shrinking as young people switch to the Internet and iPods.
But the Spanish-language niche is still growing, especially in the Southwest, Saffran said.
Aguirre first read in trade magazines that Emmis was in trouble and contacted the company through mutual friend Barrett Alley, who became the new general manager of KMVN.
Cadena’s strategy is to repeat its success in Mexico, where it owns a total of 14 stations, with 11 in Mexico City. If KMVN works, Aguirre wants to buy other stations in the L.A. market.
Cadena has hired five ad salespeople, and has landed advertising contracts with law firms, insurance agents and airlines. Katz Clear Channel Hispanic will handle national ad accounts.
Aguirre won’t start an ad sales push until the station has a few months of Arbitron data. So far, preliminary numbers give the station a 1.6 share, meaning that on average about 1.6 percent of all radio listeners are tuned in to the station at any given time.
Prior to the format switch, KMVN had a 1.9 share. Aguirre considers the slight dip a temporary and natural part of the station finding its audience.
“By the second or third year, we expect the U.S. economy to improve and we expect to have a fair share of the market by that time,” he said.
