KKGO Owner Is Still Dialed In at 93

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KKGO Owner Is Still Dialed In at 93
From Left: KKGO management team Michael Levine

Ask Saul Levine how he’s managed to stay in business for 62 years operating L.A.’s only independently owned radio station, KKGO-FM (105), and he’ll explain his mantra simply.

“You have to hustle,” says Saul, who at 93 still works 14-hour days, seven days a week in an industry dominated by giants like iHeartMedia Inc., which owns 855 stations across the nation.

One reason for Levine’s longevity in a consolidating industry is that he has remained steadfast in refusing to sell, even as other stations were gobbled up by corporations.

“There are times when it would have been easier to walk away,” he said. “I wouldn’t do it.”

Even though the station’s slogan today is “Go Country,” it hasn’t always had that format. In the past, KKGO has relied on classical music and jazz.

Country happens to be the flavor chosen by Levine’s son, Michael, KKGO’s station manager and program director. In 2007 when the only country music station in town, KZLA, dropped the format, Michael Levine spied opportunity.

“It just made sense to explore another family format that was niche,” the younger Levine said. “We always had a passion for country music as well. It all kind of came together.”

Go Country reaches 1 million to 1.1 million listeners per year, according to Michael. Nielsen Holdings ranks KKGO among the 12 most listened to radio stations in Los Angeles.

Levine also owns an AM radio station, KSUR-AM (1260), which plays oldies music that “identifies with the California lifestyle.” Saul handpicks the playlists. He bought this station in 1992. Throughout the years, it has gone through a variety of formats that aren’t viable enough to play on FM radio, Saul said.

As the commercial radio industry has contracted, L.A.-area station revenues plummeted from a height of $1 billion in 2007 to $600 million today, estimates one veteran marketer.

Beating the odds

Against the odds, Saul Levine is making it work. In a market filled with stations owned by giant corporations, annual revenues of Levine’s privately owned Mt. Wilson FM Broadcasters Inc. add up to “maybe $6 million — in a good year,” the marketer estimated. Saul puts it around $10 million.

Levine’s history with KKGO dates to 1959 when he secured a Federal Communications Commission license for an FM station in Los Angeles. With a budget of only $10,000 to get the station up and running, he drove a bulldozer to groom land atop Mt. Wilson where he installed a used antenna he bought from another station.

Levine saw opportunity in the emergence of FM radio. Despite industry skeptics who claimed FM stood for “forget money,” he wanted in.

“I’ve always been fascinated with (radio) since I was a small child,” he told the Business Journal on a recent visit to KKGO, which is housed in a nondescript building hard against the 405 Freeway in West Los Angeles.

“I felt FM was the future of radio,” he explained. He was attracted by FM’s high-

fidelity capabilities, its potential for stereo, the static-free reception and the fact that it was lower cost than AM because it only required one tower — AM needs several towers, along with acres of land.

Out of the gate, Levine went head-to-head with an established station that was also broadcasting classical music. A year later, he was worried about paying the rent when a DJ named Daddy-O-Crump said he’d buy the midnight to 6 a.m. airtime for $500 if he could play jazz.

Even though Saul knew little about jazz, the station switched exclusively to the genre after a year of classical under the call letters KBCA. He kept those call letters until 1979 when he named the station KKGO “Get Jazzed.” The jazz format lasted until 1989 when the established classical station, KFAC, turned to rock ’n’ roll.

Classical roots

Seeing an opening, Levine returned the station to a classical format in 1989, calling his station K-MOZART. While listeners took to classical, profits were slim, Saul said, and after 19 years, the station turned to country music and restored the KKGO call letters.

But Levine managed to keep the station’s classical roots alive, launching the KMozart app to accompany the online streaming website kmozart.com as well as 105.1 FM HD4. He also plays adult standards on Smooth Jazz 105.1 HD3. The AM oldies station can also be heard on 105.1 FM HD2.

Levine has persevered through many changes in the industry. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, for instance, repealed caps on ownership of radio stations nationally. “A huge wave of mergers and acquisitions” followed, said Gabriel Rossman, a sociology associate professor at UCLA and author of a book about the radio industry. “You went from plenty of mom-and-pop stations and some tiny chains to … a few chains that dominated the industry.”

Clear Channel Communications Inc., now iHeartCommunications, owned about 10% of the 13,000 stations nationwide at its peak, Rossman said. Other corporate radio owners include Cumulus Media Inc., Entercom Communications Corp., Cox Media Group and Emmis Communications.

Levine laments that, “The little businessman has been edged out, and I feel very sad about that.”

But he’s not one to stand by and become a victim, says entertainment lawyer Rachel Stilwell, who became friends with Levine after they both submitted testimony to an FCC hearing in L.A. on local industry consolidation.

“For years, Saul argued before the Federal Communications Commission that further consolidation of radio ownership is harmful to localism, diversity and competition,” she said. “Saul is bravely still fighting to make sure that one entity can’t monopolize an entire local market. His heart is in the right place.”

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