Los Angeles is one of the largest radio markets in the nation, so when a new station launches it has to spend some big bucks to get noticed.

“The Sound” broadcasting on KSWD-FM (100.3) recently launched with a $4 million advertising campaign, one of the largest budgets of any new radio launch in the city.

But not one dime of the $4 million is going toward television, print or online advertising. Instead, the station’s ad dollars are represented on billboards, buses and beach trash can campaigns from Los Angeles to Orange County.

“I don’t believe in TV advertising,” said Peter Burton, the station’s vice president and general manager. “It’s too fractionalized and transitory.”

The cool blue hue of “The Sound” advertising banners can be seen on hundreds of Clear Channel billboards, the backs of more than 170 buses throughout the city and the Blue Line.

But the biggest impact may be from the Lawndale sign, an 11-story-tall three-panel electric sign that towers over the busy San Diego (405) Freeway in the city it’s named after.

“That sign alone brings in 450,000 impressions a day,” Burton said. “There’s simply nothing like it.”

Formerly a rhythm and blues station that went by the call letters KRBV, “The Sound” has hired four veteran DJs including Julie Slater, who followed Howard Stern for 10 years in New York City; Larry Morgan, a veteran of the premiere radio network; and Andy Chanley, who has worked on stations across the country in alternative rock formats.

Fortunate Foreclosures

Dark clouds of the economic downturn appear to have a silver lining, at least for Daily Journal Corp., publisher of newspapers such as California Lawyer.

The Los Angeles-based publisher recently reported mid-year profits before taxes went up 61 percent to $8.3 million, compared to the first nine months ending June 30, 2007. The up-tick in profits is being attributed to increase in trustee foreclosure sale notices.

The company did experience decrease in classified advertising revenues of approximately $1 million due to a downturn in the employment advertising marketplace.

Olympic Times

The Olympic Games in Beijing have been a boon for the newest blog at The Los Angeles Times, boosting daily page views for its “Ticket to Beijing” blog of more than 100,000 a day.

“We’re expecting to have more than 2 million unique page views by the time the Olympics end,” said Times Blog Editor Tony Pierce.

Pierce credits the large readership to the fact that they have eight reporters in China, blogging from their Blackberrys and laptops, often beating television and radio to the punch with news of the events.

Of the 44 blogs that the Times controls, three regularly top 1 million page views a month. Last month, Times political blog “Top of the Ticket” logged 1.8 million views, followed by celebrity gossip blog “Dish Rag” at 1.6 million and real estate blog “LA Land” at 1.2 million, Pierce said.

Deal or No Deal?

The word around town is that the Hollywood Reporter and several other Nielsen Business Media Publications are being shopped around though right now it’s denials all around.

Eric Mika, the Reporter’s vice president and publisher, strongly denies that the trade publication is up for sale and said that plans are under way to expand its coverage.

Still, mere talk of a sale is apparently adding pressure on Reed Elsevier to attract a buyer for Variety, which clearly is up for sale, according to several sources. The thinking is that if both properties are up for sale at one time, a single buyer may buy both and try to shut one down.

Reed Elsevier is offering $330 million of vendor bridge financing at a high interest rate to help offload its publishing and information business, according to the London Times.

Details of the offer show Reed is offering the financing from its own balance sheet but it’s at an interest rate of 10 percentage points above the rate at which banks lend to each other.

About two dozen prospective buyers, mostly private equity firms, were sent details of the financing, but the number thought to be seriously interested is fewer than half a dozen.

The deadline for opening bids passed last week.

Staff reporter Brett Sporich can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 226