The Not Ready for Drive-Time Players

When my editor assigned this story, she asked what I knew about weekend radio. “Not much,” I said, though I felt an odd twinge in my gut. Sure, I’ve scanned the dial on a Saturday or Sunday and become riveted by strange conversational snippets. For example:

“My St. Augustine grass was invaded by clover.”

“What do I do with a 5-pound can of crab that’s been in my freezer for the past eight years?”

“Am I the only one who thinks that Alan Greenspan looks like Woody Allen?”

“If you want to heal your poodle’s sciatica, put crystals around him.”

“There are a lot of sharks swimming out there trying to get a bite out of your wallet.”

“Is call waiting immoral or just rude?”

I have sat in the parking lot of Ikea, doubled over with laughter as the gods of weekend radio--Tom and Ray Magliozzi, the “Car Talk” brothers--counseled a woman who wanted to know how to get 500 pounds of loose mulch out of her trunk. (“Women’s cars by and large are an absolute mess,” observed Tom--or was it Ray? They sound alike and talk so fast it’s difficult to distinguish them.) And if I happened to be in the car for “Prairie Home Companion” or Ira Glass’ “This American Life,” I’ll take surface streets instead of the freeway so I can listen longer. But that was the extent of my devotion.

Or so I thought.

Then I started doing research and began having flashbacks about sitting in a studio in front of a mike (which to me is like lying on a bed, chatting on the phone, my favorite invention). Some hosts I interviewed knew me. And slowly, a vault in my memory bank creaked open and it all came rushing back. One of the features of weekend radio used to be me. For years, I was a guest on KABC’s old “Ken and Barkley” Saturday show. Also, I was a panelist on a syndicated National Public Radio quiz show “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me”--not that I ever heard me. (During my time, it wasn’t in this market, but it will soon debut on KPCC-FM.)

What can I say to justify my memory loss?

Weekend radio is surreal.

“It’s usually regarded as the wide spot in the road between Friday and Monday,” said restaurant critic Merrill Shindler, co-editor of the “Zagat Survey 2000: Los Angeles” and other guides and longtime host of “Feed Your Face With Merrill Shindler.”

“There are no businessmen and suits hanging out at the station; it’s like they’ve given the keys to the inmates,” Shindler continued. “So it’s got this wacky, zany edge. It’s amazing how primitive it is. You’ve got a guy with the sniffles talking into a microphone to a caller out in the desert who wants to tell you about a fabulous neighborhood place that makes the best spaghetti and meatballs. It’s not planned and it’s not saved. I say something and it’s gone.”

In my time on the air, I’d leave the studio and develop total amnesia about what I’d said. I’d be in public, talking or, worse, arguing with my husband, and a stranger would recognize my voice and ask, “Did you ever find drawer pulls for your kitchen cupboards?” It took a minute to figure out how they even knew.

“The only caller I remember from the last 20 years is Maximilian,” said “Car Talk’s” Tom (or was it Ray?) Magliozzi. He went on to tell me what sounded like an urban legend about Max, a car dealer who bought a living Schnauzer to replace the dead one he found in a customer’s back seat and assumed that he had killed. “When the woman comes to get her dog, it jumps out and runs to her,” he said. “And she shrieks, ‘That’s not my dog. My dog was dead. I was taking him to the taxidermist when my car broke down.’ ”

Energetic hosts enliven subjects that would normally make your eyes glaze over. “If you’ve just tuned in, we’re talking about artichoke hearts,” gushed the perpetually enthusiastic Melinda Lee of KFI-AM’s “Food Talk.”

I do not cook and neither did my mother or grandmother, but I was mesmerized. And just when I reminded myself that I will never make an artichoke dip, Lee switched the subject to braising. “I don’t like to bore myself,” she said later.

Some hosts really know how to get mileage from a declarative sentence. In television, everything is intensified; in radio, thoughts get rephrased until they have a soporific effect. I asked publicist Michael Levine, a former KFWB-AM media commentator turned KRLA-AM “Spiritual Seeker,” to describe the program. “People call to argue about spiritual matters,” said Levine, who has no religious training. “There’s a lot of theological debate, a lot of religious sorting out. We like to say we comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

“Got it,” I said impatiently.

Traditionally, weekend radio is “where the kitchen sink goes,” says Doug “The Subway Fugitive” Berman, producer of “Car Talk,” which is heard nationally by 3 million listeners a week. (“Prairie Home Companion” attracts 2.7 million and “This American Life,” 884,000, said Dale Spear, director of programming for Public Radio International.)

“If it’s not drive time, all the rules are up in the air. Commercial and public radio were forced to experiment. Casey Kasem was a weekend show. So was Dr. Demento. Someone finally discovered that listeners didn’t go away. NPR developed the Saturday ‘Weekend Edition’ and it was lighter, more entertaining; it took more time with movies and sports. Then Garrison Keillor emerged, and he was a talented guy with an interesting show. And the race was on to create something idiosyncratic.”

‘Weekend Personalities Are Different’

Few are as quirky as Glass’ “This American Life,” heard on KCRW-FM. “I get into weird weekend problems,” Glass says. “The show is on in every city at a different time, and it winds up different if you hear it at 10 in the morning than at 3 in the afternoon. There’s a huge gap of mood. In Bible Belt stations in small towns, people driving in their car don’t want to listen to a show where someone is talking about anything sexual. It’s not that they have trouble talking to their kids about sex. But they don’t want to do it now. Not at 10 in the morning.”

Everyone acknowledges that the hosts of weekend shows are paid less than their Monday-through-Friday counterparts. So why do talented folks like Harry Shearer, the host of KCRW’s “Le Show” and the voice of many characters on “The Simpsons,” bother?

“My affection is based on the effect per erg,” Shearer says. “How hard you have to work to achieve an effect on an audience. With radio, you can achieve a great effect with less energy. And I don’t do stand up, and left to my own devices, I’m as lazy as the next person and I need a deadline and an outlet.”

“Weekend personalities are different than weekday personalities,” said Warren Eckstein, host of both the local “Pet Show” and a version heard in 145 cities in the U.S. and Canada. “I don’t think we have the egos. Plus, you become part of the family because their listening is relaxed.”

If I had to define the difference between weekday and weekend radio, it would be unpredictability. During the week, your routine dictates what you hear. But on the less structured weekend, it’s mostly catch-as-catch-can. And what you catch can be truly bizarre. I’ve learned about making handmade chocolates, herbicides for bare-root fruit trees, no-load funds. I’ve listened to Brazilian music, full-length operas, something that sounded like Nazi marching music and a three-minute program called “Jim Nayder’s Annoying Music Show,” which featured Tammy Faye Bakker warbling “Disco Jesus” and Slim Whitman yodeling “It’s a Small World.” The other night I heard a show called “Pipe Dreams,” which featured an organ rendition of “My Funny Valentine,” as played on a 5,000-pipe instrument in a theme pizza joint in Mesa, Ariz.

Specialty Shows Are Cash Cows

“Niche programming,” explains Ron Escarsega, program director at KRLA. “Basically, shows that are specific. I have a garden show, a thoroughbred racing show all about horse racing, an Internet show that concentrates on sites and tools, a money show.” His big hit is “The Kelly Lange Show.”

“The theme is reinventing yourself for the millennium and beyond,” said Lange, a TV news personality. “Reinventing your love life or your body or your health. Reinventing your career--now that’s a big one--or your home. This week I have a chef talk about foods that are aphrodisiacs.”

And who’s listening?

“Looking at Arbitron [ratings], my listeners tend to be a little older,” Escarsega said. “Median listeners are 45 to 54. Next largest group is 55 to 64. Third-largest, 65-plus. But they don’t want to be perceived as old.”

According to Arbitron, these niche shows attracted 3,200 young-at-heart listeners on Saturdays and Sundays, compared with 11,200 on Mondays through Fridays.

“It’s not about getting an audience; it’s about making money,” said Ken Minyard, host with his son of “Minyard and Minyard” and host of the show I was on at KABC. “It used to be on the weekends they put on a lot of service things because the FCC forced you to have a specific number. But now these specialty shows are a cash cow.”

Why?

“Here’s an example,” Minyard said. “A long time ago I sold advertising in Santa Rosa. Sunday mornings are one of the least-listened-to times in radio, but I sold advertising to different churches with their pastors voicing the commercial. I sold out. They had a special interest because it was Sunday morning and they liked the sound of their own voice and it was under the guise of spreading the gospel. It’s the same with restaurant shows like Elmer Dills’ or Leon Kaplan’s ‘Motorman’ show on KABC. If you have 100,000 people listening, but only 10,000 are interested, then you’re paying for 90% of people you’ll never reach. But if 15,000 are listening and 12,000 are a potential market, you’ll be better off.”

Maybe that’s why our old Saturday show went off the air. We aimed to please everyone. Rabbi Jerry reviewed movies by assigning them bagels instead of stars. Al the podiatrist dished up medical advice. For a long time there was a woman who read the news while tap-dancing.

“It had much bigger ratings,” Minyard said wistfully.

I was in no mood to commiserate. I adored the show. I did this segment called the Gripe Lady when I contemplated such mysteries of life as why anyone in his right mind would set foot in the Angeles National Forest. (Has anyone come out alive?) Frequently, when I traveled, I called in from parts unknown: Chile, China, Singapore, Malaysia, and the listening audience found out I broke my hip before my family learned of it. I was leaving for Athens when someone at the station warned me that changes were in the air. “Check your answering machine before you call in to see if you’re fired.” To add insult to injury, many phones in Greece don’t have pound keys, so I couldn’t access my voicemail. It cost me a hundred dollars to find out I was out of work.

“Everyone gets fired in radio,” said Bill Handel, the host of “Handel on the Law,” syndicated in 55 markets around the country. Handel, whose specialty is actually reproductive law, has been doing a show for one network or another for 14 years. “When I went to work for KFI, I was supposed to meet with the program director on a Friday, but he got fired,” Handel recalled. “I did my show for 12 weeks before I ever talked to anybody.”

Suddenly I felt more cheerful. I like my rejection to be tangible--in writing, they usually send me or my agent a polite note--but in radio you just vanish from the airwaves without explanation or warning. I later learned that Eckstein, the pet guru, gets dozens of e-mails a month asking, “What happened to your show?” from onetime listeners who didn’t know it had been bumped from the station.

Of course, the beauty of radio is that you get jobs just as mysteriously as you lose them. “Once I heard from a 16-year-old calling from a tractor in Little Rock, wanting to know about her goat,” Eckstein recalled. “I had no idea that I had a station in Little Rock.”

“We’ve been dumped and reinstated by one station more times than my brother’s been married,” said Tom (or was it Ray?) Magliozzi, laughing.

“You can’t take it personally,” said Handel. “You should think of doing another show.”

I don’t think the world is ready for “The Pug Hour.”

*

Margo Kaufman is the author of “Clara the Early Years: The Story of the Pug Who Ruled My Life,” just out in paperback by Plume.

More to Chew On: * For more on radio’s chat about dining out, see Restaurant News, Page 50.

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Spin the Dial

“Car Talk” with Tom and Ray Magliozzi: Saturdays and Sundays, 9-10 a.m., KPCC-FM (89.3).

“Feed Your Face” with Merrill Shindler: Saturdays, 5-7 p.m., and Sundays, 4-7 p.m., KLSX-FM (97.1).

“Prairie Home Companion”: Sundays, 10 a.m.-noon, KPCC-FM (89.3). Also Saturdays, 6-8 p.m., KUSC-FM (91.5).

“This American Life” with Ira Glass: Saturdays, 10 a.m., KCRW-FM (89.9); rebroadcast the following Saturday, 6-7 p.m.

“Handel on the Law” with Bill Handel: Saturdays, 5-9 a.m., KFI (640).

“Le Show” with Harry Shearer: Sundays, 10-11 a.m., KCRW-FM (89.9); repeated Sundays, 6-7 p.m.

“Food Talk” with Melinda Lee: Saturdays, 3-6 p.m.; Sundays, 2-6 p.m., KFI-AM (640).

“Spiritual Seeker” with Michael Levine: Sundays, 8-10 p.m., KRLA-AM (1100).

“The Kelly Lange Show”: Sundays, 5-8 p.m., KRLA-AM (1100).

“Pet Show” with Warren Eckstein: Saturdays, 6-8 p.m., KABC-AM (790).