Longtime friend and associate Julio Rumbaut
arranged for me to consult KKHJ in Los Angeles. This
is the facility of the legendary KHJ, and had
recently been purchased by José Liberman and his son
Lenard who had been having good success with a
Spanish language station in Orange County, CA. José
Liberman was one of the three brothers who had sold
KTNQ and KLVE to Heftel 7 years before. Over the
last two decades, Lenard has built a successful
group of radio and TV stations and a TV network.
While consulting
and during my first market visit to KKHJ, I was
offered the PD/Operations Manager position. The difficult economy
and the rising crime rate in Puerto Rico in the
early 90's made that offer very attractive.
In addition to
programming KKHJ, I was VP-Operations for Liberman
Broadcasting and also responsible for KWIZ, a
Spanish language station in Santa Ana, California.
And what kind
of music did we play?
Along with afternoon
talent Fidel Fausto, plenty of appearances were made
at local clubs during the banda and grupera boom of the early
90's.
KHJ Staff members
at an event. Left to right Renán Almendarez Coello
"El Cucuy" (Mornings) Jorge Pérez (sales), me,
Amalia González (10 AM - 3 PM) and Sergio Ivo
(sales)
More KHJ staff.
Ricardo Manzanares (news), Holguin (promotion),
Ernesto de Gali (news), Renán Almendarez.
Filming a KKHJ TV
spot. The animals were props for a spot featuring a
donkey in a studio.
KKHJ event with
Guardianes del Amor
"Scolding" the
group for arriving late!
Crowd at
Kindervision event.
One of the "Lllave
de la Alegria" contests where a listener could win a
key to a new car.
KKHJ ran the "No
Repeat" weekend for over a year... along with a cash
guarantee to be awarded if any song was played more
than once.
One of KKHJ's
significant promotions is Kindervision, a child
safety and anti-abduction program endorsed by police
authorities. Free ID videos are given to over 5,000
children at an annual arena event; taping is also
featured at many station remotes.
In 1993, I was
invited by the local AMA chapter to discuss the
growth of the Spanish language radio market in a
seminar.
Don who?
He makes me
feel thin! That is Don Francisco, the host of Univision's
highly rated Sábados Gigantes variety show.
1992-1994: KKHJ was a
very promotional station; over 300 remotes, fiestas
and events were produced each year in conjunction
with local and national accounts.
