Kpwr Radio Station

KPWR-FM decided Thursday to inform listeners about its business ties to rap act Shade Sheist -- whose music the station has played more than any other broadcaster in the nation. The move follows an article this week in The Times disclosing that Sheist's music is produced by a senior executive at KPWR-FM and released by Baby Ree Entertainment, a company financed by Emmis Communications Corp., the Indianapolis-based radio conglomerate that owns KPWR-FM.

Shade Sheist is a hot act on Power 106, the most popular rap radio station in Los Angeles. Over the last month, KPWR-FM has launched three singles by the little-known rapper and played them more than any station in the nation. One reason, critics suggest, is that the man credited with producing Sheist's "Informal Introduction" CD is a senior programming and artist relations executive at KPWR named Damion Young.

Don't get Jay Thomas wrong. He's very pleased with his day job: the male lead in CBS' "Love & War." It's the lack of a daybreak job that's giving him fits. Thomas is still fuming over his firing last June from the morning deejay job at KPWR-FM (105.9), where he had worked since 1986. While waiting for action in his $1-million lawsuit against the station for breach of contract, he's applied for other morning spots on the radio dial. "I'm having withdrawal symptoms," Thomas said.

Though hip-hop outlet Power 106 maintained its supremacy in the Los Angeles-Orange County market, completing 2 1/2 straight years as the No. 1 radio station in the area, the race among the top seven tightened considerably during the summer, according to ratings released Monday. During the summer survey period from July 1 to Sept. 22, KPWR-FM (105.9) attracted 4.

Can a "surf dude" find a place in a world as far removed from his own as the gritty urban landscape of rap and hip-hop music? That's the latest twist in the life of one of the most colorful--and unlikely--figures in the recent history of Southern California radio. Jim (Poorman) Trenton, whose amateurish edge came to symbolize the maverick spirit of KROQ-FM's "modern rock" format before he was banished by the station two years ago, has resurfaced as a deejay on KPWR-FM (105.9).

You can win for losing, according to KPWR-FM (105.9): The hip-hop outlet flouted the saying by jumping to No. 1 in the latest ratings despite experiencing a decline in its share of the Los Angeles radio audience. Meanwhile, after a year in the top spot, alternative rocker KROQ-FM (106.7) dropped to third, according to the figures released this week by ratings service Arbitron chronicling the spring period from March 28 to June 19. Adult contemporary KOST-FM (103.