Radio Programs

Salem Communications Corp. of Camarillo, the nation's eighth-largest radio broadcasting company, announced that its family-oriented Internet portal, OnePlace, has reached an agreement to have its programming carried by RealNetworks. RealNetworks develops and markets software products that enable personal computer users to send and receive live or recorded audio, video and other multimedia services using the Web.

The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith charged Thursday that Los Angeles radio station KLOS-FM frequently broadcasts "racist and anti-Semitic commentary" by its morning comedy team, Mark Thompson and Brian Phelps. The league said it had complained to the station's program director and to the station's owner, Capital Cities/ABC.

They were more than just the kings of the radio dial. They were more than just No. 1. They were Boss. More accurately, they were the Boss Jocks, spinning those Boss Hits for an adoring, young and huge Boss Radio audience in Boss Angeles. Even some of their names had more than a hint of Bossness to them--the Real Don Steele, Humble Harve, Dave Diamond, Sam Riddle, Walt Baby Love, Charlie Tuna. Back then, the Beatles were fighting for chart space with the Mamas & the Papas and Dylan.

As early as 11 a.m. they start coming, clad in parkas and other winter wear. By midafternoon, more than 200 people are gathered in the autumn chill, forming a line that wraps around the Fitzgerald Theater. They sit, snuggled in blankets, in lawn chairs or on the cold, gray sidewalk. "They are like ice fishermen, they thrive on adversity," said Garrison Keillor, host of "A Prairie Home Companion," the live radio show these dedicated souls in the rush line are waiting to see.

You can't miss the jacket. Striding into his workplace, Adam Carolla wears it proudly and then keeps it on for hours, insisting, "It's the only thing I had clean." The nondescript blue jacket with the yellow "Loveline" logo suggests a real-life pragmatism far removed from his flamboyant on-air persona as what he calls a "renegade hard-on."

For Spanish-speaking fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers, there's only one game in town, and it's been that way since 1966. KWKW-AM (1330) broadcasts the baseball games in Spanish, a cherished right that has helped it hook nearly three generations ofSpanish-speaking families. And in an era of media mergers, when radio stations live and die by razor-thin differences in ratings, KWKW's management casually mentions that the station consistently places a mediocre 30th in the L.A. market.

Throughout American history there have been landmark court decisions that have shaped a nation and a society: Marbury vs. Madison. Plessy vs. Ferguson. Miranda vs. Arizona. But is America ready for Marty Ingels vs. Tom Leykis?

Soviet rock fans will soon be hearing more from the likes of Billy Joel, Phil Collins, Janet Jackson and other American favorites. The producers of two pop music "countdown" radio programs that compete in the United States said Tuesday that they will begin broadcasting shows in the Soviet Union. "USA Top 20," produced and distributed by Westwood One, will debut Feb. 9 and air twice a month.

Food can excite the senses -- sight, smell, touch and, of course, taste. But how can a radio show about food entice, when all it has to offer is sound? "I could hold the dish up to the microphone and say, 'Breathe deeply.' But it won't get me much," said Merrill Shindler, host of "Feed Your Face" on KLSX-FM (97.1), which airs 6-7 p.m. Saturdays. "It's really just imagination. On one level it's radio theater in its traditional sense. You're creating an ambience. It's about communication.

Dramatic growth over the last decade in the number of Vietnamese-language radio programs based in Orange County has fundamentally changed the Vietnamese emigre community, observers say. It was radio that brought some 15,000 people into the streets of Westminster for a single rally earlier this year, and the power of the medium--which already reaches across the country--is only likely to increase with use of the Internet and plans for a full-fledged Vietnamese-language radio station in the works.