Los Angeles Station’s Switch Designed To Woo The 12-Year-Old Pop Fan

Dan Gibson | February 20, 2009 12:30 pm

By 5 p.m. today, the “hot talk” format of Los Angeles’ KLSX will be no more, leaving Adam Carolla and Tom Leykis (among others) out of work. For awhile, it really seemed that CBS Radio was in love with the concept, turning stations across the country over to the format—but it’s since abandoned the “Free FM” idea in most markets. Hope you like Katy Perry, L.A., because now you have another station ready to give her a stack of spins.

It’s somewhat rare for a station to move toward playing music these days, but that won’t stop KLSX from becoming AMP Radio, a format tested on one of CBS’s HD stations and seemingly one entirely dedicated to the same teenage pop fan that three other stations (including the seemingly unstoppable KIIS-FM) are already working. As part of the initial stunt, AMP will run nearly a month of today’s hits with limited interruptions; the program director is promising heavy doses of Justin Timberlake, Beyoncé, Rihanna, T.I., Kanye West, etc., etc. Theoretically, the station is trying to woo women from 18-49, but who are they kidding? I don’t know if “junior high girls who hide their MySpace page from their parents” is technically a demographic, but that would be my guess who’s most likely to be tuning into the the KLSX.

Morning show host Adam Carolla is promising to switch over to a podcasted show (which, I assume, leaves the stations syndicating his show—including Phoenix’s Edge 103.9, which fired their actually quite amusing morning team a while ago—out of luck) and, with any luck, Tom Leykis will curl in to a ball and disappear. OK, maybe not; as long as there are dudes out there, that guy will live on like a cockroach with a cheap cigar.

FM talk radio format all talked out? KLSX-FM (97.1) going top 40 Friday [LA Times]