GOP loses its radio voice as KVI switches to music

In its heyday, Seattle talk station KVI-AM was a powerful engine for local Republican politics.

A pioneer of the conservative talk-radio format in the early 1990s, KVI surrounded the nationally syndicated Rush Limbaugh show with a cadre of local talkers. The "hot talk" formula caught on — the station soared to the top of the ratings.

Local hosts including John Carlson and Kirby Wilbur rallied like-minded listeners into a potent political force. They crusaded for conservative causes, helping pass initiatives including the state's "three strikes you're out" law and a ban on affirmative action.

But all that came to an end just after the November election, when the station switched to an "oldies" music format, swapping political chatter for the BeeGees and The Beach Boys.

The demise of talk radio on KVI has left a void for local Republicans — a hole that has not yet been filled by social media or conservative blogs, say some local conservative leaders.

"Talk radio is to a large degree the base of the Republican Party in the way labor is the base of the Democratic Party," said Chris Vance, former chairman of the state Republican Party. "You could go on those shows and you could communicate to the Republican family. It's how Republicans got motivated and organized," he said. "Now it's gone, and it's a very big deal."

As a virtual arm of the Republican Party, KVI for years gave GOP politicians a platform free from what they viewed as liberal bias elsewhere in the Seattle-area media landscape. In 2000, KVI even produced the Republican nominee for governor in Carlson, who lost to Democrat Gary Locke.

While another local station, KTTH-AM, fills the Seattle-area conservative-talk niche, its schedule is dominated by national hosts such as Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.

"What's been lost is the local part," Vance said.

KTTH's sole local show host, David Boze, recently saw his program cut to one hour, down from three. The other two hours were given to an expanded Hannity show.

"Right now, I feel very privileged to be the last man standing," said Boze, who grew up listening to KVI.

For Democrats and liberals, the end of KVI's conservative talk can't be a cause for tears. The station's hosts were sometimes accused by critics of improperly crossing the line into political campaigns and spreading lies about Democrats.

In 1996, KVI host Mike Siegel was fired after encouraging on-air discussion of unsubstantiated rumors about then-Seattle Mayor Norm Rice's private life. Rice held a news conference to denounce what he termed "hate talk."

Fisher Communications decided to pull the plug on KVI's conservative-talk format because it wasn't successful any more, said general manager Jim Clayton.

Major coup in 2003

Its fate may have been sealed back in 2003, when rival KTTH scored a major coup by luring the Limbaugh show away.

"In a town like Seattle, there is probably room for one conservative talk station and that one is gonna have Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh on it," Clayton said.

But Wilbur, a longtime KVI host and new state Republican Party chairman, argued the station had been holding its own. New management, he said, just wasn't as committed to the format. Wilbur's KVI show was canceled in 2009.

The loss of local radio hosts isn't confined to conservative talk.

"Local programming of every type has taken a back seat to nationally syndicated talk," said Michael Keith, a communications professor at Boston College who has written books on the radio industry. It's simply cheaper for stations to air national shows instead of paying local talent, he said.

The conservative point of view still has plenty of representation on Seattle airwaves — former KVI host Carlson has a show on KOMO radio. KIRO's Dori Monson rants about government spending and other favorite conservative topics.

But none of that matches the local political force that KVI was at its prime, say some former hosts and other conservative leaders.

Carlson said his current radio show is more news analysis and doesn't allow him to crusade politically the way he did at KVI.

"Nothing has matched the passion, power and influence of KVI since its heyday, in the news media, in the new or old media," Carlson said.

Memorable moments

Carlson and Wilbur cited moments like 1994, when KVI memorably organized a counter protest that dwarfed a Seattle rally where then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was promoting a health-care overhaul plan.

In 2005, after the Legislature raised the gas tax by 9 cents to pay for roads projects, KVI hosts promoted an initiative to repeal it. In just over 30 days, more than 420,000 people signed it. (Voters later rejected the initiative.)

"It's the local issues. If you want to know about the war in Iraq, you can listen to Hannity. Where do you get state government explained to you?" said Wilbur.

Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 or jbrunner@seattletimes.com

Information in this story published Jan. 24 was incorrect and was corrected on Jan. 25. The name of Fisher Communications, the parent company of KVI, was incorrect in the original version of the story.