Some Listeners Singin’ the Country Radio Blues : Loyal fans of popular K-HAY are dismayed by the slicker format and shift to new tunes. Others say the station must change with times.

Don’t touch that dial.

We’ll be right back with Ventura County’s top FM radio station. But first, here’s a story from our very own little town of Oak View.

It seems resident Joyce Overbaugh was listening to her favorite country music station when she noticed some weird things going on.

“My first clue,” she said, “was when the new format started July 6. It just sounded totally different. All the jingles had changed.”

Not to mention the music.

And, said Overbaugh, her favorite disc jockey, Don Sinclair, had vanished into thin air--although she continued to hear his voice on prerecorded commercials.

Needless to say, Overbaugh was bewildered. The station she had listened to for nearly 15 years had metamorphosed, seemingly overnight. Its new, slicker, faster-paced L. A. style, as she termed it, turned her off. So she turned it off.

“It’s almost like I’ve lost part of my family. I really miss it,” Overbaugh said. “Sometimes I listen to it for awhile, but then something upsets me.”

. . . Now back to our show.

Actually, the station Overbaugh is confused about is K-HAY, 101-FM, as it was formerly known, but now K-HAY, 100.7, as the new promos say.

Longtime listeners of the 20-year-old country station will tell you things changed considerably shortly after Independence Day, 1993. Some listeners are pleased and excited about the station’s new features; others are disappointed and alienated.

For their part, those directly involved with implementing the changes ask, “What format change?” They say they aren’t exactly sure what the fuss is all about.

The fuss, according to proponents and opponents, is about a number of things.

There’s the sudden departure of Don Sinclair, the folksy disc jockey who had been K-HAY’s program director and morning personality since 1980.

There is the switch to 24 hours of live programming, which went into effect in mid-July.

And, perhaps most important, there’s the increased emphasis on recent country music. As a new station commercial brags, “We give you the most new country music as possible.” To support that claim, the station plays 10 consecutive new songs every hour.

Program Director Mark Hill (or Mark James, as he calls himself on air) and three full-time disc jockeys have been added to the staff. Other mainstays have had their duties shifted around.

“The Vault,” the fictional archive that deejays used to enter, periodically, to dust off and play some of the old country standards, seems to have been locked. It has been replaced by a new “Top 8 at 8” show, in which songs requested throughout the day are played in a time chunk, and there is the late night “Santa Fe Cafe” segment, in which listeners can call in and make on-air dedications.

The station even has a new bumper sticker--green and yellow (instead of the familiar green and white). It will advertise the “Ten in a Row, Continuous New Country,” format.

It all adds up to the aforementioned faster format, which has cut down on the down-home chitchat that many fans had grown to love.

And all this from the No. 1-ranked FM station in Ventura County. The 39,000-watt K-HAY reaches west to Gaviota, east to the San Fernando Valley and north to Palmdale.

According to Arbitron figures for spring, 1993, K-HAY had a 10.5 rating among listeners age 12 and older. That amounts to a listening audience of 6,000 in that age group, for an average 15-minute period between 6 a.m. and midnight.

In fall, 1992, the previous six-month rating period, K-HAY ranked No. 1 with an 8.4 rating (4,600 people).

So why mess with something that was working so well?

“What we’ve done is some minor contemporization or tweaking of the K-HAY sound,” said General Manager David Loe. “There are two philosophies: ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ and ‘If you can’t stay up with the times, you’re falling behind’ . . . Country music has changed, and I believe our station has to match that.”

Loe said the last time the station made any significant changes was about 10 years ago, during the Urban Cowboy era.

With a new generation of country performers--the likes of Garth Brooks, Clint Black and Billy Ray Cyrus--the music has gotten more upbeat. Loe said the station is attempting to follow suit.

Promo spots stating, “Country you can enjoy even if you don’t own a horse,” illustrate the station’s efforts to entice a new group of listeners.

“The reason country music has become such a mainstream product is because it’s not just slow ballads of someone who has had an unfortunate situation in their life, their wife has left them, and they have a tale of woe,” said Loe.

New program director Hill agreed.

“What we’re trying to do,” he said, “is give our core listeners a more entertaining, more upbeat, happier sounding radio station.”

Though the station is concentrating on new songs, the oldies still have their place. “We play the best of today’s country, but we don’t forget our roots,” says one station promo.

“It’s based on whether the songs still have production value,” said Loe. “We still play Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson, Conway Twitty, Waylon Jennings. Most of their stuff still plays well today. The Grand Ole Opry type singers, Roy Acuff, Glen Campbell, Mickey Gilley--some of those artists no longer have the broad appeal to today’s country listener.”

Morning deejay Charlye Parker, who formerly teamed with Sinclair and now is sidekick to the more rowdy Ray Taylor, said she initially was skeptical about the alterations. But Parker says she has come to accept and understand them.

“I didn’t like the change when it happened, but I got used to it,” she said. “I see we needed to do it, but I appreciate the fact that K-HAY was as comfortable as an old shoe.”

Parker, who has been in the country music business for 20 years, 2 1/2 of those with K-HAY, said the tilt to more modern music will bring in new listeners and shouldn’t alienate the long-timers.

“I think most people don’t notice or care. Country music is country music, and it has an image,” she said. “If you like the image, it doesn’t matter if they’re playing the old stuff or the new stuff, just give me country.”

Whether it’s considered a format change or a tweak, the changes at K-HAY have come in large part on the advice of Jay Albright, the Seattle-based radio programming consultant who has been working in that capacity for the station since the mid-1980s.

Albright tried to simplify the philosophy behind the changes at K-HAY.

“It used to be, five years ago, K-HAY would play six new songs an hour and the rest would be familiar oldies. Today no country station does that anymore. None. And K-HAY is following the trend,” he said.

According to Albright, he conducted focus groups made up of Ventura County country music listeners several years ago. The results indicated that listeners wanted “number one, fun in the morning, and number two, new country music,” he said.

The trick, said Albright, has been trying to figure out a way to keep everyone--the recent converts to country, those who have been listening to country music for several years and the traditionalists--all happy. “We really tried to delicately balance the preferences and tastes of all three groups,” said Albright, “so we don’t disenfranchise anyone.”

It sounds good in theory, but nevertheless, some fans are upset.

“They said, ‘We’re giving you more of what you want, more of the latest songs,’ ” said Beverly Bigger of Ventura. “Well, I don’t know who they talked to, but everybody I know, they didn’t talk to them. It’s more like an L. A. station.”

Patty Catarini of the Country Lovers Dance Club took a quick poll of 16 members of her group, who range in age from their 30s to 50s, and discovered some strong opinions. “I really got a blast in the face when I mentioned it,” she said. “They don’t like the new stuff, they like the old way. They said it’s starting to sound more like KZLA (in Los Angeles).”

Others think it’s just wonderful.

“I listen to it all the time,” said Bernadette Cole, 42, of Ojai. “I love the 10 in a row they have now.”

“I like it. It’s a little funky at night and it’s kind of fun listening to that,” said Laurie Merrifield of Thousand Oaks, who has been tuned to K-HAY for about 18 years. “There are a couple of things missing, but I go, ‘Well, they’re trying something new, and it’s not offensive’. . . . The music is fine, the banter is fine. It’s enjoyable.”

One thing that does bother many longtime listeners is the departure of Sinclair.

“He is one wonderful man,” said Overbaugh, the K-HAY listener from Oak View. “He pioneered the station into what it is.”

But so far, fans have remained loyal.

As far as 19-year-old K-HAY listener Colin Hoag is concerned, the station is still No. 1, no matter what is being played or who is playing it.

“I like the older music at home,” said Hoag, whose dog is named Reba, after singer Reba McEntire. “And when I’m in my truck, I like the newer stuff because I can blast it and I don’t offend anyone.”

WHO’S TUNING IN

According to Jay Albright, general manager of BP Consulting Group, a Seattle-based company that advises 22 country music stations including K-HAY, 100.7-FM, the Ventura County country music audience may be divided into three groups:

* Country converts. This group makes up about 35% of the audience. They are people who up until two years ago had not listened to even a note of country music.

“These people are young teens who don’t like rap, etc.,” said Albright. “They became intrigued with Garth Brooks and Billy Ray Cyrus, and they’ve been disenfranchised by Top 40 radio.”

* Transition 30s. Making up about 40% of the audience, the Transition 30s are age 25-49. Albright says they have been listening for 10 to 15 years, and they lean toward the adult contemporary sounds of Kenny Rogers, Dottie West and Willie Nelson.

* Traditionalists. This group makes up 25% of the audience. “They like Randy Travis because he sounds like Lefty Frizzell, but they also like Buck Owens and Merle Haggard,” Albright said. “They are a wide age group, predominantly 45-plus, but they are linked by their love of traditional music.”

The traditionalists may make up the smallest percentage of country music fans in the county, he said, but “they feel like they own country music.”