Alan Gottlieb Is Making Some Sound Investments

Alan Gottlieb, the Bellevue-based conservative fund-raiser and gun advocate, has a new passion: buying radio stations.

The outspoken Gottlieb is one of four investors who last month bought KBNP-AM, a business news station in Portland. The same four investors are also putting up the bulk of the money to buy Northwest News Network, which supplies regional news reports to about 60 radio stations in Oregon and Washington, and Washington state Capitol news to another 20 stations in this state. The stations are generally small ones that have no reporters covering regional and state news.

Gottlieb, who will be president of both companies, said a letter of intent to purchase Northwest News Network was signed Tuesday. Federal Communications Commission approval for the KBNP sale is expected to be granted by mid-June.

ARCH-CONSERVATIVE BUYS MEDIA OUTLET. The headline evokes memories of Sen. Jesse Helm's aborted attempt to buy CBS so he could fire Dan Rather and counter what he called a liberal bias in network TV news. In the minds of some who oppose Gottlieb's political beliefs, it also raises the specter of KBNP and Northwest News Network being turned into a right-wing pulpit.

``I'm convinced if I was a normal liberal buying into the media, it would have received no attention at all,'' Gottlieb said Tuesday, a few minutes after being interviewed on a Seattle radio talk show. ``The way people are covering this, as a man-bites-dog story, proves to me that a bias does exist. I know of no one in a media ownership position in the Northwest who comes from a conservative perspective. I'm finding it very amusing.''

Gottlieb said KBNP will keep its current format, and that his news philosophy is to allow ``both pro and con people to talk about issues.''

``It's my intent to cover both sides of every story. I hope the staff is already doing that. For many years I've been on the short end of the stick where my side hasn't been covered. I don't think gun owners, for example, get a fair shake.''

Besides heading a gun-lobby foundation called the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, he is also one of the state's leading fund-raisers for conservative causes.

Gottlieb said he is already shopping for a Seattle radio station and one in Boise, which would give his news network a foothold in Idaho.

He caught radio fever, he said, as a guest on a radio talk show in Florida in 1982. The station's consultant happened to be in the studio that day coaching the talk-show host on tricks to increase his audience.

Profits, not proselytizing, attracted Gottlieb.

``It was so clever, the way this guy had doubled the station's market share,'' recalled Gottlieb. ``I sat there and got a bug for the business.''

Now he's in it. And he is learning to accept the attention that at first irked him.

``There is a lot of interest in how someone like me will cover these stories because of the single-interest groups I'm involved in. That's great. Tune in and find out. It'll increase our ratings.''

DOWN THE TUBES

Seattle kids have one fewer excuse to sit inside and watch the tube. KIRO-TV's local program for youngsters, called `` Airwave,'' has evaporated.

The final episode aired Sunday, though reruns will continue into July.

`` We just felt we'd better serve ourselves by going into an area of programming to appeal to a broader audience, and not specialize in teens,'' said Nick Freeman, KIRO vice president of programming.

Freeman said KIRO is developing three new locally produced weekly shows, scheduled to make their debuts sometime in 1990. He would not reveal details about the content of the new shows.

``Airwave'' was a newsmagazine-format program with hosts of the same age as the intended audience, with segments on sports, music, and local teen-agers.

``We went for role models, trying to lead kids with positive images,'' said co-producer Richard Pratt.

Meanwhile, KING-TV continues to produce new episodes of ``Music Magic,'' aimed at viewers from 7 to 18 years old. Airing on Saturday morning and hosted by Cliff Lenz, ``Music Magic'' is in its eighth season.

KOMO continues to produce ``Front Runners,'' not exclusively a children's show but one that attempts to present positive role models for younger viewers. KOMO also still airs Saturday- and Sunday-morning reruns of ``Boomerang,'' which uses puppets and a live host to discuss concepts such as mortality and honesty. More than 150 episodes of the program were produced from 1975 to 1980.

KIRO's ``Airwave'' evolved last December from ``Kids' Week,'' which went on the air in early 1988 and was designed to appeal to a slightly younger audience.

In both incarnations, the show bounced from time slot to time slot, finally settling at 3:30 p.m. Sundays. It never drew a broad and consistent audience.

``We tried to give kids an alternative to cartoons,'' said Freeman, ``but it just didn't work.''

WHAT TIME IS IT?

Prime time. News time. Lately it seems as though you need a clock to tell the difference.

For starters, KING-TV last Thursday presented an ``exclusive'' report on its 11 p.m. newscast about a sports fan who sued a professional football team for alienating his affection. The incident inspired the writers of NBC's ``L.A. Law'' to include a similar case in the show's final episode of the season, which aired on Channel 5 that same night.

Then, on Monday's 11 p.m. newscast, KIRO-TV's John Procaccino delivered a tribute to the genius that is Bob Newhart. The final episode of the long-running sitcom `` Newhart'' aired on Channel 7 earlier that night.

Genius?

Last, and longest, KOMO-TV last night wrapped up its many-part report on Snoqualmie and North Bend and the ABC show that filmed in several locations there: `` Twin Peaks.'' The seventh and final episode of this season's cult hit aired - you probably sense a pattern developing here - last night on Channel 4.

Starting with the second episode of the show and for each week thereafter, John Larson would appear on that night's 11 p.m. news, live, somewhere in the land of cherry pie and chain saws, reporting on some new angle of the longest-running local story since Herschel the sea lion.

Bring on summer, when the networks serve up reruns and the local newscasts do not.

Media Watch by Kit Boss appears Thursday in the Scene section of The Times.