Pop Goes the ‘Net

If video killed the radio star, what will the Internet do?

How ‘bout create a whole new kind of radio star?

Roy Laughlin, general manager of KIIS-FM (102.7), is counting on it. He’s launching KIIS-FMi, a new Internet-only spinoff of L.A.’s top pop radio outlet coming Sept. 7 as a joint venture with new media company InXsys.

Think of the service as an alternate-universe version of KIIS-FM, with a global rather than local perspective, a playlist that aims to be a step or two ahead of KIIS’ Top 40 menu plus video and fiction programming as well, all targeted to the so-called Generation Y--cyber-savvy teens who hunger for Internet content and who have credit cards and know how to use them.

And for the first potential star of the medium, Laughlin has also tapped into KIIS’ alternate universe. The first I-jay (the Internet version of a radio deejay or MTV veejay) will be a man named Dees.

That’s Kevin Dees, the 19-year-old son of KIIS morning star Rick. Currently a USC student, Dees is on vacation in Europe before coming back to settle into his new role.

“We’re going to try to make Kevin the first big Internet I-jay,” says Laughlin, who intends to recruit others with the intent of making them stars in the nascent format. “We’re going to run an ad in newspapers saying, ‘If you missed the deejay thing in the ‘70s and were asleep at the wheel for the veejay thing in the ‘80s, don’t miss out on the I-jay thing now.’ ”

Chris Peaslee, general manager of KIIS-FMi, says the musical format of the new venture is called Future 40.

“It’s a concept mixing Top 40 and alternative, but all new songs that haven’t made the mainstream yet,” he says, comparing it as a proving ground to MTV’s “120 Minutes” program and M2 alternate channel. “The Gen Y audience loves to interact online and we can test songs instantaneously. We do a lot of focus groups already to see what the public is looking for. This is a way of getting a global look.”

But, he says, it won’t be sacrificing the L.A. identity of KIIS--the trademark being the primary attraction for the audience in the first place.

“We’ll be doing broadcasts from New York and other locations--we’re talking to people in Tokyo now, for example,” he says. “But this is originated from here, so it will have the flavor of here. Being in L.A. is the point. L.A. has a big draw for the rest of the world community, which looks at us as a benchmark.”

It’s just one benchmark the InXsys will be using. KIIS-FMi is just the first Internet station spawning from a deal the Washington-based tech company has made with KIIS parent Clear Channel.

“Eventually there will be six or seven channels,” says Laurence Norjean, president and chief operating officer of InXsys Broadcast Networks. “There will be a Hispanic channel from Miami, a rap-urban one out of Detroit, country out of Nashville, all spinning off from [broadcast radio] stations that are the leaders in their field, as KIIS is in Top 40.”

He says there will also be a new site starting under the name GenYI.com, intended to be the “first teen talk station, all talk, interviews and phone-in on a worldwide basis.”

And first up after KIIS-FMi will be XTRAi, jumping off from the XTRA Sports Network, which is anchored by San Diego’s XTRA-AM (690) and L.A.’s KXTA-AM (1150).

“That will extend the XTRA franchise into male-oriented hard-rock, sports talk, everything-a-guy-wants-to-know site,” Norjean says.

Power Shift?: The other shoe has dropped with the exit last week of the Baka Boyz from the afternoon drive slot at hip-hop KPWR-FM (105.9), and the duo has signed a deal with AMFM Inc., the parent company of rival urban station KKBT-FM (92.3), with expectations that they’ll take over that outlet’s afternoons soon. The current afternoon deejay, Theo, reportedly will be moved to AMFM’s San Francisco urban music station KMEL-FM.

Craig Wilbraham, vice president and general manager of KKBT (known as the Beat), confirmed the deal but would not specify plans for the Baka Boys other than to say they’d be on an AMFM station in the L.A. market--and there’s no other logical place for the team who has been among the most popular in urban radio in this area for much of the ‘90s. He did, though, end speculation that the Bakas would be given the morning slot that has been occupied with consistently strong ratings for a decade by John London, despite the fact that London is a middle-aged white man on a station that targets a young African American audience. London, Wilbraham says, is under contract as the Beat’s morning man, and station management is very happy with his performance.

The Bakas follow two other key figures from KPWR (Power 106) to the Beat. Steve Smith earlier this year left his program director position at Power to become vice president of programming for the Beat’s parent company. And recently he hired away Jeff Schimmel, who had been serving as head writer on Power’s morning show anchored by the deejay known as Big Boy. It was Big Boy’s move to the mornings two years ago, displacing the Bakas, that apparently ultimately led to their departure, troubled that though they fared better in the ratings, Big Boy has been the focus of station promotions.

The question now is whether the Beat will also be able to poach from Power’s largely Latino audience.

Career Change: Doug the Slug, the evening deejay on KROQ-FM (106.7), has not just left the station, as of last week, but left full-time radio behind after 15 years in the business. But he’ll still be on the airwaves, just in a vastly different capacity. KROQ program director Kevin Weatherly reports that Sluggo (as he’s also known) has become a 911 operator in San Diego, fulfilling a long-held interest. Really. He’ll continue to do some part-time work for the station, but for the time being is out of broadcasting.

This creates just the second full-time opening at KROQ in 10 years--the only other coming when Sluggo left several years ago to go work at a station in New York, only to return a year and a half ago when his replacement, Carson Daly, moved to MTV. Recent KROQ arrival Stryker will take over the evening slot on an interim basis, and will likely be among the candidates to get the permanent appointment.

Tragically Ludicrous, Ludicrously Tragic: We’ll all remember where we were when we first heard that the son of a late icon president was missing. Yes, the disappearance of “Little R.N.,” Richard Nixon Jr. . . .

Oh wait, that wasn’t real. That was Harry Shearer’s latest media-skewering satire on his KCRW-FM (89.9) Sunday morning “Le Show.” But in just a few minutes of a segment purporting Dan Rather reporting on the heretofore unknown son of Tricky Dicky being apparently stuck in a Newport Beach elevator--”swallowed up by that 4-by-8-foot chamber,” intoned Rather/Shearer with great solemnity--Shearer perfectly captured the early media frenzy after John F. Kennedy Jr.’s plane was reported missing, even as he flirted with cultural blasphemy.

Soon, “Rather” was joined by a historian, who was asked if this was another case of the “Nixon curse.”

“As a historian, I don’t believe in curses,” the character said.

“Do you believe in spells?” queried “Rather.”

Shearer, in a later segment on “Le Show,” switched to the actual topic of John-John for a supposed installment of “Larry King Live,” with a guest identified as Dewey Gordon, former member of teen-pop group Boys R Us. Gordon, went the sketch, had written a song for the fallen Kennedy, titled “Ashes on the Water.”

The song itself was all too real:

Did you ever have a good friend, that you never even met

With a magazine you never even read

Reaching for a vision that he didn’t have quite yet

For a country that he’d never get to lead?

Bernie Taupin couldn’t have said it any better.