26
Popular Culture Review
for its share of African-American listeners primarily with three other stations: its
own sister station, KKDA-FM, an “urban contemporary” format; KBFB-FM (97.9
The Beat), featuring the “Russ Parr Morning Show with Ohvia Fox”; and KTXQFM (Magic 94.5) featuring the “Tom Joyner Morning Show.” Parr and Joyner’s
programs are nationally syndicated. KKDA-FM, KTXQ-FM and KBFB-FM all
enhance their audience reach with colorful, interactive web sites designed to provide
another forum for audience interaction (“American Urban Radio”).
By contrast, KKDA-AM does radio the old-fashioned way. A previously
designed web site has been abandoned in 2002, and the entire focus of the “Wilhs
Johnson Morning Show” is on the Dallas-Ft. Worth environs. And in “ratings”
reports by Arbitron, a leading media audience research organization that ranks
station performances, KKDA-AM’s competitors clearly outpace it in the DallasFt. Worth metropohtan market, with KKDA-FM ranking in second place, KBFBFM, in 18^^ KTXQ-FM , in 24^^ and KKDA-AM in a distant 33^^ place
(“Arbitron’s”). In terms of actual audience, another media source attributes some
3,600 hsteners to the KKDA-AM morning show, compared to 47,900 for KKDAFM (“Arbitron’s,” “Dallas-Fort Worth’s No. 7 DMA”).
This case study will show how the “Wilhs Johnson Morning Show” on KKDAAM in Dallas, with its unique relationship with its African American audience,
provides an example of commercial radio that still operates in the pubhc interest.
At the heart of this program’s success is its abihty to mobihze hsteners for pubhc
service as well as entertainment. Under close analysis, this special interaction
between KKDA-AM and its morning audience seems to demonstrate that media
formats can rephcate social learning theory in ways that positively impact audiences
and foster community building. Such a model, if followed by other commercial
broadcast stations, might mediate the ongoing debate about how such stations could
serve their listening communities better.
Methodology: Listening In On A Party Line
Methodology for this study involved monitoring and recording the “Wilhs
Johnson Morning Show” on 12 separate days, from September 14,1999 to October
7, 1999. About 14 hours of recordings resulted, from which selected excerpts are
presented here. In addition, in-depth interviews with program host Wilhs Johnson,
chief executive officer Ken Dowe and two regular hsteners to the program were
conducted, excerpts of which are also included.
In 1977, behaviorist Albert Bandura identified a social learning process inherent
in media’s influence upon audiences. (Bandura, 1977). The basic premise, as he
initially described it, postulated that media could shape audience behavior through
a specific process of immersion and influence. Moreover, Bandura identified four
basic stages, or pr ocesses, in the transaction of social learning: attentional, retention.