A consumer's guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it's in play here.

A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here.

By LARRY STEWART

Dec. 31, 1997 12 AM PT

What: Radio station KIEV (870 AM)

KIEV is no longer that little station in Glendale that has carried Nebraska football since the early 1970s. The station recently beefed up its power from 15,000 watts to 20,000 daytime and from 1,000 watts to 3,000 nighttime, making it a major Los Angeles station. It is L.A.’s only independently owned and operated station and has state-of-the-art technology, including AM stereo.

Besides Nebraska football, KIEV carries Notre Dame football, USC basketball, Pepperdine basketball and UCLA sports such as baseball, men’s and women’s volleyball and women’s basketball.

KIEV began carrying USC basketball this season, and packager Mike Lamb is thrilled with the relationship. “Fred Beaton is the nicest guy in radio,” he said. Beaton and his brother Ron are the longtime owners of the station.

The core programming is made up of KIEV-owned-and-produced talk shows with people such as George Putnam, Ray Briem, Elmer Dills, Greg Hunter and Irv Kaze. Other programming is brokered, meaning the air time is sold to programmers who in turn sell their own advertising.

KIEV was the first of what are now 21 stations in 16 states outside Nebraska to carry the Cornhuskers. The school provides the signal free to stations outside Nebraska, but it costs to buy the air time.

A group called Californians for Nebraska buys the time on KIEV for about $40,000 a year. It recoups some of that money through advertising, but about $25,000 comes from dues and direct donations.

Nebraska fans who want to listen to the school’s announcers, Warren Swain and Adrian Fila, call the Orange Bowl game Friday night instead of the CBS crew have that opportunity.

Also, as a prelude to the game, Kaze, in a special 4 p.m. edition of his weekly one-hour Friday night show, will have a salute to Coach Tom Osborne. The next Friday, Kaze, who the past two years has been voted by the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Assn. as the area’s best radio talk-show host, will move to a new permanent time, 6-7 p.m.