Riots Spark Positive Public Messages : Service: Partners in radio production firm offer ‘positive contributions’ for airwaves.

SAN CLEMENTE —  The recordings bring back disturbing memories: An April 29 broadcast from a Los Angeles Fire Department dispatcher, counting six fires in progress; a Compton High School student addressing her classmates in a bid for peace; black and Korean owners of small businesses recalling the looting and destruction.

In the next moment, the radio announcer urges people to vote.

“The basic way you get change is do it at the ballot box,” Otis Arnold tells radio listeners. He owns a pharmacy three blocks from Florence and Normandie avenues, a flash point of the riots.

The public service announcements, seven in all, were created by two San Clemente men who are partners in a radio production company, radiOzone. They persuaded the Los Angeles League of Women Voters to endorse the announcements and sent copies to eight Los Angeles radio stations.

“It was an opportunity for us to do what we do and make some sort of positive contribution,” said Rob Wagner, who with Mike Smith created radiOzone three years ago.

The pair generally write humorous material for such clients as Campbell Automotive Group, Green Burrito fast-food restaurants and for Miller Brewing Co.’s Genuine Draft Lite.

The desire to play a part in repairing a torn city has moved thousands of business people to act. Rebuild L.A., the group commissioned by Mayor Tom Bradley to spearhead restoration efforts, has received more than 6,000 offers of help from individuals and companies, according to a database being kept by Arthur Andersen & Co., the accounting firm, which has volunteered service to the groups.

KFI--AM (640) in Los Angeles, a news-talk show station, has been airing the radiOzone spots seven to 10 times a week since late September. “I thought they were very well done and talked about an important topic,” said Ann Germain, the station’s operations coordinator.

The League of Women Voters opted to support the radiOzone announcements, after making some minor script changes, because the spots were nonpartisan and effective, said Elaine Steiner, chapter president.

“I thought they were very moving,” she said. “The approach was: ‘Instead of taking to the streets, take to the ballot box.’ ”

Three Los Angeles radio stations said they are airing their own public service announcements urging people to register and vote. Only one other, KACE-FM (103.9), said it was making the connection between the riots and voting.

Inglewood-based KACE is airing a series of public service announcements produced by the National Assn. of Black-Owned Broadcasters. “One of them points out that if you were registered to vote, you could have been on the Rodney King jury,” said Isidra Person-Lynn, the station’s director of public affairs.

Smith said he first heard about the riots on the radio as he was dressing for a dinner in Santa Monica. As he drove home at midnight, pillars of smoke were rising above South Central Los Angeles.

Later, as he watched television broadcasts, Smith said it struck him that “these people were voiceless. They didn’t think they could communicate what they felt and thought in any way but by tearing apart their own neighborhoods.”

Wagner and Smith decided that they were in a position to allow people to speak out through radio. They began scanning newspapers and television broadcasts three weeks after the riots for names of people whose lives were affected. They interviewed an ex-gang member, three business owners and a community activist.

They included a question about what people can do to change the city’s future, whether voting would help.

RadiOzone also acquired the rights to the Fire Department’s transmissions during its first two nights, possibly the first time such rights have been sold to a non-news organization. And the company bought the rights to a KABC radio recording of Gabriella Rodriguez, the Compton High School student whose speech was part of a news report.

Lyon Recording Studios in Newport Beach donated almost $6,000 in studio time and engineering services. And actor Al Chalk, whose voice is familiar as the announcer on Fox network’s “Roc” and “In Living Color,” agreed to do the voice-overs, waiving what would normally have been a $5,000 fee, Smith estimated.

Colleagues asked Wagner and Smith why they, two guys from Orange County, decided to make the public service announcements to benefit Los Angeles residents. “We were only 40 minutes away from this earth-shaking event,” Smith said. “I’m a little surprised no one else saw the same opportunity.”