On this Saturday afternoon in late April, the phone lines are ringing off the hook during Libardo's "Nuestra Gente," a two-hour call-in show at South Jordan's KBJA 1640 AM, one of the valley's five leading Spanish-language radio stations. As you'd expect, what listeners want to talk about is immigration politics.

At 12:50 p.m., just 10 minutes before the end of the show, Libardo launches a listeners' poll. What happens at 1 p.m., as callers on hold cause the red hold light to blink furiously, is what sets this locally operated station apart from its mainstream counterparts.

Libardo, the station's new president, quickly decides to extend the poll, pushing back the start of "Escapárate Tecnológico," a weekly computer show.

In 40 minutes, the station airs the opinions of 51 callers, most supporting a full boycott.

"I was actually stunned on Saturday," says immigration attorney Mark C. Alvarez, administrator of minority affairs for Salt Lake City Mayor's Office and one of the guests on Libardo's show. "I was surprised by the energy and passion of the callers."

The station shares offices in a South Jordan strip mall with K-Talk AM 630, whose name is listed on the front door. "We are David, not Goliath," says Libardo, who earned a local following broadcasting a call-in show for seven years on another station, before leasing KBJA in November.

"SupeRadio. Superman. SupeRadio for Latinos," is how he explains the station's new marketing slogan.

Inside the recording studio, there's barely room for Libardo and several guests, and unlike bigger radio operations, there's no programmer screening calls. "My show is a nude show," jokes the 66-year-old broadcaster, who immigrated with his wife and kids from Colombia 13 years ago. "It's totally natural."

Throughout the last week, during his 5 p.m. daily news broadcast, Libardo explained to listeners the reasons behind the national boycott. "We are supporting May 1 in the following terms: First, don't buy anything," he says. "Second, send the kids to school. Third suggestion, don't leave your house if you decide not to go to work. We are explaining to the people it's better to stay home. That way, we avoid problems with the Minutemen."

Just about everybody in Salt Lake City is talking about the implications of rehauling the country's immigration laws, ever since photographs of 40,000 people flooding State Street during April 9's Dignity March anchored newspaper front pages and TV news broadcasts. In a white-bread state like Utah, the images were especially striking: block after block of mostly Latino faces, dressed in white T-shirts, accessorized with American flags.

"Since the Dignity March, everyone is thinking about the Latino community, how it is a political force, and at the same time, its buying power is real," says Lorena Riffo Jenson, a native of Chile who is president of DPR Communications, a company that specializes in marketing to Utah's Spanish-speaking population.

And since then, the question of what's next - should Utah Latinos join the proposed national boycott of work, schools and stores? - has sparked lively conversations on Spanish-language radio programs. Longtime activist Tony Yapias, former director of the state Office of Hispanic Affairs and director of Proyecto Latino de Utah, credits the stations, along with e-mail blasts and articles in local Spanish-language newspapers, for helping turn out crowds for Utah's largest-ever protest march.

For the past two weeks, immigration issues have been such a popular topic on Yapias' one-year-old weekly show, "Pulso Latino," which airs at 11 a.m. Tuesday on Radio Exitos KMRI 1550 AM, that the Salt Lake City station opened phone lines to callers during morning drive time.

Loyalty is the strength of the valley's growing Spanish-speaking radio audience, now served by the two community-based AM stations, plus three music stations owned by Bustos Media, a California-based private chain that calls itself "one of the most active Spanish-language radio consolidators." The company is planning to launch a Spanish-language TV station in Salt Lake City next month, says Ed Diestel, regional vice president for Bustos Media, which owns radio stations in Utah and five other western states, as well as Wisconsin.

Just 1 1/2 years after the company acquired its first local station, its pair of FM stations consistently ranks among the market's top 25. The stations' combined audience amounted to 3.9 percent of Salt Lake listeners during the fall 2005 rating period, says Tom Mocarsky, vice president of communications for Arbitron Inc.

Those numbers reveal just one piece of the diverse pie that is Utah's Latino population, estimated to be about 250,000, with some 75,000 Salt Lake County residents - or about one in 10 - who speak Spanish at home, according to 2000 census data compiled by the Modern Language Association. Of course, many bilingual listeners listen to English-language radio, but if there's a significant pattern in the Arbitron ratings, it's how the local audience reflects national trends.

Nationally, the mainstream radio audience has dropped slightly in 10 years, flattening out to about 90 percent of the American population, while the size of the Spanish-language audience is growing, from 6.7 percent in 1998 to 10.2 percent. Plus, there's another hallmark of Spanish-language listeners: "They listen for a very long time, more than 22 hours per week, versus 20 hours," Mocarsky says. "That's what's driving Hispanic radio."

You just need to drive around town to find examples of radio's reach in Salt Lake's Latino population. You can hear snatches of Spanish radio blasting from kitchens of Mexican restaurants. Or just notice where the dial is tuned on the clock radios in local hotel rooms. "You can be changing a sheet, or flipping a burger at McDonald's, and listening to the radio," says attorney John Diaz, who was born in the Dominican Republic, grew up in New York City, and has been practicing law in Utah for 15 years.

Ask Elena Bensor for numbers - she directs education and outreach for the state labor commission - and she'll point to a 37 percent increase in Spanish-language callers and a 15-20 percent rise in walk-in clients after several months of regular appearances on Yapias' show.

Ask a marketer like Riffo Jenson, and you'll hear about last year's public service radio spots advertising the University of Utah's English Language Institute scholarship program.

It all creates a snapshot of the growing influence, as well as the range, of distinctive Latino stations in the market. On one end are the Bustos-owned stations, which offered news reports from the Dignity March as well as community information, but won't take an editorial stance on the proposed boycott, Diestel says. Operationally, the company's carefully researched and programmed music formats, and the reach of the FM frequencies, contrast with the more grass-roots vibe of the two locally-owned AM stations.

In many ways, Yapias' and Libardo's call-in shows, which stress community activism, are reminders of a time before corporate conglomerates standardized radio formats across the country.

Diaz says he gets a spike in calls from potential clients on Monday mornings after he appears on the Saturday show. "I still get people who refer to Jose as if they were talking to their local bishop," says Diaz of his client and SupeRadio's owner. " He's out there like a magnet, drawing in all these people who don't know where to turn."

Libardo calls running the station "a family adventure," and says he and his youngest son are still working out a business plan. In an interview, he rests two cell phones on his desk, one for business calls, the other just for family members.

He claims he doesn't want to be a politician, and would prefer to "keep in the shadow." But he feels an obligation to help his community. To push his people to be honest. To get involved. To stamp out domestic violence. To avoid fraud. And to follow this country's laws.

"My mission here is not only entertainment," he says, "but information, and teaching my people, too. My people need help with the real things."

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Contact Ellen Fagg at ellenf@sltrib.com or 801-257-8621.