Alan Light remembers the alarm clock radio going off on his bedside table when he was a teenager growing up in Springfield Township in the late 1970s.

It was set to WEBN-FM 102.7 and the voice of DJ Robin Wood, sister of Frank Wood. At the time, Frank Wood was the station manager at WEBN; now he is Light's boss.

"It was not a bad station at all," Light says. "Later, when I approached the high school years, it was formatted and predictable, but when I was listening there was still that 1960s structure."

Light, editor-in-chief of Tracks magazine, figures this publishing venture - he was also involved in turning around VIBE - has a great chance of making it.

All he has to do is touch the lives of some contemporary music lovers who will pay $4.99 for a magazine about music and musicians. Once he gets the readers, the advertisers - who account for about 90 percent of the magazine's revenue - presumably will follow.

"I don't need everybody," Light says about the readership for his start-up. "From the way we've run the numbers, looking at the population of heavy music buyers over the age of 30, our optimistic dream plan is a penetration of less than 3 percent of that audience.

"In my fantasy world, that still allows for 97 percent to say they don't like it."

Light hopes to get some of that 3 percent by including compilation discs of music in each edition of the magazine, a plan that is in the testing phase.

Jon Fine, media reporter at Advertising Age magazine, says the idea borrows from two English music magazines, Uncut and Mojo, which routinely include music discs with their issues.

"It's standard operating procedure in the UK," Fine said.

Tracks also has something most businesses don't: the fun factor.

"Tracks is not a slam dunk," Light said. "Launching magazines is like launching a restaurant. The majority fail. But it attracts people because it's kind of fun. That counts for something."

John Eckberg