Just a couple of unrelated items…
LAURA’S RESURGENCE: After being dumped by a boatload of Clear Channel talk stations over the past 4-plus years, it looks like advice talker Dr. Laura Schlessinger is enjoying a bit of a resurgence.
The controversial host – her program now owned by her own “Take on the Day Productions” – has been showing up on some bigger market signals owned by Salem.
The most recent… a move in Dallas, where she now shows up on Salem Christian teaching/talk KWRD/100.7 Highland Village TX “The Word 100.7”. The station is powerful, though something of a rimshot – as are a whole bunch of other Dallas/Ft. Worth market move-in stations.
“The Word” airs her show live 2-4 PM weekdays, and it’s not the first Salem teaching/talk outlet to carry her by far. Pittsburgh’s WPIT/730 has run Dr. Laura for at least 2-3 years now, and New York’s WWDJ/970 (“WMCA 2”) has also been an affiliate for a while now.
Do we see her show eventually airing on Salem’s Cleveland teaching/talk station, WHKW/1220? It wouldn’t be a stretch. “1220 The Word” here seems to be quite happy with Dave Ramsey, their syndicated money advice guy with roots in Christian principles. A Dr. Laura/Dave Ramsey combo would probably work well for WHKW…
ANOTHER CINCY FOLO: There’s finally a follow-up newspaper article to the announced Clear Channel AM changes in Cincinnati, where sports WSAI/1360 “Homer, The Sports Animal” will swap frequencies with liberal talk WCKY/1530 “The Revolution of Talk Radio” on July 7th.
The Cincinnati Post’s Rick Bird gets a little more out of CC Cincinnati AM guru Darryl Parks, who gushes over “Homer’s” potential on the 50,000 watt signal at AM 1530 – and who doesn’t at all seem worried that a blowtorch sports format will affect the station which drives the entire bus in Kenwood, talk WLW/700 “The Big One”.
Parks tells Bird that the company is still committed to the liberal talk format in Cincinnati – “for now” – though he’s hoping that the format becomes less “shrill” and more “humanistic”. (Observation: In all of talk radio, only someone who runs the versatile format of WLW – with a popular comedy-talk afternoon drive show – could get away with saying that.)
Parks says he still sees progressive talk succeeding “in the long run”.
As for “Springer on the Radio”, show marketer and long-time Cincinnati broadcaster Pat Barry tells the Post that they’re just “excited” to be on the air, and they aren’t concerned with the less powerful, but still decent 1360 signal.
He has a point – “Homer” has done well enough within the usual parameters of a sports talker, and the 1360 signal has never been seen as holding them back.
But we still believe the liberal talk format is on shaky ground in Cincinnati, and may basically have been saved by the fact that Jerry Springer has a contract.
The other thing which may have saved it…what else is Clear Channel gonna put on that fourth AM signal?
There aren’t a lot of options for AM formats. With full-time local talk, conservative talk and sports already on the air, what else can CC do? They’ve already run through “real oldies” and standards, both formats which are even tougher to sell – ratings aside – than any talk format. (And there’s already WDJO/1160, which picked up the old 1530 oldies format, as a competitor if they wanted to go back that way.) “Classic Country 1360”? Also an older-skewing format.
There are some folks who believe a Spanish-language station would be possible. It is one of Clear Channel’s “format initiatives”, but we have no idea if there’d even be enough Hispanic listeners in Cincinnati and environs to support it…
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