The latest entertainment industry entrant into the talk radio realm debuts his Westwood One syndicated talk show Monday.
And at launch or soon after, comedian/commentator/former football TV voice/actor/raconteur (whew!) Dennis Miller will have over 80 affiliates in his list, including some in reasonably large markets – including a clearance in his hometown of Pittsburgh, on CBS Radio’s new FM talk station WRKZ/93.7.
Well, it’s rocker WRKZ now. Starting April 2nd it’ll be WTZN “The Zone – Pittsburgh’s Man Station”. (Umm, OK. Was “He Man Woman Haters Club” trademarked by someone?) We also wonder if CBS Radio’s “Free FM” brand is a part of the past now, but that’s another story.
Regular readers of OMW already know that Mr. Miller will be mixing his 21st and 17th century cultural references on at least one Northeast Ohio outlet, with NextMedia’s WHBC/1480 Canton set to carry the show starting April 2nd (noon-3 PM) in its official start as a full-time talk outlet.
Where else will Dennis Miller air in this region?
Well, how about Salem talk WHK/1420 Cleveland? Not yet, at least.
We bring up that station because Salem’s “Where Your Opinion Counts” talkers in a number of major markets have made some sort of commitment to carry the Dennis Miller radio show.
Quoting conservative power website NewsMax.com:
The former “Saturday Night Live” star’s show will run in seven of the top 10 markets, including Salem Communications stations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas and Detroit.
Many of the announced clearances are in evenings, either 6-9 PM or 9-midnight. In Seattle, the Salem talker (KKOL/1300) will run Miller from noon to 3 PM (PT, of course), and Chicago’s WIND/560 has him slotted noon to 2 PM (CT).
We haven’t heard any official or even rumored word about Cleveland, but WHK would be Miller’s only full-market option. We believe WTAM’s Mike Trivisonno would give up eating all food – on-air or off – before the Clear Channel talker would pick up a unproven Westwood One show.
We wouldn’t be surprised to see him show up on the “NewsTalk 1420” lineup at some point down the road, given how Salem’s conservative talk outlets usually run in lockstep across the nation. For one, they picked up TRN’s Laura Ingraham show one after the other.
Where? Our guess – and it’s only a guess – is that Dennis Miller would bump TRN’s Michael Savage to later hours, and air 9 PM-midnight. That’s what Salem’s Philadelphia talker, WNTP/990 is doing.
And in Akron, where Media-Com talk WNIR/100.1 carries Westwood One’s Jim Bohannon late nights, along with Bill O’Reilly and Lars Larson on weekend evenings, we would also not at all be surprised to see Miller’s show end up somewhere in the non-prime lineup of “The Talk Of Akron”.
Again, only a semi-educated guess…
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