As it turns out, OMW hears that Media-Com Akron market sports daytimer WJMP/1520 Kent/Ravenna/Streetsboro/Parts-of-Stow/Akron-on-a-good day “Fox Sports Radio 1520” won’t be changing sports radio network teams when Fox Sports Radio moves to Clear Channel sports WARF/1350 Akron “SportsRadio 1350” on June 8.
It’ll be changing format leagues, as it were.
We’ve learned that instead of picking up the Sporting News Radio affiliation WARF is leaving behind, the “little brother” station of Media-Com’s WNIR/100.1 “The Talk of Akron” will mimic its much bigger sibling and move to talk radio….but unlike WNIR, it will depend on a lineup of syndicated talk programming.
The WJMP schedule appears set, and the bulk of it will be provided by the Talk Radio Network folks:
6-9 AM: Mancow. Chicago-based Erich “Mancow” Muller has a dual radio life, and WJMP will be picking up his Talk Radio Network-syndicated morning show.
We haven’t heard his morning show, syndicated through TRN’s “FM” division, but we get the idea that his act in general is more reliably conservative/political vs. his “shock jock” days. Mancow has been a regular contributor to cable TV’s Fox News Channel, though we don’t know if he still appears there.
Mancow also hosts a local midday show on Chicago’s WLS/890…and it was on that show that the host recently underwent a highly-publicized “waterboarding” simulation.
9 AM-Noon: Laura Ingraham. Another TRN product, who used to air locally on Salem talk WHK/1420 Cleveland and Clear Channel talk WHLO/640 Akron. Salem and WHK dropped Ingraham in a contract dispute, replacing her on all of its stations with in-house product Mike Gallagher. (Who, oddly enough, runs late nights on WNIR!)
Noon-3 PM: Michael Savage (delayed from previous night). The third TRN host in a row, who also once aired on WHK and WHLO, but who was bounced from both stations – WHLO before, and WHK after – Savage got into hot water for autism-related remarks. As we reported here a while ago, Savage’s show aired 7-9 PM live for a few days on WNIR as vacation fill-in for local evening host Tom Erickson.
3-6 PM: Lou Dobbs. The sole non-TRN host on WJMP’s new weekday schedule. The CNN host casts himself as a fierce “independent”. His radio show is syndicated by United Stations.
6-9 PM: Michael Savage (live). Is six hours of “The Savage Nation” too much for one listener? We’ll find out in the summer. In the heart of winter, WJMP will sign off before Savage’s live show starts, so listeners will hear him the following weekday in that above 12-3 PM time slot.
(For that matter, later sign-on times in the winter will take a chunk out of the morning drive “Mancow” time slot.)
Weekends: Aside from a Lou Dobbs replay Saturday from 8-11 AM, and carriage of Citadel veteran financial advice talker Bob Brinker live 4-7 PM Saturday and Sunday, the rest of the WJMP weekend lineup will come from the WOR Radio Network (shows about travel, pets, car repair, etc.).
As far as we know, the station will not have any local programming, which considering WNIR’s schedule, makes sense. But the new WJMP lineup has ties to existing syndicated programming in off-hours on otherwise-locally programmed WNIR.
WNIR carries Laura Ingraham on delay weekend nights 10 AM-midnight, after local host Bob Earley’s “Earley in the Evening” show.
And before local talker Tom Erickson launched his Saturday 4-7 PM show (and “The Advice Line” with Bob Lewis took that Sunday slot), WNIR used to run Bob Brinker’s ABC Radio “MoneyTalk” show. Same show, same host, just an ownership and now-name change to Citadel Media.
We don’t know when the format flip will be made at WJMP. We’d assume that it will happen June 8, when FSR and Premiere’s Jim Rome go to “SportsRadio 1350”, but we could be wrong…we thought they’d pick up Sporting News Radio, and they won’t be…
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