When WFBL flips formats from news/talk to oldies on Monday, at least one of its syndicated hosts will remain on the air in Syracuse. Newsradio 570 WSYR is running on-air promos stating it will begin carrying "The Savage Nation" with Michael Savage on Monday evening.
Savage, which is syndicated by Talk Radio Network, will air on delay, filling the weekday 10pm-1am slot which is currently occupied by encore performances of that morning's "Glenn Beck Program." We had a feeling the Beck reruns were only a temporary measure since Premiere stopped syndicating Mike McConnell, who held the slot until Premiere stopped syndicating him back in February.
(And we hate to editorialize, but we're kinda let down because we were hoping WSYR would have followed the lead of sister station WGY/Albany, by bringing back the man who originally held that timeslot -- none other than Phil Hendrie.)
Hey, I agree with you guys! I miss hearing Phil Hendrie, and it's nearly impossible to pull him in from WGY most nights. After hearing hours of political talk with Rush and Hannity, it was always nice to loosen up with some comedy at the end of the day.
Heck, I thought Glenn Beck reruns were a great idea, as I work nights, so I'm asleep when the show airs live. Glenn gets a little political sometimes, but usually not "hardcore" political like Rush, Hannity, Levin, etc. The show is at least funny more often than not.
With Savage's arrival Monday, I think the ol' MP3 player will be seeing more action from here on out. I'll give the guy ONE chance... if I'm not immediately impressed on Monday, the radio goes off and the MP3 player comes on, every night, until Hendrie comes back.
Bob Ross,
From what I've been hearing about the new Phill Hendry show, it is not the same as what he was doing previously for Clear Channel. From everything I've read, the new TRN version of his show is more of a straight political talk show. However, I've never heard it, so I can't confirm that.
--The Radio Kid
I did have occasion to listen to the new Phil Hendrie show a few months back, on WGY. To me it seems like a satirical political talk show, sort of a Michael Savage on a rant, hopped up on caffiene or something. After a while I turned it off, I'd just had enough ranting for one day.
Personally I find it dissapointing WSYR chooses to run 6 hours of tape-delayed programming, when it has the opportunity to run at least two hours live by returning to the format when they previously ran The Savage Nation (live from 7p-9p and the first hour on delay at 9p). WGY originally did this, and as of the last I was aware even though they replaced the local programming formerly run in the 6p-7p slot with Savage live, they continued to repeat the first hour at 10p. WGY comes in better at night in the car just about all the way back to Syracuse, than WFBL does anywhere east of Onondaga County.
Looks like maybe WSYR's swapped Savage and Hannity, he's been on live the 7:00 and 8:00 hours tonight. I'll have to send them an email and thank them.
The WSYR website still lists the original schedule. It appears they soemtimes flip Hannity and Savage on nights of major primaries. Guessing Hannity offers to stay on live later into the evening to provide post-election coverage. It'll probably be back to normal tomorrow.
Yeah, actually they cut away from Savage, then when the primary coverage ended they joined Savage in progress. Which says something about Savage fans in this market - I have to think they're trying to avoid a bunch of nasty emails complaining about missing the show.
I don't know if they're looking to appease the listeners. If that were the case, they probably would have made a ton of announcements alerting people beforehand. Besides, I believe Savage has been in reruns for the past week or so. It's probably more of a syndication requirement... usually when you pre-empt a network show, you have to make it up somehow. The main thing the syndicator is concerned about is getting those network spots aired.
In some cases, as long as you air the commercials, the syndicator doesn't even care if you actually run the show. In some cases (like if there's a baseball game) that's all you can really do. But in a case like this, it's probably easier to start Savage early, cut away to Hannity, then go back to Savage.
In retrospect many months later it's pretty clear what WSYR's opinion of what it's evening talk fans want, is.