SAN FRANCISCO -- Several local radio stations may need to look for new programming, after the widely-syndicated Dr. Dean Edell announced yesterday that he's retiring from his medical advice show at the end of the year. The show has local affiliates in Syracuse, Utica-Rome and Ithaca/Cortland, among others.
According to this morning's edition of Tom Taylor on Radio-Info, the doctor announced he's "throwing in the towel" at the end of the year. Taylor explains Edell's flagship station, KGO in San Francisco, recently shelved the doctor's one-hour weekday timeslot in order to make room for a "noon news block," starting this coming Monday.
Although Edell's weekday schedule for syndicator Premiere Radio Networks will not change, he'll be "demoted" to weekends in his own hometown, with a few hours on Saturday afternoons and two hours early on Sunday mornings.
Although Edell's show airs live weekdays from 4-5pm Eastern, many affiliates save up those hours and air them in longer clusters on the weekend. Locally, WSYR/Syracuse airs Dr. Edell on Saturdays 6-8pm and Sundays 6-9pm; WIBX/Utica on Sundays 1-4pm (when sports isn't airing) and WHCU/Ithaca on Saturdays 3-7pm.
On the fringe of CNYRadio.com territory, Auburn's WAUB -- one of the Geneva-based "Finger Lakes Talk Radio" stations -- carries Dr. Edell live every weekday.
According to a story on Radio-Info.com, Edell has announced that Premiere intends to keep the show going, and the Clear Channel-owned syndicator is searching for a replacement host. Time will tell who that new host is, and whether local affiliates will stay with the new show or find something else.
?? Unless WSYR made a change effective Dec. 4th, they run Edell on Sundays only, from 11:00 am to 4:00 PM, pre-emptable for SU pre/postgame shows. Saturday they run a Best Of Hannity 4-7pm and The Weekend (with revolving hosts) 7-10pm.
I should add to that that at 4:00pm Sunday they run a Glenn Beck Weekend and at 7:00pm they run Handel On The Law (repeating the first hour to run all the way to the live Bill Cunningham show at 10:00).
Okay, I see WSYR did indeed change the schedule, flipping the Rush/Hannity combo to Sunday; The Weekend moves up to 1:00 PM Saturday, followed by Glenn Beck Weekend, and Handel On The Law. Sunday had Glenn Beck Weekend repeated again to fill between Hannity and Cunningham - no Dr. Dean. Which could be permanent, or could be there was a technical problem of some sort. The Saturday Beck was notable in that it didn't carry the "Weekend" tags -