WTVN/Columbus Changes

It'd been hinted at on the message boards, but AllAccess makes it official - it'll basically be ABC Radio syndicated talker Sean Hannity replacing long-time local late night host Steve Cannon at Clear Channel Columbus talker WTVN/610.

The addition of Hannity's show comes with a time shift of WTVN's programming. The other local casualty is the station's long-running noon news hour...as 'TVN moves up Rush Limbaugh to a live clearance from noon to 3 PM. We liked hearing the news hour when we visited the Columbus region, but OMW recognizes that shows like that often exist solely to have a place for Paul Harvey's 15 minute noon broadcast. On WTVN, the veteran commentator slides back into the last part of the 11 AM hour... to take over the last 15 minutes of the slot occupied by Premiere's Glenn Beck. Unlike WTVN sister station WTAM/1100 Cleveland, 610 will run at least the first segment of Beck's last half hour, and won't turn the 11:30-to-noon segment into an abbreviated news "half hour" like WTAM's "Midday Report".

With Limbaugh moving to noon-3, that slides WTVN afternoon mainstay John Corby up to 3-6 PM, and evening host Joel Riley to 6-9 PM. Hannity's show will run 9 PM to midnight, when the station then goes to Premiere's "Coast to Coast AM" at midnight. George Noory and company have been filling the post-10 PM slot since Cannon's departure.

It'll be interesting to see how Hannity's show competes with his Fox News Channel cable TV show, which will air at the same time as the first hour of WTVN's radio carriage of his show.

Oh, and by the way, OMW has been picking off a number of nasty comments on this topic, attached to our earlier report on Steve Cannon's departure. Many of the comments we've deleted contain foul language and other very nasty comments, and they're probably all from the same person. Any such comments on this post will be deleted instantly...we get E-Mail notification of new comments, and are connected most of the time. It takes roughly 5 minutes between the notification and our ability to clear the comment, even if we're not at the computer.

If the attempts continue, this entry will be closed for new comments. If the problem continues beyond that, we'll close off all reader comments on all OMW items until further notice.

We understand and respect varying opinions on the topics we report. The comments in question go far beyond the line. Thank you for your cooperation.

-- The Management