Sunday Heads Up: Denny's Northwest Ohio Radio Return

Toledo-area listeners haven't heard Denny Schaffer since he left Clear Channel talk WSPD/1370 for sister station WGST/640 Atlanta.

And aside from an occasional national talk radio fill-in (Denny has filled in for Premiere host Glenn Beck at least once), Denny himself hasn't been heard anywhere on the radio since an apparent temporary weekend stint at Atlanta sports talker WCNN/680 "The Fan" - his landing spot after WGST eviscerated its local talk radio lineup.

Since then, he's hosted a daily Internet show/webcast on his own DennyRadio.com...and hasn't been regularly heard on an actual radio station aside from fill-ins.

Until tomorrow.

But...don't get your hopes up, Toledo.

OMW hears that a Sunday morning version of "DennyRadio" shows up tomorrow morning from 8-10 AM on Clear Channel country WCKY-FM/103.7 Tiffin.

On a country station???

The common link would appear to be the man who actually replaced Denny after his stint at Clear Channel top 40 outlet WVKS/92.5 "Kiss FM", Johny D.

Though it took us a while to catch up with it, Johny D has apparently landed as WCKY-FM's program director and afternoon drive host after being bounced in the recent format change at CBS' former FM talk outlet in Detroit, WKRK/97.1 - now sports outlet WXYT-FM. (The WKRK calls landed, of course, at CBS Cleveland market alt-rocker "92.3 K-Rock".)

He ended up on Detroit radio after being unceremoniously bounced from both WVKS, and then from Cumulus top 40 outlet WTWR/98.3 "Tower 98-3" in the same market.

Yes, the Tiffin station is still a country outlet. Since Johny came aboard sometime late last year, the station has dropped the formerly-ubitquous "Buckeye Country" positioner in favor of a positioner that seems more appropriate for a top 40 station - "103-7 CKY".

And we'll assume that a friendship between Johny D and Denny brought "DennyRadio Sunday Morning" to the 8-10 AM slot on 103.7.

What will you hear, if you happen to catch the show?

We've garnered a lot of info about the show by listening to the existing "DennyRadio 24/7" feed, where Denny spoke with Johny D about the show on his Friday edition. (If you check back later Sunday, he promises to add the WCKY show to that feed.)

Schaffer says the 103.7 show will be pre-recorded ("I go to church on Sunday morning"), and will be "kind of a musical version" of the show he does on the Internet, interspersed with talk.

Our guess writing this on Saturday night: he'll send up some new material, with parts of his Internet show during the week, to WCKY, and the station will mix that in with country music on the automation system. On his Internet show, instead of commercial breaks, Denny mixes in various popular songs - none of ones we've heard so far are country songs.

As Denny himself said on Friday to Johny D, "you'll have to pay me a lot more to do this live".

Here's the thing: Despite the fact that both called the show "Denny's return to Toledo radio", WCKY-FM is a far Toledo rimshot, signal-wise.

We haven't driven the area in a while, but you can hear 103.7 roughly south of the Ohio Turnpike with any regularity, and even then, it's a distant signal in much of Toledo. The station hasn't ever tried to serve Toledo itself (it's the historic WTTF-FM, paired with WTTF/1600 even today).

If Johny D and company have any thoughts of trying to change that situation, some sort of facilities change would have to be made - if that's even possible.

Then again, maybe Johny's happy in small market radio, even after being heard in Detroit. After he was dumped by Cumulus top 40 WTWR/98.3 in the Toledo market, he continued to feed Clear Channel Lima top 40 outlet WLWD/93.9 "Wild 93.9" with an afternoon drive show from his Toledo-area home...even after WKRK picked him up in Detroit.

Johny D apparently made no friends at Clear Channel Toledo after he blasted the company after his exit from WVKS - and ditto at Cumulus Toledo and WTWR - but, we'll see how he holds on in Tiffin...