We Were Right About Laura

Back when Talk Radio Network syndicated midday host Laura Ingraham lost Salem talk WHK/1420 Cleveland - and all her other Salem affiliates - due to a dispute between the broadcast group and the syndicator, we took a stab at which area station would become her "Cleveland market" affiliate.

In a long, "educated guess" post the weekend after Salem and WHK dropped Ingraham's show, we made the case for Spirit Media talk/variety WELW/1330 Willoughby as Ingraham's new local outlet.

It sure made sense to us, but TRN instead revealed that Elyria-Lorain Broadcasting talk WEOL/930 Elyria would be picking up the show in evenings, via tape delay.

As it turns out, our earlier post has actually turned out to be correct.

An eagle-eyed OMW reader spotted this listing on Ingraham's website, under the "Station Finder" list for Ohio:

Cleveland WELW 1330AM 9pm-11pm M-F
Cleveland WEOL 930AM 6pm-8pm M-F

Sure enough, a quick trip to the Willoughby station's web site shows that they're welcoming Laura Ingraham to the lineup - and not just for a late night clearance. WELW's site lists Ingraham's show airing (presumably) live from 11 AM to noon weekdays, in addition to the 9-11 PM clearance.

A quick look at the revised WELW schedule shows the Ingraham move apparently displaces two of the three daily "Lake Effect Radio" airings - the locally-based talk/variety hour we presume is brokered on WELW. The Lake Effect programming is still listed from 4-5 PM weekdays.

So, we were at least partially right...but it took longer than we thought. And Ingraham's show now has clearances on stations serving both the East Side and the West Side, give or take listeners in the Cleveland market who are outside the range of 930 or 1330.

Oh, a note about that corrected WEOL clearance.

OMW hears that the 6-8 PM time slot may not be Ingraham's permanent weekday time slot on the Elyria station - starting as soon as early November. More on that, later...