Monday, March 23, 2009

The Harvey Menu Fills Up

AllAccess reports that ABC Radio Networks has announced some of the personalities available in the "menu" of commentators that will be offered to affiliates of Paul Harvey News.

The next up on the Not Replacing Paul Harvey List? Citadel/ABC Radio's own Roe Conn, the popular afternoon host on the company's Chicago talk station, WLS/890.

AllAccess quotes ABC Radio as saying the Roe Conn commentaries will be "one of the options available to our affiliates" to fill the time slots left behind by Harvey's death.

It looks like ABC/Citadel is still offering former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's "Huckabee Report" as the "primary option" for former Paul Harvey News affiliates.

That's an option that hasn't been appealing for Mr. Harvey's former stations in Northern Ohio, with oldies/news WAKR/1590 Akron and standards WNIO/1390 Youngstown already not picking up the Huckabee feature - even though it's a default on the former Paul Harvey News satellite feed channels.

And AllAccess reports that ABC Radio will offer "a package of news features" from the two men who temporarily filled in after Harvey's death, ABC News Radio veteran and KGO/San Francisco host Gil Gross and ABC News Radio Information Network morning anchor Doug Limerick.

As noted many times here, we have reason to believe that neither Gross, nor Limerick, were interested in "replacing" the legendary Paul Harvey on a permanent basis.

We'll assume these features, supposedly to be announced "in the near future", would take on different forms and would just be "one choice" for Harvey's affiliates looking to air similar programming...and the schedule for both men to do them would not be as extensive as even their own fill-in for Harvey was.

Maybe Gross and Limerick are more comfortable hosting just one regular segment among a menu of many others...

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