Update 9/28: At 3pm today, WGST dropped News/Talk in favor of Spanish Sports “640 ESPN Deportes“. The flip pairs WGST with sister Regional Mexican “105.3 El Patron” WBZY in a combo that is identical to the El Patron/ESPN Deportes combo Clear Channel has in Chicago as well. The ESPN Deportes network briefly aired in Atlanta on Beasley’s 1100 WWWE in 2010.
No details yet on whether any of WGST’s other programs will move to other stations. The old WGST website is directing listeners to the site of 1160 WCFO for coverage of Georgia State Football that had aired on the station.
Original Report 9/26: The News/Talk format of Clear Channel’s 640/92.3 WGST Atlanta will soon be no more as Rush Limbaugh moves crosstown to Cox’ 750/95.5 WSB.
Limbaugh will keep his usual 12pm-3pm timeslot as he moves to WSB on Monday, October 1. To make room for Limbuagh, WSB will adjust its programming lineup. Neal Boortz, who will be retiring in January and replaced by Herman Cain will drop the 12pm hour to air from 830am to 12pm. Clark Howard, who had aired live on WSB from 1pm to 3pm will shift to 8pm to 10pm. Sean Hannity will lose an hour of his show, now airing from 3 to 5pm. WSB will add a PM news block from 5 to 7pm to better compete with Cumulus’ “All News 106.7” WYAY.
No word yet on the future of WGST, other than there have been mass staff cuts. We have reported over the past few months that Comedy640.com and ESPNDeportesAtlanta.com have been registered for potential use in Atlanta. The move follows a similar dismantling of “Talk 1200” WXKS Boston in August.
The Press Release announcing Limbaugh’s arrival at WSB follows:
Rush Limbaugh is coming to News/Talk WSB. The Rush Limbaugh Program, America’s most listened to radio talk show is moving up the radio dial to AM750 and 95.5FM News/Talk WSB on Monday, October 1.
“Rush is America’s number one talk show, and it’s fitting that he will be on the number one News/Talk station in America,” said Ben Reed, WSB Vice President and Market Manager as he announced a series of changes Wednesday afternoon. “With Rush coming over, the Neal Boortz Show will now air from 8:30am until noon.”
The station also announced that it and the Sean Hannity Show had entered a long term agreement keeping WSB as his Atlanta home. Hannity I s one of the most influential political commentators in the country and he is host of the most watched news and information program on the Fox News Channel.
“Atlanta’s Evening News” returns weekdays 5pm until 7pm with traffic every six minutesled by Captain Herb Emory and the WSB Traffic Team, continuous breaking news, Atlanta’s most accurate and dependable weather from Chief Meteorologist Kirk Mellish and fast paced urgent commentary on the day’s top headlines from Erick Erickson.
“While Atlantans drive home from work, they’ll hear important information they can’t get anywhere else, as well as the most traffic reports anywhere on Atlanta radio,” added Reed.
Additionally, WSB is proud to continue being Clark Howard’s Atlanta home. The Clark Howard website has exploded online as the premiere consumer information center of choice for most Americans and continues to grow. Clark’s radio show moves to evenings in Atlanta from 8pm until 10pm. Simultaneously, Clark adds CMG sister station WDBO in Orlando as his live flagship station beginning Monday from 1 to 3pm. The Clark Howard Show also continues in national syndication on CMG stations WHIO in Dayton, Ohio, WOKV in Jacksonville, FL and KRMG in Tulsa, OK, in addition to some additional 200 additional affiliates.
“When we discovered Clark Howards 600,000 monthly podcast downloads and millions of page views to www.clarkhoward.com, we knew the Clark Howard brand had grown much larger than his radio show,” said Reed.
“He’s genuinely an ‘on demand’ product and his audience routinely goes to his website first.”
Following Clark at 8pm will be Adam Goldfein at 10pm. The Dave Ramsey show moves to midnight and weekends on News/Talk WSB.
Boortz currently is fed nationally from 10am-1pm. The 8:30am-10am segment was local. Will the national feed time change or will Boortz or Cain continue to do 12n-1pm for Dial-Global? Will the 9am segment still be local or will Dial-Global now take that, too?
Howard goes out nationally now from 1pm-4pm. Curious that national feeds for both Cox shows have been an hour “behind” the 9-12 and 12-3 schedules most other shows follow.
Clark Howard was only doing a live two-hour show up to this point – the noon hour was a re-feed of an hour recorded from a previous week. Many of his affiliates air the noon hour as a way to counter-program Rush. WEOL/Elyria was one of the first stations to start this trend, actually airing what was originally the third hour (at 3pm) in tape-delay the next day at noon back in 2008.
I am curious to see how D-G handles Cain’s show, provided that they do syndicate it (at the very least, it is a given that Cox will simulcast it on their talk station). Oddly enough, WHIO/Dayton has been airing Boortz from 9am-noon, presumably simulcasting his “live” hour on WSB.