WPHT-AM has announced that they are dropping radio titans Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity from their lineups beginning next January.
Nice try, guys. It’s more likely that Clear Channel, which owns the company that syndicates the two hosts, is anticipating flipping one of their Philadelphia music stations to talk and is yanking the two from WPHT for their own purposes. Radio stations don’t announce format changes two months in advance unless they’re trying to get out in front of something.
Listeners will be subjected to more blather from far-left Obama apologist Michael Smerconish.
Beck and his fellow right-wing gabber Sean Hannity were dumped yesterday by the city’s top-ranked talk-radio outlet, WPHT, The Big Talker (1210-AM), in a shakeup aimed at keepin’ it local.
While Hannity and Beck – nationally the No. 2 and No. 3 most-listened-to talk hosts behind Rush Limbaugh – are scrambling to find a new home in America’s fourth-biggest media market, the shuffle means a more prominent role for locally based Michael Smerconish.
The station announced that Smerconish would return to the afternoon drive-time slot, with a local hour at 3 p.m. and then his nationally syndicated show from 4 to 7 p.m. Another longtime local host, Dom Giordano, takes over for Beck from 9 a.m. to 12, while a new hire – Kansas City conservative yakker Chris Stigall – will do the morning-drive slot. The changes are slated to take effect in mid-January.
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Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Talk Radio, The Big Talker, WPHT4 Responses to “Big Talker Downsizes: Stations Drops Beck and Hannity For 2011”
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Good riddance. To WPHT, not Beck & Hannity. Obamaconish will not draw the number of listeners Hannity does & Giordano, who I have listened to occasionally will not come close to Beck’s numbers either. Limbaugh won’t be there much longer either. I think Obamaconish is pressuring the station to rid itself of the conservative base that listens to WPHT. He wants a RINO paradise on air. Bankruptcy will be a fitting end to WPHT. It will be interesting to see how long after January it will take before WPHT starts to hemorrhage enough listeners to affect them financially.
Personally, I think this presages CBS flipping 94.1 from WYSP to WIP-FM and putting the Phillies there. Smerconish is scheduled to run until 7PM each night. I don’t see them cutting their flagship show an hour short each night 6 months out of the year for baseball pregame shows.
I can’t imagine Beck or Hannity being off the air in Philly for a single day, so I have to subscribe to Steven’s theory, WPHT is trying to get out in front Clear Channel. As for Slutconsih, I got tired of his “faux” conservative act a long time ago. He sold his soul to get a Dear Leader interview and a fill-in gig on MSNBC as the “reasonable” conservative.
You’re right on the money, Steven, as PHT tries to describe the sh!t sandwich they’re about to eat as some kind of Tony Luke’s delicacy. Or another comparison: Do you remember Kevin Bacon in his ROTC uniform at the end of Animal House trying to convince the rioting homecoming crowd that “All is well!”? (Actually that one better applies to Patloser Murphy this past election night… but I digress.)
I’m sure that SmerCONish was permitted to pen that article in the guise of fellow Obama fellatist Will Bunch. And he’ll be taking on Hannity directly? That’s like picking a fight with a young Mike Tyson. The bout will be a grand, if short-lived, pummeling.
Well, Smercoff, welcome to the complete obscurity you deserve and for which you’ve conditioned yourself at the MSNBC echo chamber. Your middle-of-the-road political shtick was old before it was new. This gimmick is laughable as you lack even the courage of an unhinged Lib who at least is true to his convictions. Your moderation harangue makes you the futon of talk radio – - an uncomfortable couch AND an uncomfortable bed. Nice timing on the move too as the country makes its undeniable turn toward the rational Right. How soon before you abandon the pretense completely and show yourself as just another whining liberal elitist?
We’ll tell Murphy to hold onto that U-Haul rental. You’ll need it soon enough as you join him in society’s Section Eight slum of discarded Libs.