Radio Equalizer’s Brian Maloney is reporting that Alan Colmes will soon leave FOX News Channel’s Hannity & Colmes, the show he has co-hosted with Sean Hannity sine the channel’s inception in October, 1996.
Though the decision was said to have been made by Colmes himself, it is not yet known what future role he will play at the network. There have been no industry rumblings regarding the liberal host heading for another network and his radio show remains syndicated by FOX News Radio.
Also unknown at this time is who will replace take Alan’s place at the Hannity & Colmes Show, if anyone.
Colmes’ departure is set for year-end, according to a News Corp press release.
In announcing his decision, Colmes said, “I approached Bill Shine (FNC’s Senior Vice President of Programming) earlier this year about wanting to move on after 12 years to develop new and challenging ways to contribute to the growth of the network. Although it’s bittersweet to leave one of the longest marriages on cable news, I’m proud that both Sean (Hannity) and I remained unharmed after sitting side by side, night after night for so many years.”
Colmes will continue to have a presence on FNC as he will serve as a liberal commentator on a variety of FOX News programming, including Foxnews.com’s The Strategy Room and continue hosting his radio program, The Alan Colmes Show on FOX Talk, a division of FOX News Radio. He will also begin developing a weekend program.
There has been past speculation that Hannity could possibly host the show on his own following a Colmes departure. It would be hard for anyone to come into that situation and hold his or her own against Hannity. Hannity and Colmes were both relatively unknown when the show’s original format was set, although in pre-production the show was known as “Hannity vs. Liberal To Be Determined” because the show was always designed to be a Sean Hannity vehicle.
I remember listening to the decidedly less political Colmes back in College when he replaced Howard Stern on WNBC following Stern’s firing (technically, Colmes replaced old timer Joey Reynolds who was little more than a disasterous place holder after Stern’s departure). Colmes was the last host to appear on WNBC, counting down the seconds as is went off the air and was replaced by WFAN in 1988.
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