June
24, 2004
Valley Advocate
The Return of Rachel Maddowby Andrew Varnon Bill
Dwight is off the air, the Big Breakfast may fade away, but the woman
who made it all happen will be back on the air in the Valley come July. According to Chris Collins, news
and program director, WHMP 1400 AM will be picking up two shows from the
liberal talk network Air America Radio in July. One is the morning show
former Big Breakfast host Rachel Maddow left
The River for -- Unfiltered, with Chuck D and Lizz
Winstead -- and the other is Al Franken's O'Franken Factor. "I'm absolutely over-the-moon
excited about it," said Maddow, who hosted the
Big Breakfast on WRSI 93.9 FM for two years before taking a shot at
the star-powered liberal talk network. "I'm just looking forward to
being back on the air," she said. "And not having to buy my
girlfriend a satellite radio." Maddow's protégé, Dwight, recently quit
the Big Breakfast (see "Where, Where the Hell is Bill?" June
17, 2004) after a dispute with WRSI Program Director Sean O'Mealy
over salary and full-time status. Dwight, like Maddow,
had brought a liberal-leaning angle to the FM station's morning show. Now Big
Breakfast listeners might make the switch from FM to AM to listen to Maddow's show. Unfiltered, which runs from 9 a.m. to noon,
features "a lot of news and politics and a good amount of culture:
movies, art, music," Maddow said. Of the three
co-hosts, Maddow is the newsy one. Winstead, co-creator and former head writer of
television's The Daily Show, handles the guests. And Chuck D? The
outspoken former MC of rap group Public Enemy is the show's "wild
card," according to Maddow, who finds herself adjusting to being an ensemble player.
"Comically enough, I'm the straight man of the three," she said. Collins said the new programming
is part of a shift in WHMP's direction: an attempt
to appeal to However, the network looked as if
it might be short-lived this spring, as affiliates went off the air in
Chicago and Collins called the new shows
"a natural fit" for the Northampton-based talk radio station, which
has previously featured conservative-leaning programming. With the new
additions, Valley listeners will be able to tune in to Al Franken as well as
the show Franken would like to be the liberal answer to: Bill O'Reilly's The
O'Reilly Factor. Collins himself, as an on-air
personality, tends to track to the right relative to the Valley landscape.
But he said the programming choices, until now, have been limited by what's
available in syndication. That's why his station is picking
up the Air America shows even though there have been some concerns
about the network's long-term viability. "The feeling here is to
strike while the iron's hot and move on," he said. |
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