Thursday, March 01, 2007

Shocking Trades

As a hockey fan, the days before the NHL trade deadline are fascinating and fun. No other league re-tools so much mid-season. Baseball will feature trades and has a fun deadline, but the NBA and NFL are virtually trade-free during the season.

I'm a Sharks fan, and was astonished to see two great deals that brought Bill Guerin from St. Louis and defenseman Craig Rivet from Montreal. The Sharks got a lot tougher in a hurry!

Tougher to explain is WXNT's move to take on Dennis Miller's talk show in favor of Sean Hannity. WXNT airs on 1430-am in Indianapolis, and is my #1 radio pre-set.

Huh? I'm not a fan of Hannity. In fact, I skewered him for his treatment of Ron Paul. But they guy's show is popular and at least consistently political, which I like. Miller? No telling what you'll get. Sometimes it might even be funny.

Could it be that WXNT is moving away from being a conservative talk station? Perhaps Hannity's rise made the show too expensive to carry? Hannity has the TV show on Fox News, while WXNT airs Fox News. It was a natural network fit, especially with Bill O'Reilly on the station.

Consider me stumped. I'd love to find out more about this one!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

XNT isn't "moving away" from conservative talk but is being dragged kicking and screaming. They already lost two of their late night line-up to 93.9 WWFT (Fishers/Indianapolis). Michael Savage and Laura Ingram moved in the last month or so. Hannity will be leaving XNT at the end of March. XNT may have no choice but to start carrying talk hosts from the center-left just to differentiate. They still have Boortz (for now). I have to admit that Michael Savage sounds a lot different on FM. That AM night time power reduction as well as all the static inherent on AM band is not missed. Indianapolis is waaaay overdue for an FM talk station though.

Anonymous said...

Why are you complaining? Miller is quasi-libertarian.

LP Mike Sylvester said...

I have never heard Dennis Miller; however he MUSt be better then Hannity.

Hannity is the worst talk show host I have ever heard...

Mike Sylvester

Michael Jarrell said...

I, for one won't be sad to see Hannity gone. The mindless Republicrat love fest was too much to handle. I caught part of Abdul yesterday afternoon and gathered that it was a shift to a more moderate "conservative" host. In the end it's about ratings for WXNT and Miller might just be better for them, It'll certainly be better than Hannity's Republican Radio.

Mike Kole said...

I'm not complaining about the loss of Hannity. I'm shocked by it. Trading Hannity for Miller in terms of ratings is like trading Peyton Manning for... who's the QB for the Cleveland Browns? I'll bet the FM-talker bought the show away.

On my dream station, a huge spectrum of views would be heard- conservative, liberal, libertarian, socialist, you name it. I like variety, and I really don't need to agree with the host to enjoy. I like a good show, which is why I can take Glenn Beck- until he starts talking straight politics.

Anonymous said...

I'm not even sure that the FM station had to offer more money. Moving to FM from AM would be a ratings boost all on it's own. All things (money) being equal, and an AM contract is expiring, if I was the Hannity syndicate I'd take the FM opportunity. How often do you use the seek/scan button on your AM radio?