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Radio Host Harvey Finds a New Home

Posted on: Tuesday, 19 July 2005, 15:00 CDT

After nearly five decades, radio legend Paul Harvey is leaving WISN-AM (1130) early next month.

With WISN changing its network news affiliation to the new Fox Radio News operation in August, WTMJ-AM (620) is becoming Milwaukee's main ABC News affiliate and has the rights to air the 87- year-old Harvey's daily shows, which are distributed by ABC. The final Harvey show on WISN will air Aug. 6.

There's no word yet from WTMJ on where Harvey's show will be plugged into the station's daytime schedule.

Harvey's folksy mix of news and commentary went national in 1951, and a check of the newspaper's archives shows he's been airing on WISN at least since 1958.

"It's ABC's decision, not mine," says WISN program director Jerry Bott of the departure of Harvey from his longtime Milwaukee outlet. As for the move to Fox's new radio news operation, that's been ordered by Clear Channel Communications, which owns WISN and has picked up Fox Radio News for a number of its news-talk stations around the country.

"Nothing is forever in radio," says Bott, who's considering his options for the programming holes left by Harvey's departure. Among the possibilities: expanding the midday Bob Dolan-Jay Weber show into the 11:30 a.m. half-hour that now includes one of Harvey's several daytime broadcasts.

The only other ABC Radio product on WISN's schedule, Sean Hannity's syndicated talk show, is unaffected by the news change. Hannity currently airs in the 8 p.m. weeknight slot.

"Hannity's not going anywhere," says Bott. "He's here for the foreseeable future."

In radio business terms, Hannity is far more important to WISN's future than Harvey, whose main appeal lies well outside the station's target audience of men ages 25 to 54.

As for Harvey, who's been a national radio figure for well over half a century, there's no sign of his show disappearing.

His quirky take on the events of the day ending with his trademark, drawn-out "Good day!" runs on some 1,200 stations around the country, Monday through Saturday.

Within earshot of Milwaukee, he's also on WRJN-AM (1400) and Chicago's powerful WGN-AM (720).

You also can find him at www.paulharvey.com.

CHANNEL SURFING: Channel 6 sports guy John Pearson has left Milwaukee to return to his old station, WHNT-TV in Huntsville, Ala. . . . CBS has extended its deal with the Grammys, so it'll continue to air the music awards show through 2011. . . . Spike TV's acquisition of reruns of FX's gritty cop drama "The Shield" looks like the first time a basic cable channel has picked up repeats of a basic cable rival's show. "The Shield" will start airing on Spike next spring.

WATCH THOSE ADS: One of the best things about TiVo, or other digital video recorders like the one offered by Time Warner Cable, is that it's pretty easy to zip through commercials.

But now TiVo is planning to insert symbols during commercial breaks to try to catch the attention of all those fast-forwarders out there.

The first advertisers to take part in this attempt to get viewers to watch their commercials are General Motors and the WB Network.

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Call Tim Cuprisin at (414) 224-2397; e-mail tcuprisin@journalsentinel.com.

Copyright 2005, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved. (Note: This notice does not apply to those news items already copyrighted and received through wire services or other media.)

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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