Beck attempts to save his slot on 610 WTVN

Beck attempts to save his slot on 610 WTVN
Meanwhile, Air Americans fight back
January 4, 2007

The management at 610 WTVN probably made Mike Coleman happy when it decided to dump Glenn Beck’s syndicated show from its morning lineup.

But unlike Mayor Coleman, who famously defended his manhood in an on-air dust-up with Beck in 2005, most Columbus listeners don’t have a disagreeable personal history with Beck. And some of them—like Beck himself—feel grievously wronged by his pending disappearance from 610’s airwaves.

On Tuesday morning, the dispute spilled onto the national airwaves, no doubt boring the life out of listeners to Beck’s 233 other affiliates, and onto glennbeck.com, where the usual home page was replaced by a stark screen with this message:

“Welcome Fans from Columbus, OH. As you may have heard, the Glenn Beck Program will be removed from 610 WTVN AM. Since 2004, the Glenn Beck Program has ranked amongst the top three shows in our time period in Columbus.”

In an affiliated website, Beck fans spent the early part of the week planning a protest that, as of Wednesday, was scheduled for late Saturday afternoon on the Short North Cap.

“The Gallery Hop will be going on that night,” wrote a poster named glennbecky, “so we can be right there in the middle of it.”

The odd intermingling of art browsers and conservative radio fans will apparently include missing_glenn, who wrote, “Planning to be there—have a ton of things on my ‘to do list’, but none more important than keeping Glenn on the line.”

Though Beck won’t be replaced by local host Joel Riley until next week, Beck fans accused 610 of a suspicious programming decision Tuesday, when live coverage of Gerald Ford’s funeral suddenly interrupted the Glenn Beck Program as the host was in the middle of his public complaints about WTVN.
Calls to Beck’s PR representative and to WTVN Program Director Bruce Collins Wednesday were unreturned.

Collins, who’s also the PD for Clear Channel’s 1230 WTPG—soon to lose its liberal lineup and become WYTS—said in an e-mail to a Beck fan that the station wanted to move his morning show over to WYTS.

“Unfortunately,” the Collins e-mail said, “Glenn declined to be a part of our new talk plans.”

Say this for Clear Channel’s Columbus operation: It’s an equal-opportunity annoyer of listeners.

Fans of 1230’s Air America lineup have formed their own website, ohiomajorityradio.com, aimed at keeping Al Franken and other liberal hosts from being replaced by the likes of Laura Ingraham and Jim Rome.

They’re probably inspired by fellow prog-talk fans in Madison, Wis. A Clear Channel station in that famously liberal enclave was supposed to dump Air America this month, but a campaign by fans saved the old format.

Ohio Majority Radio implores Columbus Frankenphiles to write not just their own U.S. senators but other people’s. It directs supporters to write Sen. Hillary Clinton and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “And Ask Them To Help Save Progressive Radio In Central Ohio.”

So if you read in coming weeks that Clinton is missing a lot of votes and Reid is shirking his leadership duties, you can safely assume it’s because they’re on the phone hollering at Bruce Collins.

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