California's Central Coast gets another progressive talker

In an apparent coincidence, a Watsonville AM station and a Carmel Valley AM station both will convert to liberal talk radio formats next week, giving comedian/liberal commentator Al Franken two outlets to reach a new audience on the Central Coast.

Up first on Monday will be KOMY AM-1340, a sister station to the right-leaning KSCO in Santa Cruz.

Then, on Thursday, Spanish-language talk station KRXA AM-540 in Carmel Valley, further left on the dial, makes the switch under new ownership. That station was acquired Friday by Washington, D.C., lawyer Hal Ginsberg and Peter Collins, who will be hosting a talk show.

KOMY will feature six hours of programming from the liberal Air America broadcast network. The new lineup will include Franken, author of "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" and "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations, commentator Randi Rhodes, Alan Colmes and Santa Cruz lawyer and Democratic Party activist Paul Sanford, who will be involved with programming from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. every day.

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KRXA, formerly known as KXME, will include political comedian Stephanie Miller broadcasting live from Los Angeles; Ed Schultz, author of "Straight From the Heartland," and Collins, who has worked for talk show radio stations in San Francisco for almost 30 years, including KGO, KNBR, and KSFO.

"We're going to be presenting the antithesis to the right-wing rants that are generally on talk radio," said Ginsberg. At the same time, "it won't be a situation like NPR, where we have talking heads or pundits. We will definitely be challenging our guests."

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