As we get close to one of the most important elections in our time, 960 The
Thom Hartmann announced on his Friday radio show that effective Monday November 6, KQKE (960AM, "The Quake") in San Francisco will carry his show live, locally from 9AM-Noon PT.
The Air America Radio-syndicated show is currently heard on delay on The Quake from 6-9PM.
What is interesting is that Hartmann will displace Al Franken's show, which will presumably move into Hartmann's current slot. Air America is notorious for making rigid demands of affiliates regarding Franken, forcing many of them to carry his show live. It's likely that the rise of competitors such as Jones Radio and the relative decline in quality of Air America's weekday lineup gave KQKE the upper hand in negotiations, Likely this is a scenario of an affiliate in a very large market playing hardball.
Hartmann's show, which originates from Portland, OR, has been doing extremely well in some West Coast markets, even ranking #1 in his time slot in Seattle.
UPDATE: Hartmann's move is not the only one at the station. Bob Agnew, program director of KQKE, posted an announcement on the station's website, announcing the addition of Mike Malloy and Rachel Maddow and the dropping of Al Franken. Randi Rhodes' show will be delayed to the evening hours:
The new schedule, effective Monday:
Quake is putting more outstanding talent on the air to help you understand where
this country is heading and what you can do about it.
No one Air America personality's departure created as much of a stir as did Mike Malloy. 960 The Quake is pleased to announce that Mike Malloy is returning to the Quake's airwaves. On Monday, November 6th Mike Malloy will be heard live from 6pm to 9pm. Thom Hartmann will now move into the mid morning 9am to noon slot, replacing Al Franken.
There has been lots of speculation about Al Franken's future with Air America and his planned moved into the political arena. While there is nothing official at this time, it has been made clear to us that Al Franken will not be with Air America in the future. We feel it is important to you that we have the most talented hosts on the air, who will be with us for the long term. We believe that Thom Hartmann is the new rising star in Progressive Talk radio and he is firmly committed to 960 The Quake for the long term.
We have also brought Rachel Maddow back to 960 The Quake in her new time of 3p-5p. John Scott will also return to host the afternoon version of the Progressive News Hour. We feel that circumstances with Air America has helped 960 The Quake build its strongest line-up ever: Our programming is live from 3a until 9p so you can become much more involved in the Progressive Process.
6AM-9AM Stephanie Miller
9AM-12N Thom Hartmann
12N-3PM Ed Schultz
3PM-5PM Rachel Maddow
5PM-6PM Progressive News Hour
6PM-9PM Mike Malloy
9PM-11PM Randi Rhodes
11PM-12AM EcoTalk w/ Betsy Rosenberg
12AM-3AM Lionel
3AM-6AM Bill Press
Eureka, CA 
2 comments:
The 6 to 9 timeslot is when the new Mike Malloy show on the Radio M network is going to air being 10/30. The program director's page on the kqke website states that they have been talking about bringing Malloy back. I doubt they would drop Franken but I am hoping they will air Malloy.
KQKE just announced that Malloy is coming back. They didn't say the date or time.
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