... and the rest

A little cleanup from the holiday weekend...

Musical chairs

Nicole Sandler is back for another week of noon-3P fill-ins on Air Ameirca. This is the slot vacated by Thom Hartmann last month.

Actress Deidre Hall will be guest-hosting Air America’s "Hollywood CLOUT!" this week. The program airs weeknights at 9P ET.

And veteran Denver talker Erin Hart will fill in for morning host Jay Marvin through Wednesday.

Talk shakeup in Twin Cities

The current meme about the addition of a pair of left-leaning talkers on venerable KSTP (1500AM) in Minneapolis/St. Paul isn't all that big of a deal. KSTP has had a rather long history of mixing it up, rather than take a hard partisan direction.

Last week, the station introduced a new show from Shawn Prebil and Chris Murphy to the midday lineup, to replace conservative duo Bob Davis and Dave Thompson. The show will air from 9A to 1P weekdays.

Murphy and Prebil were last at WTDY (1670AM) in Madison, another station that has traditionally aired shows from various sides of the political spectrum.

As I mentioned, mixing it up is nothing new to KSTP. For many years, they aired left-leaning shows from the likes of Barbara Carlson and Turi Ryder around Rush Limbaugh, whom the station carried for many years until opting for a more locally-oriented approach. Patrick Reusse, a local sportswriter and KSTP morning host, is considered left-of-center. And many previous local hosts at the station were not politically-oriented. Ironically, the station's owners, the Hubbard family, are known for being very conservative politically.

KSTP program director Steve Konrad, addressing the apparent ideological shift, said, "We never, ever have had a political/ideological 'sense' for any program we have ever aired. ... Our only agenda is to offer the Twin Cities a place to talk about the things that are affecting those of us that live and work in the metro."

The station is currently the flagship for regionally syndicated conservative-leaning talker Joe Soucheray, who's show airs from 2-5:30P. And they are the flagship station for Minnesota Twins baseball.

The Twin Cities is a very competitive market for talk radio. KTLK-FM is a run-of-the-mill Clear Channel conservotalker, with mostly syndicated programming. The venerable WCCO is very middle-of-the-road, and rather apolitical. WWTC is the Salem wingnut station in the market. KTNF is all liberal talk. And WFMP-FM is light on politics and heavy on estrogen.

Where programming ideas come from

Finally, it appears the broadcast networks are constantly on the lookout for unique promotions. This one is for a colonoscopy. And it's from CBS. Yes, you read that right.

CBS News Radio is running spots for it on their radio newscasts, and most likely on television as well. Lucky(?) winners will be flown to New York City, stay at the "luxurious Loew’s Regency Hotel," and what is perhaps the clincher, a colonoscopy."

I'm sorry, there are too many jokes here to come up with just one. This one just writes itself.

You want details about entering this (mostly) glamorous New York City trip? Go to the CBS Cares website, here.