Morning shakeup at WWRL

"Sammy and Army" are history.

Sam Greenfield and Armstrong Williams, the morning show hosts at WWRL (1600AM) in New York, exit the station, in a programming overhaul. The two hosted their last show yesterday.

Former Air America Radio personality Mark Riley and current WWRL nighttime host Richard Bey will take over mornings effective Monday. Program director Rennie Bishop calls the move a "creative redirection."

Both Riley and Bey are New York radio veterans. Riley was a longtime personality at WLIB prior to joining Air America, from their debut in March 2004 until this past August. Bey was formerly at WABC radio until starting at WWRL in August. He has also done fill-in work at Sirius Left. And yes, he did host that talk show back in the 90s.

The "Sammy and Army" show was often controversial among Air America fans. Listeners mostly took exception to the 'conservative half' of the duo, Armstrong Williams, who was most notably caught in a scam involving some suspect dealings with the Bush administration. Williams had to fork over $34,000 to settle his case with the Department of Justice when it was discovered that he accepted $240,000 in payments from the Bush administration to tout their 'No Child Left Behind' act on his TV and radio shows. According to USA Today, Williams was hired "to promote the law... and to urge other black journalists to do the same." When the whole matter was disclosed, he lost his TV show and the White House turned its back on him. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington claimed the deal was illegal, as the federal government is forbidden from funding propaganda broadcast within the United States.

WWRL: Seder out, Stephanie in

In retaliation for comments made about morning co-host and Republican propagandist Armstrong Williams, Sam Seder's mid-morning show has been taken off New York's WWRL, effective this morning.

Yesterday, Seder ripped into Williams for incorrect comments he made about a run-in President Bush had with Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) a month or so ago. WWRL management took exception to Seder's bashing of Williams and yanked his show off their airwaves. As of this morning, WWRL is airing Stephanie Miller's show in the timeslot.

Across the internet, many of Seder's hardcore fans are enraged, with some blaming the move on his syndicator, Air America Radio. This move, however, was made by WWRL. Whether it affects the affiliation agreement between Air America and the station is unknown at this time.

Nonetheless, Seder is gone from WWRL, Miller gains a New York affiliate and Williams is still waking up New York with his more liberal cohost Sam Greenfield. However, Williams is no longer being paid by the White House to suck up to them.

UPDATE 1/25: It appears Seder is back on WWRL this morning. Whether the station decided to threaten carriage of his show to keep him in line (re: keep from dissing WWRL's personalities) or whether Air America stepped in and held them to the contract is unknown. I guess Steph was a one day thing.

As if there weren't enough sharks left to jump

After alienating many of their listeners after firing Mike Malloy and suffering through some badly mangled PR related to their financial issues and upper management squabbles, Air America Radio might trump all of that with a new rumored move.

The Hill, by way of Wonkette, is floating a rumor that Air America is considering syndication of right-wing radio flack and former Bush Administration paid propagandist Armstrong Williams, currently toiling away with liberal co-host Sam Greenfield in morning drive at their New York City affiliate WWRL.

Air America struck a deal this summer to move its New York home from WLIB to WWRL. The source said that as part of the deal, WWRL wants the Sammy and Army show syndicated on Air America radio. Such a deal would bring in more cash to WWRL, and word is that Air America is on board. But Air American does not want to syndicate the Williams show before the elections, which would presumably rile its liberal listeners (gee, you think?).

WWRL Program Director Rennie Bishop was mum on the topic. Asked when he would comment, Bishop said, “Call me after the elections.”

Williams, recently paid $34,000 to settle his case with the Department of Justice on his controversial payments from the Bush administration for touting the No Child Left Behind law, basically because he didn't peddle enough propaganda, said, “I keep hearing the rumor it’s coming and it couldn’t come any sooner because they need a little diversity there.”

Williams’s business card has “Air America radio” already on it because of his affiliation with WWRL (oh, the irony!).

Air America spokeswoman Jaime Horn said, “We have no plans to syndicate Armstrong Williams at any time.” Well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Of course, it's likely that if AAR were to, in fact, syndicate Army and Greeny (or whatever they call themselves), it would be dumped on their secondary syndication feed along with Jerry Springer and Thom Hartmann.