Riding the Blazing Saddle Into

Riding the Blazing Saddle Into the Sunset - Jason Lewis is leaving KSTP-AM.

The speculation has already begun as to who's going to replace him.

For starters; I think KSTP program director Joe O'Brien's made a great move, sliding the Soucheray show to 3-6PM. Soucheray's blend of bowling-alley politics and sardonic humor is a local institution, and is perfect for the afternoon drive.

It's there that the problems pick up. Lewis had great ratings, and benefitted greatly from starting before the dreaded 6PM hour. 6PM is often a big brick wall in radio; it's when people get out of their cars and flip off the radios, eat dinner and turn on the TV. Lewis, with his extra hour before the dinner drop-off, could grab the dregs of Soucheray's numbers, whip them into a partisan frenzy, and then - and here's where Lewis' talent comes in - hold enough of them through the news and into the evening to make the show pay off. He used his patented talent as a rabble-rouser - and, let's face it, a whole lot of partisan charisma - to hold onto a crowd through the supper shift and into the early hours of prime-time.

So this leaves the 2-3 PM and 6-8PM shifts to fill. I'd imagine 2-3 will be some sort of satellite program, but who knows? The big question is - what'll KSTP do in the evening?

Fraters and Steve Gigl have commented already - Steve was kind enough to float my name along with Lileks, while the Fraters posited Bob Davis and Dave Thompson. Thanks!

I doubt all four of them. I haven't heard Davis in the morning yet, but I'd suspect he'll click better than most of the contenders in that slot; if I were the program director, I'd wait to see how the momentum was going in the morning before I juggled anything.

Lileks? He's great on the air, but too low-key for afternoons, I think. I say this as a huge fan of his late, great "Diner" show, easily the best late-night talk show ever - but I just don't see it in the afternoon. Also, there used to be some genuine antipathy between Soucheray and Lileks (this is going back at least a decade - but I get the impression that Soucheray is if nothing else consistent), and I doubt O'Brien is going to ruffle his franchise player. Finally, I'd bet dimes to dollars that Lileks has other irons in the fire (to say nothing of his steady gig with the Strib; radio careers being as ephemeral as they are, I can't imagine Lileks ditching the steady gig at the moment anyway).

Fraters tossed out the notion of Dave Thompson. Dave's a great guy and an excellent weekend host. But unless he has a different personality hiding in his desk, I don't see him being the type of partisan firebrand that's going to get the masses out waving pitchforks and torches, which (I think) is what I think you need to succeed during the early evening.

Me? Yeah, I could do it, but Joe O'Brien has no evidence to support that. My outing last January (filling in for Bob Davis) was fun, but it was also tentative; it didn't really have much of a direction. Joe O'Brien wanted to see direction. Enh. I didn't think it was bad for a first show in fifteen years, but such is the breaks.

If I did get a shot at the show, though, it would be very much an online version of this blog; relentless, rabble-rousing conservatism, combined with the sort of informed criticism of the status quo (especially locally) that made Lewis famous. I'd be as relentlessly, even stridently partisan as Lewis was - indeed, as I said in my comments on the subject last winter, Lewis was the host I wanted to be when I grew up - but I'd be even more aggressive about taking it to the streets than Lewis was. In fact, I'd be very much like a continuation of Lewis, only with much, much better bumper music.

What will O'Brien do? Good question. Here are some possibilities; I won't bet money on any of them:

• Given KSTP's enamourment with existing institutions (which is what gave us John Wodele and Barbara Carlson), I'd imagine there's a strong chance he goes with one of his small stable of existing fill-in hosts from outside the station; Katherine Kerstin, maybe.
• Putting Thompson in the evening as a place-holder until they figure out what do do with evenings
• Reviving some form of sports programming in the evenings (although I doubt this - while sports used to be a relatively reliable guarantee of a couple of ratings points in the evenings, I think KSTP was smart to hand that over to KFAN and 'CCO ni the past ten years)
• Extending the evening shift to 9PM, and running the tape delay of Sean Hannity at 9, tying the whole evening together. This, of couse, would squeeze out Tom Mischke, which would stink (I love the Broadcast), but might make sense from a programming standpoint, especially if you assume Hannity is a strong property (although I detest Hannity)
• Putting Hannity in from 6-9, and filling from 9 until Tinfoil Hat talk (or whatever replaced Art Bell - I never listen to it longer than it takes to reach the tuning knob) with Mischke, which I think would work better than the current situation, sticking Mischke between conservatives Lewis and Hannity, and Davis before that.

I'll check around and see what I can come up with.

Posted by Mitch at September 23, 2003 09:34 AM