HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
The Joe B. & Denny Show is moving to a new home in Lexington.
Starting Aug. 8, the daily radio sports talk show that features former basketball coaches Joe B. Hall and Denny Crum will be heard live (10 a.m. to noon, Monday-Friday) on Cumulus Broadcasting's WLRO (101.5 FM).
Presently, the show is heard on a taped-delay basis (8-10 p.m.) on Clear Channel Communications-owned WLAP (630-AM).
Dick Robinson, program manager for the syndicated Joe B. & Denny Show, said a desire to get the program on live in Kentucky's second largest radio market motivated the switch.
"For the past year, we've been tape-delayed and Central Kentucky listeners can't call in, can't participate," he said.
The show made its debut in March of 2004. It is now on 21 stations (20 in Kentucky and one in West Virginia) and is live in 17 markets, Robinson said. Besides Lexington, the show is also tape delayed in Murray, London and Cadiz.
For the first year, The Joe B. & Denny Show was on live in the Lexington market on Clear Channel's WTKT (1580-AM). But when that station went from an all-sports to an all-Spanish language format, Joe B. and Denny had to move.
All four of Clear Channel's FM stations in Lexington feature music formats. That left only WLAP, the company's Lexington flagship. During the day, that station does news talk, not sports.
"Clear Channel worked very hard with us to try to make (a live broadcast) happen," Robinson said. "They just didn't have any place to put us."
In Louisville, the show is carried live on a Clear Channel all-sports station, WKRD (790-AM). Clear Channel's Dave Jennings is the host of the program.
Clear Channel officials in Louisville gave their approval, Robinson said, for the Joe B. & Denny Show to seek a Lexington station owned by a different company.
So it is moving to the station that Cumulus is now calling 101.5 The Planet and which will feature a talk-radio format heavy on (but not exclusively of) sports.
In addition to Joe B. and Denny, 101.5 will also carry Eastern Kentucky University football and men's basketball; a high school football and basketball "Game of the Week;" and national programming (such as The Jim Rome Show) from Fox.
The Joe B. & Denny Show "gets very, very strong ratings in Louisville," said Robert Lindsey, operations director for Cumulus-Lexington. "It gets pretty respectable ratings here even taped. I have a feeling the show is really going to take off by being on live."
(Source: Lexington-Herald Leader)