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Tuesday, October 9, 2007
10/10: On Sullivan, Stews, Wachs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I caught up with Star 94’s Tommy Sullivan last week before my vacation break to talk to him about his new full-time gig with WXIA’s “Atlanta & Company.” “I wanted the job since I started doing it” as a sub for Ryan Cameron a couple years ago, he said. “I thought Ryan would never leave.” (Ryan got his own talk show on Starz, which debuts next month.)
Sullivan, who has been with Star 94 for three decades and will likely stick around when Steve & Vikki are out November 2, said he had an advantage over many of the possible replacements WXIA tried out because he’s used to the prompter and the situation. And he said the West Coast satellite interviews are especially tough because of the 1.5 second delay. “I had a good sense of peace there,” he said. “I was more relaxed.” He did watch his competitors and said he liked Jimmy Baron and even Brian Jordan. And he was nervous about the late-second test of “Major” Tom Clark, who had once hosted WXIA’s “Peachtree Mornings” talk show in the 1990s.
He admits Cameron was able to get folks like Ludacris and Warrick Dunn on the show. “I don’t have that star power potential or access to those people,” he said. But like Cameron, he’s a native Atlantan and brings a lot of energy to the table.
In other news, the 2 Live Stews syndication deal with Radio One is over at the end of the year after airing on about 20 stations. It wasn’t the right fit mixing the Stews with political talk, said Andrew Saltzman, GM for 790/The Zone, which is involved in the syndication. The Stews are talking with other syndicators and will likely be pitched to sports talk stations. This won’t affect the Stews locally on the Zone since that’s a separate deal. Radio One’s Grown Folks 102.5 is reviewing all options, including keeping Warren Ballantine and Al Sharpton in Atlanta.
Here are promos for former Regular Guy Larry Wachs’ new Adult Swim online video show, “What’s Your Story.” “News: It’s not just for old people!” he says. The show starts online a week from Friday on the 19th.
http://www.superdeluxe.com/sd/series/whatsyourstory
