640/WGST announces Rich 'Sully' Sullivan as new mid-day host
This Monday is a busy new day for radio with the introduction of Chris Dimino on the Rude Awakening on sports talk 680/The Fan and Scotty Kay and Riley Couture as the new morning show on top 40 station Power 96.1.
And now we have some good news for a popular former mid-day Dave FM host Rich "Sully" Sullivan. He will have his own daily show on talk station 640/WGST-AM airing from noon to 2 p.m..
He will talk about politics, breaking news and pop culture. (He's already writing about charter schools on his WGST page.) He replaces the syndicated show hosted by Andrea Tantaros.
He will be sandwiched between Glenn Beck and Dave Ramsey.
Sully was a long-time afternoon host on rock station Dave FM from 2006 to 2012 when the station switched format to sports talk. He has since been seeking new gigs, plying his time working at a cleaners at Colony Square, the same building where Dave FM used to be. The Boston native (and huge Red Sox fan) has been a big supporter of the police, and lobbied aggressively for Sunday alcohol sales. He also shaves his head every year for the St. Baldrick's kids cancer foundation.
Sullivan, 42, worked for a time in the mid-1990s at WGST as a producer.
WGST has been back and forth on local content. It ran Rush Limbaugh for years in the noon to 3 p.m. slot but gave him up in 2012 when Clear Channel decided to turn the station to Hispanic sports talk. That didn't last long since the format got virtually no ratings. So management last year brought back WGST - minus Limbaugh or any local weekday hosts. Ratings have been a fraction of what they were before the change.
The other local show the station airs on weekdays is Dale Cardwell, who is on from 5 to 6 p.m. daily. (He's the former investigative reporter who does all the "Trust Dale" endorsements you see on TV and billboards. His "Trust Dale" seal of approval is based on seven tenets.) His show started in mid-January and it airs in eight markets. "It's a consumer problem-solving show with bite," Cardwell said. He said he gets 150 emails a week with companies who give them problems. He attempts to mediate the issue with the company but if they are fraudulent, he chases them down. "I hold people accountable," he said.
And Sullivan will be joining WGST where Mara Davis, also formerly of Dave FM, hosts a weekly Saturday talk show from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. about food called "Atlanta Eats."
"He'll be amazing," Davis said. "Sully is born to be a talk-show host. He will fill a niche of that Libertarian voice that Neal Boortz had left."
If you can't get WGST on the AM dial, it's available on the IHeartRadio app as well was www.640wgst.com.
About the Author
Rodney Ho writes about entertainment for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution including TV, radio, film, comedy and all things in between. A native New Yorker, he has covered education at The Virginian-Pilot, small business for The Wall Street Journal and a host of beats at the AJC over 20-plus years. He loves tennis, pop culture & seeing live events.
