Originally posted Sunday, September 1, 2019 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Talk station 640/WGST-AM is now actively positioning itself as a Fox News radio affiliate.
Fox News provides the news updates and the station's website URL has even changed to 640foxnewsatl.iheart.com. And the new logo plays up Fox News big time with WGST's call letters nowhere in sight.
Its only local weekday show hosted by Dana Barrett ended on Friday, replaced in part by former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly's syndicated show starting Monday. He provides a 15-minute daily commentary.
The Wall Street Journal's Gordon Deal's morning show stays. Glenn Beck remains at 9 a.m. O'Reilly's commentary is from noon to 12:15 p.m. followed by Dave Ramsey, who moves earlier in the day, now from 12:15 to 3 p.m. Ben Shapiro launches from 3 to 5 p.m. (I am sorry. For earlier readers, I had the false impression Todd Varnes was going to be on the station. I was wrong. My apologies for the error.)
The rest of the lineup includes Del Walmsley from 5 to 6 p.m., Mark Levin from 6 to 9 p.m., Buck Sexton from 9 to midnight, Michael Savage at midnight and George Noory from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m.
WGST was once a powerhouse station in the 1980s and 1990s, a competitive news/talk station to WSB. But a series of bad decisions - including dropping its FM simulcast 20 years ago - and the steady decline in popularity of the AM dial has turned WGST into a footnote in the ratings. It usually scraped by with a 0.1 rating compared to 6 or 7 rating for WSB, which now doesn’t even bother actively promoting its AM signal.
It can also be heard on 105.7 HD3 if you have an HD radio and on the free iHeartRadio app.
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