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Comic replaces morning DJ

Steve Harvey’s show takes over Olivia Fox’s spot on urban-music radio station WBTP-FM 95.7 with just a day’s warning.

By ERIC DEGGANS
Published September 25, 2006

It was a change so abrupt, announcers at the urban-music radio station WBTP-FM 95.7 were still explaining it to their listeners Monday afternoon.

Olivia Fox, the morning personality who filled her regular 6 to 10 a.m. shift Monday, was out by the afternoon. She will be replaced starting today by comic Steve Harvey’s nationally syndicated morning show.

WBTP program director Ron Shepard said Fox’s ratings weren’t the issue; the chance to air a morning show by a nationally known comic motivated the change.

“Olivia did a great job, but we had a nationally syndicated comedian available to come in here,” said Shepard, who said Fox was notified of the change Monday. “We did our research, and this makes more sense.”

Harvey, who appeared in the 1997 film The Original Kings of Comedy and once hosted the variety TV show Steve Harvey’s Big Time on the now-defunct WB network, last year started a morning radio show syndicated nationally by Premiere Radio Networks, a subsidiary of WBTP owner Clear Channel Radio.

Fox, who came to WBTP in February 2004 about a year after leaving the syndicated Russ Parr Morning Show in Washington, D.C., did not return a call for comment. Shepard said her contract with the station runs until the beginning of 2007.

CLEARWATER FAMILY ON MAURY POVICH SHOW: A Clearwater woman who says her mother is obsessed with making her 6-year-old daughter a beauty pageant queen will be one of the guests on today’s Maury. Carol Hodge says that Stephanie McCoy is making her daughter, Niara Purkett, “a stuck-up little child.” Maury airs at 4 p.m. on WTTA-Ch. 38.

[Last modified September 25, 2006, 21:47:14]