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97X promising more music in the morningBy PAMELA DAVIS © St. Petersburg Times, published February 16, 2001 The new 97X morning show begins at 5:30 a.m. Monday on WSUN-FM 97.1, but that's about all the station will tell us about it. Program director Michael Sharkey will say what it won't be -- no Howard Stern or Lex & Terry, as has been rumored. Instead, it will be locally produced. "The big thing about this show is that we are not abandoning the music," Sharkey said. "We're going to be entertaining and informative and still play more music than any other station in town." 97X has been up and running since November when owner Cox Broadcasting flipped the format from oldies to alternative rock. But there hasn't been a morning show. "Everybody is all hyped up on syndication, how big they can be. I think it's important to be local, to be a part of the Tampa Bay area," Sharkey said. ANOTHER EXIT AT WFLZ: BJ Harris, former co-host of the MJ & BJ Morning Show, left WFLZ-FM 93.3 last week. Now it's the program director's turn. Dom Theodore, 30, is going to Houston. His last day at the station will be Feb. 28. Theodore has been at WFLZ for seven years, the last two as program director. He starts his new job as program director of top 40 station KRBE early next month. "This has been a really good market to me," Theodore said. "I'm going to miss Tampa, but this is a tremendous opportunity that I couldn't pass up." FROM THE FAIR FRONT: WQYK-FM 99.5's Skip Mahaffey said broadcasting from the Florida State Fair is unlike any other remote the station does. He and the morning show crew were a couple of booths down from the world's smallest horse and the giant snake. Directly across from them were Robinson's Racing Pigs. "You try and tell people that country music is sophisticated and hip -- we're Faith Hill, we're the Dixie Chicks, we're Garth Brooks -- and then you hear "Here come the pig races! Richard Porky goes on the bend followed by Junior Samples.' It just blows the image," Mahaffey said. Keep a lookout for WYUU-FM 92.5's Mason Dixon at the fair Saturday. He and his crew are treating 400 children to the fair and will be getting on rides and having breakfast and lunch with the kids. BYE BYE LIONEL: Premiere Radio Networks, a syndication provider and subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, recently dropped 21 programs, including the Lionel Show, heard locally on WFLA-AM 970. Lionel's contract with Premiere ends March 2 and there are no plans to air the show on WFLA after that time even though it will still be offered on an independent basis by his management company. Instead, the show will be replaced by a pre-feed of Coast to Coast A.M. with Art Bell. From 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. WFLA listeners will hear three hours of the show from the previous morning broadcast. Coast to Coast A.M. airs live from 1 to 5 a.m. Lionel (Tampa native Michael LeBron) got his radio start at WFLA. He left the station in 1994. "Unfortunately he was in such a late night time slot that his impact was never as meaningful as it was when he was able to do afternoon drive here," said Gabe Hobbs, national director of news/talk for Clear Channel. WORTH A LISTEN: Special programming honoring Black History Month is airing on public radio station WUSF-FM 89.7 this month. Included in the offerings are Friday's edition of Jazz Legacy featuring the music of the Harlem Renaissance. Larry Martin hosts the two-hour show each Friday at 11 p.m. Community radio station WMNF-FM 88.5 will air the original documentary Groveland, Florida 1949 on Feb. 27 at 1 p.m. The show tackles the story of four black men accused of raping a white woman and the nights of violence and years of legal battles that followed.
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