What Stations Air Live Talk, Sports or All-News Programming Overnight?

Here's the list I am aware of. These are the only talk-based stations I know of that carry live and local programming overnight.

TALK RADIO
WBZ Boston

SPORTS RADIO
WFAN-AM-FM New York
WZGC Atlanta

ALL NEWS
WCBS New York
WINS New York
KNX Los Angeles
WBBM/WCFS (FM) Chicago
KCBS/KFRC (FM) San Francisco
KYW Philadelphia
WTOP Washington
KOMO-AM-FM Seattle

and in Canada, All-News stations
CFTR Toronto
CKWX Vancouver
CHQT Edmonton


WLW Cincinnati is a Talk station that runs a live Truckers/Country Oldies show overnight. KOA Denver recently switched from local programming to Coast to Coast. WWJ Detroit is an All-News station that, as a cost-cutting move, simply repeats an hour of news till dawn, rather than having a live anchor all night. I have doubts about CHQT Edmonton having a live anchor all night, considering how small that market is, but I am not sure.

Obviously some Talk stations, such as WOR New York and WTIC Hartford, have a live person doing news updates all night, during a syndicated show such as Coast to Coast, but I am restricting this list to all-live and local programming on News, Talk and Sports stations.

WBAP Clear Channel 820 in Dallas/Fort Worth is one of the oldest stations in the country (1922), and it has live programming 24/5, Monday thru Friday.

Overnights are locally originated as WBAP is the flagship station of the nationally syndicated Red Eye Radio (formerly Midnight Trucking Radio Network), a trucking show that traces its roots to Bill Mack's overnight show back in 1969. Hosts Eric Harley and Gary McNamara are heard live locally weeknights, with "Best Of" programs heard weekend overnights.

TALK RADIO
WBZ Boston

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One station. An amazing and sad commentary on the state of terrestrial radio, especially considering this:

http://www.talkers.com/2012/02/02/overnight-the-underexploited-daypart/

>>>WBAP Clear Channel 820 in Dallas/Fort Worth is one of the oldest stations in the country (1922), and it has live programming 24/5, Monday thru Friday.<<<

It's true that WBAP is the originating station of Red Eye Radio, the Westwood One/Cumulus overnight program. But since it is a network show, heard around the country, I don't think we can say WBAP has local programming overnight. It simply is where a national show is based, similar to KMOX St. Louis, where Overnight America is done. (BTW, WBAP runs two other national shows on weekdays, Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin.)

OK, I realized I missed another station with local, all-night programming: WGN Chicago, which uses no syndicated or infomercial programming, not even on weekends. On weeknights, Patti Vasquez does 11pm-2am and Nick Digilio is the 2-5am host. Other hosts are heard on weekends. (I just noticed that Patti Vasquez and her producer were suspended for one day for calling Mayor Rahm Emanuel at 1 in the morning and waking him up, putting him on the air without first getting his OK, which is an FCC violation.)

TALKRADIO
WGN Chicago
WBZ Boston

gr8oldies said:

Re: the article. What do you figure an overnight talk show host in a city like Knoxville, Tennessee would even make? Would a person making that small amount of money draw an audience overnight?

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That's an interesting question and one I've been pondering while streaming Bradley Jay overnight on WBZ lately.

He does 5 hours - midnight to 5 am - Monday through Friday. He also has what must be dozens of custom music bumpers - pop song sound-alikes, for example, "Jay Talking," for "Jive Talking." I wonder what those cost and who paid for them.

But what a treat it is to find a genuine live, local overnight talk show - no gimmicks, just a guy sitting in a studio taking calls, talking about everything including but not limited to politics, and including the time and the weather. The latter shouldn't be so important but somehow it is - it gives the listener a sense of reality. I'm three hours from Boston but that's close enough. Even if the station were across the country, at least the show is local to somewhere!

Bradley Jay is an interesting fellow. I can't help wondering what motivates him to do the show, and what motivates WBZ to have him there. Money? The show does have real advertising spots - another plus for the listener instead of being subjected to the usual Ad Council garbage.

Glad to know about WGN. I'll sample that too, but at the moment I'm hooked on WBZ.

Gregg. said:

OK, I realized I missed another station with local, all-night programming: WGN Chicago, which uses no syndicated or infomercial programming, not even on weekends. On weeknights, Patti Vasquez does 11pm-2am and Nick Digilio is the 2-5am host. Other hosts are heard on weekends. (I just noticed that Patti Vasquez and her producer were suspended for one day for calling Mayor Rahm Emanuel at 1 in the morning and waking him up, putting him on the air without first getting his OK, which is an FCC violation.)

TALKRADIO
WGN Chicago
WBZ Boston

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Even a couple of years later, I am glad you mention WGN Radio, and update WGN Radio has moved her show earlier, nights without sports games Patti Vasquez's show starts at 7 PM and ends at 11 PM, and then they have a show called WGN Nightside that airs, with various hosts that are on with topics that they want to talk about. On nights when there are sports broadcasts, Chicago White Sox baseball, Northwestern football, or basketball or Chicago Blackhawks hockey, on nights her show starts later and then goes to 1 AM in which Nick Digilio comes on the air, or whoever that fills in for him of he is off for vacation, he very rarely takes a night off, and then there is no WGN Nightside. When Chicago White Sox are in season, most of their games do air at night, in less they either have an afternoon game, or a game gets rained out early enough for Patti Vasqeuz to be on and off the air by 11 PM. Nick DIlio does Monday nights/Tuesday mornings to Thursday night/Friday morning when he follows either Patti Vasqez or WGN Nightside.

Do you mean all night, or any portion of the overnight hours? Bohannon's show is live, right? I think WWJ still carries a live staff overnight.

KGO 810 USED to be all local all night long, but not anymore. All live and local news / talk is a dying brand.

Another Canadian live and local all-news station is CFFR 660 AM Calgary. There are some other Canadian stations that stay live and local with their programming 24/7, but I can’t remember them all. I think CHQR AM 770 Calgary and 630 AM CHED from Edmonton also comes to mind.