Rush Limbaugh is changing channels.
Starting Jan. 1, Limbaugh's hit radio show will move from WSJS 600-AM, where it has been the station's highest-rated program, to 94.5 WGBT-FM in Greensboro.
WGBT is currently La Preciosa, a Spanish-language station. It will change to Rush Radio 94.5, a conservative news/talk format on Jan. 1.
Some programming from La Preciosa will continue to be broadcast online and on HD radio, station representatives said.
"We've known about this for some time," Tom Hamilton, the general manager of WSJS, said of Limbaugh's move.
"They did not renew their agreement, and we were not asked to be part of the conversation."
Limbaugh's show is produced by Clear Channel Communications, the company that owns WGBT and its sister stations WMAG, WTQR, WMKS and WVBZ.
WGBT will air The Rush Limbaugh Show from noon to 3 p.m. weekdays, and The Glenn Beck Program from 9 a.m. to noon.
The station will also have local news, traffic and weather.
Moving Limbaugh from an AM to an FM station will expand the reach of the show, said Kim Pyle, the vice president and market manager of Clear Channel's Greensboro station group.
"These are tremendous programs that warrant as wide a reach as we can muster for them," she said.
Rush Limbaugh currently has between 40,000 and 45,000 listeners in the Triad.
"I believe it will outperform WSJS," Pyle said of Limbaugh's show moving to WGBT, "and that's just because more people can hear it."
Beck's show is new to Triad radio, but Beck, a conservative pundit, is well known as the host of a popular television talk show on Fox News.
He was featured on the cover of Time magazine in September.
WGBT's target audience, Pyle said, will be men 35 to 54. She said that most of the programming will be "right of center." In addition to the news talk shows, the station will carry a local sports program in the early evening, followed by repeats of Rush Limbaugh and The Jason Lewis Show, a talk show based out of Minneapolis, in late evening.
WSJS, meanwhile, is planning for what Hamilton called "Life After Rush." The station had carried Limbaugh's show for almost 20 years, Hamilton said.
"We absolutely have a plan in place that we're not prepared to announce at this time," he said. "There will be a larger focus on local programming as we enter this next decade."
The Sean Hannity Show, which is also produced by Clear Channel, will most likely leave WSJS when its contract is up in mid-2010. Yesterday afternoon, WGBT had an image of Hannity alongside Limbaugh and Beck on a new Web site, rushradio945.com, with the logo "Change is Coming in 2010." The images were taken down later in the day.
WSJS will continue to carry The Mark Levin Show, another conservative talk show, Hamilton said.
tclodfelter@wsjournal.com
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