Panel confronts state of black radio

David Hinckley, New York Daily News

Thursday, July 17th 2008

Radio veteran Sabrina Lamb will moderate a panel discussion Saturday at the Schomburg Center on what many consider a crisis in black radio.

Lamb will be joined by fellow radio vets Bob Law, Charles Etheridge 3rd, the "Cut Man" at WRKS (98.7 FM), WBLS news director Ann Tripp, plus others. The panel is designed to be interactive and encourage audience comment on whether black radio is doing the job it should be doing, or historically has done.

The subject has been brought to the forefront by a new film, "Disappearing Voices," which warns that even as radio in general faces major challenges, black radio is being "disappeared."

The panel is at 2:30 p.m. at the Schomburg, 515 Malcolm X Blvd. at 135th St.

MARCONI NOMINATIONS: Meanwhile, WBLS (107.5 FM) has been nominated as legendary station of the year in the annual Marconi radio awards that will be announced Sept. 18.

WBLS has also been nominated for major market station of the year and urban station of the year, while its sister station WLIB (1190 AM) has been nominated as religious station of the year.

WBLS morning man Steve Harvey is nominated for syndicated personality of the year.

LES CRANE GONE: Les Crane, a radio and TV talk host briefly seen as a competitor to Johnny Carson, died Sunday at a California hospital. He was 74.

Crane was billed as a liberal with an aggressive style, once interviewing the late Gov. George Wallace and saying, "I wouldn't vote for you for dogcatcher."

Singer Phil Ochs, in a song lampooning safe-and-timid "liberals," included the line, "What's the matter, don't they watch Les Crane?"

He started on KGO in San Francisco and moved to late-night ABC-TV in 1964. He scored some coups, including the first U.S. TV interview with the Rolling Stones, but he was canceled in 1965.

Twenty years later the New York-born Crane became a multimillionaire by developing software that included the computer game Chessmaster.

AROUND THE DIAL: Geespin has been named assistant program director/music director for WWPR (105.1 FM). ... Daily News columnist Errol Louis has been named permanent morning host on WWRL (1600 AM). Also, Phil Hendrie is now heard there,1-4 a.m. ... Mick Jones from Foreigner joins Jonathan Clarke Sunday night at 9 on WAXQ (104.3 FM). ... Tomorrow night's "Pirated Advance" at 11 o'clock on WSOU (89.5 FM) features a new CD called "Austrian Death Machine," built on dialogue from Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.