In the wake of revelations involving former "Takeaway" host John Hockenberry, NY NPR station WNYC has put two of its long-standing hosts "on leave" while investigating alleged "inappropriate conduct" (no further description, but you can imagine)--midday talk host for 35 years Leonard Lopate and weekend advocate of the Great American Songbook of almost 20 years (with decades on other NY stations) Jonathan Schwartz are for now not on their programs live--Lopate has a fill-in host, no indication if there'll be a fill-in for Schwartz or if they'll just air reruns (the station's streaming Jonathan Channel remains, but he won't be doing daily live shows for now--when he's not on or they're airing reruns of his weekend shows, the stream is automated and the only other programming is guitarist John Pizzarelli and wife/singer Jessica Molaskey's syndicated "Radio Deluxe" on Wednesday afternoons):
http://www.wnyc.org/story/longtime-wnyc-hosts-put-leave/ NYC has also clarified that they did not renew Hockenberry's contract for hosting "The Takeaway" not so much for the alleged proclivities but because there was a feeling that his on-air performance level had slipped below standard in recent years, a claim similar to a reason some had intimated for NPR's controversial move of taking away Bob Edwards' host position on "Morning Edition" back in 2004. The above link and an article on the Hockenberry affair have a lot of comments attached, I'm assuming that if they're male, they're mostly variations on "I'm not giving you any more money unless you bring back John/Lenny/Jonathan," along with tributes to Steve Post and the "good old days" of WNYC when no one listened to it. Meanwhile, if Schwartz's leavetaking is permanent, there is someone in our group who will give NYC a big fat donation in gratitude. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
