Minnesota Public Radio‘s Katherine Lanpher is leaving to go to New York and co-host Al Franken’s new show (whatever it’s going to be). I might have to start listening to this show (when it comes on, it’s not on yet). She’s like the Paige Davis of talk radio. I can see her being Al’s sexy bitch, but maybe with a little more Tina Fey to her.
Hey, Al Franken’s from around here. Coincidence? Probably.
Natalie, are ya happy now?
(Strib article reproduced below, just so I have it.)
MPR host Lanpher joining Al Franken
Their new radio show will anchor a New York-based liberal talk network expected to go live this spring.
BY BRIAN LAMBERT
Pioneer Press
Minnesota Public Radio’s “Midmorning” host, Katherine Lanpher, announced on the air Tuesday that she is leaving the station “to pursue a wonderful new opportunity.” Lanpher is moving to New York City to co-host an as-yet-to-be-launched national talk radio show with satirist Al Franken. Tuesday’s show was her last for MPR.
Lanpher and Franken’s show will be the centerpiece of an entirely new, still unnamed liberal network designed to counter the conservative bent of most current talk radio. The pairing had been under discussion for nearly a year.
“The exact start dates are still floating,” Lanpher says, “but we expect to be on the air in the spring.” She says she plans to move to New York within the next couple of weeks to start working with Franken on the three-hour show, which will air weekday afternoons.
Franken, a Twin Cities native and author of the best seller “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,” committed to a one-year contract for the show last week.
Mark Walsh, CEO of Progress Media, parent company of the new network, says he’s looking for studio space in midtown Manhattan, including in Times Square. But he has no plans for one of those “Today Show”-style, ground-level fish-bowl venues.
Lanpher has been with MPR for 5½ years. Before that, she hosted a show on KSTP-AM 1500 for 16 months and was a reporter and columnist with the St. Paul Pioneer Press for 16 years.
Bill Buzenberg, MPR’s senior vice president for news, says he will conduct a search for Lanpher’s replacement. Kate Smith, who has filled in for Lanpher in the past, will man the mike for at least the next week and a half.
Lanpher joked about what Franken was looking for in his ideal co-host. “Yeah, he keeps saying it was between me and Carmen Electra,” she said. “But seriously, I know radio. I’ve done commercial radio, and I’ve done public radio. I know what to do when you flip on the mike. If what you’re asking is, ‘Am I an equal partner?’ — he’s Al Franken. He’s the Big Kahuna. I understand that, and it doesn’t concern me.”
Lanpher also notes that this is a rare opportunity. “I’m doing this because I knew if I didn’t do it, I’d always regret it. Al says it reminds him of when they started ‘Saturday Night Live.’ Who wouldn’t want to be a part of something like that?”
Another Twin Cities native, comedian Lizz Winstead, co-creator of Comedy Central’s popular television program “The Daily Show,” has been hired to oversee the network’s entertainment programming.
Walsh says he expects to announce agreements with stations in “a couple more markets by the end of next week.” Last week, he signed a deal to lease WNTF-AM 950 in Chicago.
He says he also expects to have satellite broadcast deals with Sirius and/or XM as well as audio satellite distribution with EchoStar and/or Rupert Murdoch’s DirectTV.
Walsh is not worried about Murdoch refusing to carry the signal of a liberal talk network. “A little like Fox News suing Al Franken,” he laughs. “That might be exactly the kind of publicity we need — Murdoch claiming there’s no room on his satellite.”
Brian Lambert can be reached at [email protected] or 651-228-5424.
