Progressive talker George Kilpatrick’s 20-year run on CCME’s News-Talk WSYR-AM Syracuse has come to an end. He didn’t comment on why his 7-9 AM Sunday show is ending, but said he looks forward to expanding to sister station in the market, Urban/R&B Power 620 AM (WHEN-AM) program and podcast, “New Inspiration for the Nation.”
Kilpatrick’s departure follows that of Terry Ettinger, who hosted “The Weeder’s Digest” on WSYR for more than two decades until Saturday, reports the Syracuse Post-Standard.
Ettinger said he was told by WSYR that his show was being canceled and that the station was going in a different direction.
We wonder if that means a flip to sports or all-news.
Kilpatrick only had positive things to say about his time at WSYR, which began one morning in 1994 with Rev. Al Sharpton. “He was our very first guest,” Kilpatrick told the paper. “I think for the station it was an, ‘I’ve arrived’ kind of moment.”
Other guests over the years included Gladys Knight, Patti LaBelle, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jesse Jackson and Johnnie Cochran, he said.
Kilpatrick’s show was initially called “Straight Talk,” the name he imported from his program on 104.7 and y94fm in that market. The show morphed into “Sunday Morning Conversations,” then “The Weekend Show,” and, most recently “The George Kilpatrick Show.”
Outside the booth, Kilpatrick also hosted a show on WCNY-TV for around 10 years and founded the Syracuse-area Juneteenth celebrations, which commemorate the end of slavery.
See the Syracuse Post-Standard story here.
