Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The Times, They Are A Changin'

UPDATE 7/5: Final piece of the puzzle solved... Vatican Radio's daily 30-minute English program will air in the 11:30am-12:00pm ET slot. Change noted in the schedule below.

UPDATE 7/2: The Catholic Channel has updated their web page a bit... the most obvious change being the complete lack of anything that once mentioned Bob Dunning. But there are two more interesting things we noticed:
  1. We were right about TCGS moving its overnight replay but wrong about the time. Lino will now be rebroadcast from 10:00pm-1:00am ET (7:00pm-10:00pm PT).
  2. Part of the mid-day scheduling puzzle has been solved... the weekly shows move to 12:00pm ET. Additionally, the daily Mass that is broadcast live at 7:30am ET now gets a repeat at 11:00am ET. That's a pretty good move in our book... it means that more West Coasters can now listen to the Mass every day, and there's nothing wrong with that.
We've updated the schedule at the bottom of the post with the new info.

We tweeted about this yesterday, but now that we know a bit more of its effects on TCGS we're turning this into a full-fledged post. On Tuesday, Bob Dunning announced that his show, Across The Nation, will be ending its long run on The Catholic Channel this coming Friday. It's hard to tell whether he's just moving on to bigger and better things or if this has been imposed on him by the powers that be... given the wording of his announcement yesterday and the lack of any real details as to why the show is ending, we would put our money on the latter. It's sad, really... we don't normally listen to Across The Nation but feel that over the past five years its really become a good show, particularly the "Legal Eagle" segment on Wednesdays and our favorite, "Saints and Sinners" on Fridays. We're going to miss not hearing them on the air occasionally, and we're sure that Lino will miss mocking Bob on a regular basis.

So the obvious question now comes up: what happens to his timeslot? Well, based on what Gus Lloyd has announced on Seize The Day this morning we have a good idea of how the Channel's schedule will be set up beginning next week. There are two major changes coming:
  • Seize The Day will be shifting one hour forward and will now broadcast from 7:00am-11:00am ET (4:00am-8:00am PT).
  • The Catholics Next Door will be making the biggest move, shifting three hours forward... they will now be heard from 1:00pm-4:00pm ET (10:00am-1:00pm PT).
Gus also announced that the live broadcast times for TCGS and The Busted Halo Show will not change. So given all of that, this is what we predict The Catholic Channel's new weekday schedule will look like (all times ET, and all of this starts on Tuesday, July 5th):

7:00am-11:00amSeize The Day with Gus Lloyd
(with daily Mass @ 7:30am)
11:00am-11:30amDaily Mass (rebroadcast from 7:30am)
11:30am-12:00amVatican Radio
12:00am-1:00pmWeekly shows (Sounds From The Spires,
Pathways Of Learning, et. al.)
1:00pm-4:00pmThe Catholics Next Door with Greg & Jennifer Willits
4:00pm-7:00pmThe Catholic Guy Show with Lino Rulli
7:00pm-10:00pmThe Busted Halo Show with Father Dave Dwyer
10:00pm-1:00amThe Catholic Guy Show (replay)
1:00am-4:00amThe Catholics Next Door (replay)
4:00am-7:00amThe Busted Halo Show (replay)

There's one obvious change that affects TCGS: the overnight replay shifts ahead one hour back two hours and will now be heard from 1:00am-4:00am ET (10:00pm-1:00am PT) 10:00pm-1:00am ET (7:00pm-10:00pm PT). That might not sit well with some people on the West Coast, but it is what it is. We also don't know yet exactly how the time slots between Seize The Day and The Catholics Next Door will flesh out yet... one of them is likely to be for the weekly shows (Sounds From The Spires, et. al.) that are now heard at 1:00pm ET (UPDATE: they move to 12:00pm ET), but we don't know what is being planned for the other hour. When we hear, we'll post it. (UPDATE: daily Mass gets rebroadcast at 11:00am ET, but we still don't know what will happen at 11:30 Vatican Radio's 30-minute program fills out the rest of the hour.)
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5 comments:

  1. Dan S.June 30, 2011 at 4:42 PM

    Before Lino left for vacation, he asked listeners to pray that God’s Will be done in one particular project that he was seeking permission for. He said if he got permission, we’d all know as soon as he got back. There’s only a few very specific people that Lino needs to get “permission” from these days -- his bosses at Sirius. I’m guessing Lino will return with some sort of Catholic Guy Show spin-off when he returns from Ireland.

    I hope Bob Dunning’s show wasn’t cancelled for political reasons. I think Dunning’s show was the most controversial on the channel, even more than The Catholic Guy. Lino’s humor is edgy for Catholic radio, but having a host like Dunning and his producer openly refer to themselves as “liberals” on air is practically unheard of in Catholic media. Dunning’s penchant for playing the devil’s advocate and inspiring nuanced, critical thinking (instead of knee-jerk, predictable Catholic reactions) may ruffle feathers even on the “Not What You’d Expect” Catholic Channel. Ultimately, we’ll never know why Bob is leaving unless he chooses to tell us. Otherwise it’s none of our business. I wish him well and I thank him for his show. It was definitely a “purple cow” amongst a lot of cookie-cutter shows in the Catholic radio niche and it will be missed.

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  2. Dan S.June 30, 2011 at 4:44 PM

    P.S. It makes sense now why Bob's producer, Peter, wasn't scared about using the word "dick" on today's show.

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  3. AnonymousJuly 1, 2011 at 7:55 PM

    I think it stinks. I loved Across the Nation and Bob. And now the only daily shows they have are Seize the Day, TCND, CGS and BH. They keep eliminating shows and not replacing them with anything else...not good.

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  4. ElaineMomNCJuly 2, 2011 at 9:15 AM

    I am not a "liberal" by any means but really hate that we've lost Across the Nation. I am hoping to get off my duff and complain to Archbishop Dolan, and perhaps Sister Marie and Msgr Kevin. Does this new schedule mean we might lose our hourly special shows? Probably not, but as much as I like TCND, I want to hear the specialty shows when I leave work in the afternoon. I might dig deeper and complain to the Notre Dame sports sponsers, that's where the $$$$$ comes from.

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  5. BabsJuly 8, 2011 at 5:34 PM

    I enjoyed Bob Dunning's show very much. There was real discussion going on about current events, something I just am not hearing elsewhere on the channel. I find that I'm listening less and turning to music and talk more. Ironic, the reason I subscribed to XM was the Catholic channel.

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