• Getting Huge

    I was out of town last week and noticed today that Bill Simonson’s “The Huge Show” is occupying the 3-6PM slot once again on WTKA 1050AM.   I believe Huge last filled this time on WTKA was back in 2008 before he was moved to a tape-delayed segment from 6-8pm. AnnArbor.com chatted with PD Ira Weintraub about the change this weekend.   The reason for the change per Ira: “Budget cuts,” explained WTKA Program Director Ira Weintraub on Friday. “It was based on decisions made elsewhere and decisions made locally.” Ira told me they still plan to preempt the show with their popular afternoon special events like Signing Day and Grill Wars, which is good. “We’ve definitely had people that wanted to hear from Marcus [Ray] and Jeff [DeFran] and from Ben [Holden] and The Beatniks.”   Ira added, “We’re trying to do a few things to bring back some of the staples that were on in the afternoon.”  According to Ira it came down to who to syndicate in the afternoon slot between CBS radio host Doug Gottlieb and Huge.   “I chose the regional coverage over the national coverage because we have national coverage for the previous 5 hours [John Feinstein 10-12, Jim Rome 12-3) and when it’s over we have a lot more national coverage.” Ira added that given Simonson is…