Talk Show Host

As today's deadline for bids arrives, at least four groups are seeking control of WJHU (88.1 FM), the public radio station owned by the Johns Hopkins University. According to participants, the suitors include Maryland Public Television; WAMU (American University's public radio station); WBUR (Boston University's public radio station); and an independent group that includes WJHU talk show host Marc Steiner. Steiner's effort, called Maryland Public Radio, has raised more than $160,000 in pledges from WJHU listeners.

Late-night talk show host David Letterman cut short ABC's high-stakes courtship yesterday, telling viewers that he will remain at CBS. He said he did not want to damage ABC News's Nightline, which holds the same 11:35 p.m. slot as his Late Show on CBS. Despite Letterman's decision, Nightline anchor and managing editor Ted Koppel said last night that his network's owner, Disney, has seriously undermined the program's future by pursuing the late-night host....

Former radio talk-show host Alan Christian, who was found guilty of misappropriating $680,000 from hundreds of Maryland investors in 1990, has won a $14.5 million court judgment against a man he says caused his financial downfall two years ago.Mr. Christian accused Leighton E. Harrell Jr. of promising to provide financing for his proposed purchase of area radio stations -- but producing nothing. After a brief hearing before Judge Christian M. Kahl in Baltimore County Circuit Court March 10, Mr. Harrell agreed to the judgment.

Conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh revealed yesterday that he's functionally deaf, and that he expects to lose all capacity to hear within a few months. "At that point, a decision has to be made as to what to do about it," Limbaugh told listeners yesterday, according to a transcript. "My desire is to continue doing this [show], and there are an infinite number of ways of continuing." In his statement, a mixture of vulnerability and classically Limbaughian bravado, the host acknowledged that he had not heard a single word spoken by callers on yesterday's broadcast.

For conservative radio talk-show hosts, the power shift in Congress is not necessarily a cause for gloom. In fact, some of the hosts say, the new Democratic majority presents them with a golden opportunity. "It probably gives talk radio another two years of things to talk about," said Frank Luber, co-host of The Sean and Frank Show in the mornings on Baltimore's WCBM. The station broadcasts shows by several conservative commentators, including Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, who was widely criticized recently for his mimicry of Michael J. Fox's ads in support of Democratic candidates' backing stem-cell research.

When Greater Baltimore radio listeners crave information on schnauzers, Siamese cats, crows or any other beast, they turn to John J. Wazniak Jr., a man so devoted to animals that he used to campaign for the state Senate with a toucan perched on his shoulder.Every Sunday afternoon Mr. Wazniak can be found at 680-AM on "The Pet Talk Show," usually sharing the two-hour broadcast with a guest. He spends the rest of his working life at Fin Fur & Feather Pet Supermarket, the Ritchie Highway store that he co-owns.

For one night, Jerry Springer tried not to be "Jerry Springer" -- ringmaster and purveyor of television's most talked about daytime smut-show where guests slug it out instead of talk it out.He was looking to be thoughtful and insightful and to seriously explore how the media mirror society as part of a lecture symposium at Johns Hopkins University.But when he walked onto the stage Friday night, he was laughed at.Several hundred hooting students, who until then had been amusing themselves by sailing paper airplanes through the auditorium, burst into wild applause.

Chris Hayes, an editor at large of The Nation and host of the talk show bearing his name on MSNBC, was raised in a working-class neighborhood but attended some of the most exclusive schools on the planet. "I grew up in the Bronx," says the affable, 33-year-old anchor of "Up With Chris Hayes. " "My mother was the daughter of an Italian deli owner. But I'm also hugely a product of the meritocracy, and for that reason I have my own affection for it. " Both experiences provided fodder for his much-discussed first book, "Twilight of the Elites: America after Meritocracy.

Fans who looked closely at Maryland's sideline during the season-opening football game may have been puzzled by what they saw on cards held up by team managers. Was that really a photo of TV talk-show host Regis Philbin, and — if so — what could Philbin, a Notre Dame graduate, possibly have to do with Maryland football? Yes, it was a color photo of the co-host of "Live! With Regis and Kelly. " But why the school chose to display Philbin's image remains as much of a local mystery as which color uniforms the Terps will wear on a given week.

WBAL-AM talk-radio host Chip Franklin, who frequently comments on state government - and whose show often provides a friendly forum for Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. - has been paid more than $30,000 in the past three years to appear in commercials for the Maryland Lottery. Franklin, who hosts a morning show with about 130,000 listeners a week, receives a $1,500 payment each time he tapes a television commercial for scratch-off lottery tickets in an arrangement that predates Ehrlich's election.