News show going silent

For 15 years, Chico radio station KPAY has aired a local news show weekday mornings. That will change March 2, when the syndicated Glenn Beck Program comes to AM 1290 and news gets relegated to half-hourly updates.

News Director Matt Ray, co-anchor of The Morning News and More, said the decision was budgetary, akin to the discontinuation of the evening news show Drive at Five last year. ‘Radio stations all around Chico are bare bones,” Ray said.

The morning show’s finale will be next Friday (Feb. 27). The KPAY newsroom then will consist of Ray and Sports Director Mike Baca; producer Christina Craven (pictured), who’s logged a decade at the station, and editor/ reporter Bruce Lang, previously a local TV news director, have lost their jobs, while co-anchor Kelly Sanchez will continue with other on-air roles within Deer Creek Broadcasting.