95.5 FM and AM 750 News/Talk WSB has given long-time traffic reporter Mark Arum his own weekday night show to replace Adam Goldfein.
Arum, a long-time weekend and fill-in host, starts Monday night, January 20, from 10 p.m. to midnight.
He said his traffic duties for Channel 2 Action News, the news/talk radio station and pop station B98.5 will continue but he will end his duties at 9 a.m. instead of 10 a.m.
Pete Spriggs, WSB program director, lauded Arum's knowledge of Atlanta and considers his weekend talk show "entertaining, call-driven and relevant... for the listener, it's like sitting at the bar with one of your cool buddies who is funny, smart and tapped into what's going on."
He said the challenge of giving Arum a weekday talk show on top of his early morning traffic duties was a concern about "burning Mark's candle on both ends. But this opportunity is the right one for Mark and the station."
Arum said he's wanted a weekday talk show since he arrived in 1997, though he first wanted to focus on sports. He began a weekend talk show for WSB 13 years ago.
Cox Radio gave him an 18-month run airing a nightly talk show in Stamford and Norwalk, Ct. in 2008. The station was small and he didn't get a lot of calls so he had to learn how to stretch out his thoughts. "It was an invaluable experience," he said.
His weekday WSB show won't focus on politics since he doesn't consider himself an ideologue. It will be much broader and cover local topics. He will also bring in other WSB talent onto the show, including Tripp West and Clark Howard.
"My show is going to be all about entertainment," he said. "I want people laughing for two straight hours. We are going to have some fun. Of course, if there is breaking news or something serious going on, I can shift gears and put my news hat on. "
He said the 10 p.m.-to-midnight time frame "is not ideal but it's something I have to do for my talk career." Arum compared the move to someone being in the bullpen for 13 years getting a shot to start. "You don't question where in the rotation," he said.
Traffic reporters tend to do split shifts anyway and he has tended to split his sleep on weekdays. With his new gig, he'll have a gap of time from midnight to 4 a.m. to prep for his next day's show and work out. He will sleep during the day for seven straight hours and still see his wife Lauren in the evenings. He also won't have to work weekends anymore.
Arum is a rare "lifer" at one radio station, having started at WSB out of college. He was placed in traffic incidentally and happened to excel at it. He never left.
WSB Radio, ajc.com and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution are all part of Cox Media Group.
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