One of the founders of sports talk radio in Nashville will return to hosting a daily show this summer.
After nearly four decades working in radio, George Plaster spent the last two years as Belmont University’s Associate Athletic Director of Marketing. According to The Tennessean, Plaster resigned from his Belmont position earlier in the week, with plans to return to the airwaves.
Expected to debut July 15th, Plaster will host a daily sports show from 3 – 6pm on WSM 650, a 50,000 watt country music station known for being the home of The Grand Ole Opry.
“There were two things I had to have if I was ever going to get back into radio,” Plaster told The Tennessean. “The first one was I wanted a strong signal and WSM-AM is one of the twelve strongest AM signals in the country. The other was I wanted to know that management of the station was going to be supportive of me and with (WSM general manager) Chris Kulick that’s a given. He’s one of my closest friends in radio and I know he shares the exact same visions for how this is going to be done that I do.”
The 3 – 6pm timeslot is a familiar one for Plaster, having hosted those three hours from 2003 – 2012 on Nashville’s 104.5 The Zone and from 2012 – 2016 on 102.5 The Game. Last year, Plaster launched a Sunday night show on his new radio home, WSM 650. According to Plaster, listener interaction will modernize, but the formatics of his new show will mimic that of his past programs.
“We’ll talk sports. That’s not to say we’re not going to have fun doing it because we are,” Plaster said. “The other part is it’s not just going to be me talking. I want listener participation as much as anybody in this business. It will change some because the world has changed, but a lot of what we’ll do is a lot of the kinds of things we’ve done throughout all those years.”
Station GM, Chris Kulick noted with WSM continuing to carry a country music format, Plaster’s afternoon drive sports show will feature guest appearances from some of today’s biggest stars in music. The addition of Plaster to WSM will see Nashville Today move to a new time of 10am – noon.
Brandon Contes is a freelance writer for BSM. He can be found on Twitter @BrandonContes. To reach him by email click here.