A Radio Shock Jock Who’s Ready for TV

LAST fall NBC gave the sleepy fourth hour of “Today” a jolt by inviting Wendy Williams, the D.J. and gossip whose syndicated radio show perennially hovers near the top spot in New York, to comment on celebrity dish.For the most part her guest appearance featured remarks that would barely give a viewer pause. Then came her last bit of advice to Sarah Larson, who was thrust into the spotlight after George Clooney got in a motorcycle accident with her on board: “What I suggest she does is poke a hole in the condom and quickly lock him down.”Whatever she meant to say next was drowned out by a collective exclamation from the show’s hosts.On Monday Ms. Williams will be directly competing with staid programs like “Today” in a six-week run of “The Wendy Williams Show,” a live hourlong syndicated show to be broadcast weekdays on Fox stations in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Detroit. She says she hopes to extract the essence of her radio show, which has an audience of 12 million, and somehow translate it to television. If it’s a success, the show will return for a full season next year.“Obviously one hour on TV isn’t as much time as five hours on the radio,” she said recently in her studio dressing room while fussing with the ponytail of a blond wig she’d just put on. “But the common thread is Wendy. Like, all I am on the radio show is Wendy, and all they want me to be on this TV show is Wendy.”It sounds simple enough. But in the uneven terrain of unscripted daytime television, populated by stern judges and sisterly confabs, this shock jock of urban radio fills no obvious niche. The show’s creators expressed confidence, though, that once the audience meets her, she will carve out one of her own.SOURCE:NYT.COM