Zippier morning news show is going public

By DAVID HINCKLEY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, April 24th 2008, 4:00 AM

Starting Monday, WNYC will offer listeners a new choice in the morning.

"The Takeaway," hosted by veterans John Hockenberry and Adaora Udoji, is a morning news show that will be faster-paced and less formal than National Public Radio's popular "Morning Edition."

It will draw its news from WNYC, WGBH, the BBC, the Times and other respected sources, but it will be live and at times conversational, engaging sources, commentators and even listeners from the anchor chairs.

They're not out to bump off "Morning Edition," they say, just offering a choice.

"The way we get information today is so different from even a year or two ago," says Udoji. "Look at BlackBerries."

"People now hold in their hand more information than an entire public radio station had in the 1980s," says Hockenberry. "What's strange to me is that public radio didn't start something like this years ago."

"The Takeaway" won't be Howard Stern, Imus or a Morning Zoo, the hosts say, but that doesn't mean successful commercial radio doesn't offer some lessons.

"There's no reason public radio shouldn't learn from what works on commercial radio," says Hockenberry.

Specifically, he says, "The Takeaway" would love to build the kind of beyond-radio community that surrounds Stern.

"Even when he's not on the air, it's still out there," says Hockenberry. "That's what we'd love to create with this show, on the air and on www.thetakeaway.org."

That said, this is still public radio, and both hosts say the core is legitimate news. "People want information," says Udoji. "They like hearing things that make them think, 'Huh, that's interesting.' We're reaching out to a broad spectrum - anybody who's curious."

"Our ability to focus today is constricted by our lifestyles," says Hockenberry. "But I think the interest is there. The question is how to focus that interest on something without feeling you've lost the whole day."

Traditionally, he muses, a public-radio story on bread prices might backtrack to a drought in the Sudan and start with wind whistling through a dry field.

"It's a good story," he says. "I've done many of them. But that's not what you'll hear on 'The Takeaway.'"

"The Takeaway" will at first be heard from 6-7 a.m. on WNYC-FM (93.9) and 8-9 a.m. on WNYC-AM (820). At the end of June, it will expand to 8-10 a.m. on WNYC-AM. The Web site launches Sunday.

AROUND THE DIAL: The near-legendary Long Island band the Good Rats play Ken Dashow's "Live at 5" this afternoon on WAXQ (104.3 FM). ... WSOU (89.5 FM) will carry Newark Bears games, starting with tomorrow night's opener.

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