I'm living on the air in Cincinnati, Cincinnati, WKRP. — "WKRP in Cincinnati" theme song

No, Brad Riter is not on the air in that other Queen City, but there are radio listeners who wonder what became of him.

About six months after all-sports station WGR fired him in September 2007, Riter signed on with Buffalo's WECK, "Hometown 1230." His drive-time talk show, airing 4-7 p.m., is called "Riter Radio," and sports is just part of the mix.

Some of his topics this week included Stephen Strasburg's pitching at Coca-Cola Field; Armando Galarraga's almost-perfect game; and seeing Buffalo Bills playing at a South Towns golf course. He also discussed Carl Paladino's campaign for governor, and Al Gore's separation from Tipper.

"My plan is [to discuss] whatever interests me on a given day," Riter said over lunch this week. "If it happens that sports are the topic du jour, then so be it. The beauty of what I'm doing right now is that I'm not limited in any way as far as content of the show. I'll do what makes sense.

"If Obama's in town, obviously I'm going to talk about that. I'm not going to pretend that people want to hear about hockey in July."

WECK is primarily a news and talk station. Its daily schedule includes syndicated talk shows by Dennis Miller and Laura Ingraham, as well as programs with local hosts, including Tom Donahue, Loraine O'Donnell and Bill O'Loughlin, in addition to Riter.

WECK also carries Yankees baseball and University at Buffalo football and basketball.

Riter's show has a relationship with WNYMedia.net, a Buffalo media company. Several WNYMedia.net bloggers, including "Buffalo Geek" Chris Smith, are regular guests on the air with Riter, and Riter Radio appears in podcast form on WNYMedia's site. Smith and some of the other politically liberal WNYMedia personalities provide an interesting counterbalance to the conservative voices of Miller, Ingraham and O'Loughlin that are heard at other times of day.

Riter says he "has the freedom to do whatever I want" on the air. A person's politics don't determine whether he makes a good guest.

"I want to talk with people who are interesting," whether discussing elections, pop culture or sports, Riter said.

Riter credits Chris "The Bulldog" Parker of WGR as his top mentor in the business. Riter at one time was the producer of Bulldog's show on WBEN.

"We're pretty much the same guy, it's just that he's 10 years older than me," the 35-year-old Riter said of Parker. "So we're really good friends. He's a fan who happened to get a show. Listening to him made me think, "Oh, I could do talk radio.' "

Riter is still friends with many former colleagues from WGR, including former sports talk host Bob Gaughan. Gaughan is now out of the media business, but he pops up on Riter Radio for weekly segments.

"Bob is the smartest guy in sports talk radio guy I've ever known," Riter said.

The most recent Arbitron radio ratings show that WGR attracted 3.9 percent of adult radio listeners in our market, while WECK got a .5 share.

Riter said he is slowly building an audience.

"I'm getting fewer people saying to me, "I miss hearing you on the radio,' and more of them saying, "I liked your show yesterday.' "

The podcasts are one way for Riter Radio to extend its reach. Riter said he gets e-mails and Facebook messages from listeners across the country. He credits WECK interns for giving the show its "Web presence."

"It's almost like we are chain-smoking interns because they're teaching each other" how to handle the Web duties, he said.

Change is the only constant in the radio business. Local stations change formats, sometimes when they are swallowed up by larger national companies.

None of that worries Riter, he says. In his view, there will always be an audience for telling people what's going on in their hometown.

"I think FM music radio is dead, 100 percent. No chance of survival. Why would it? How could it? That's dead.

"But when it snows you're still going to need somebody here to tell you what's going on. When the Bills play, you're still going to need somebody here to tell you what's going on. ... I think live, local survives infinitely."