Our friends at linorulli.net have done a fascinating job detailing the changes at The Catholic Channel, with the most obvious being the departure of Bob Dunning from the afternoons (I for one will really miss Bob Dunning: he is a good radio host and is a very kind man). Apparently, The Catholics Next Door are moving to the afternoons from 1-4 p.m. ET, Gus is getting up an hour, daily Mass gets a replay at 11 a.m., and the hour-long shows that appeared at 1 p.m. (Conversation with the Archbishop, Sounds from the Spires, etc) get moved back to noon.

Lino's replay also gets a shift, moving to 10 p.m. ET. Which means, instead of an "overnight" replay, it's a late night replay.

I have mixed feelings about this. Sure, it's a more accessible time slot, but there were a lot of listeners that could only listen to the show from midnight to 3 a.m.. It feels like those people were left out in the cold, but they'll at least get to discover The Catholics Next Door, who get an overnight replay from now on.

The other negative I can find in this is that TCC has really scaled back on the amount of on-air talent. Since January, two shows and four hours of original content is getting replaced with replay programming. I just hope and pray that this isn't a sign of The Catholic Channel being financially strapped, that it's just a move that will benefit listeners more (full disclosure: I am a Sirius stock-holder, but have no idea what kind of financial reports The Catholic Channel has). Then again, it's wrong of me to speculate without having the financials in front of me.

Now, on to the positives. With Greg and Jennifer being such good friends with Lino, I think we'll see a return of the toss that proceeded Lino's show. The toss, for those not in the know, is that moment at the end of the show where the host and the upcoming show's host have witty banter and talk about the upcoming show. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert do this every now and then, and Lino and Fr. Dave banter about Busted Halo at the end of Lino's show. Hopefully we'll be treated to a toss from The Willits to Lino each day.

The other benefit is future lock-in shows. The lock-in took place once, in the summer of 2010, and was a wild success. But it seems hard to do given how late at night the replay was. With the replay moving to 10 p.m., it seems like more lock-in shows will be possible given the earlier time.

We look forward to the new schedule, and hope it somehow benefits the audience.