Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, August 22, 1995                   TAG: 9508220096
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                  LENGTH: Medium

WILDER CANCELS RADIO SHOW

Douglas Wilder, a former Virginia governor and onetime presidential candidate who was part of a wave of unemployed politicians who started radio talk shows this year, on Monday canceled his program. The show had never made money or found a national audience.

Wilder, who in 1989 became the nation's first black elected governor, began the show in January and will have his last broadcast Aug. 31. The show was heard for two hours each weekday morning on eight stations in Virginia, and one each in Washington and Baltimore.

Wilder, 64, gleefully needled and grilled such guests as Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala and musician Bruce Hornsby. Callers asked about issues ranging from race relations to soil problems in a Richmond suburb.

``If as many people had voted for me as say they did on the program, I would have won by 700,000 votes instead of 7,000,'' said Wilder, a Democrat.

In ending the show, he cited ``excessive demands on his time.'' He is scheduled to teach classes at two universities this fall, for which he will receive more than $50,000.

Wilder, who briefly ran for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination, also plans to write a book about the historical roots of contemporary problems. ``It's just very difficult to be up and raring and ready and available every morning,'' he said in an interview Monday.

Carl E. McNeill, general manager of the show's flagship station, WRVA-AM in Richmond, said the program broke even but did not make money. Ratings were flat, he said.