01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, September 10, 2005

BY ANDY SMITH
Journal Television Writer

Helen Glover of Portsmouth, a contestant on Survivor: Thailand in 2002, will host her own talk show on WHJJ, 920-AM, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., replacing syndicated host Jerry Springer.

Glover, a former swim instructor for the Navy, starts on Tuesday.

"Right now, I'm excited and nervous," Glover said in a phone interview yesterday. "I'm like a horse in the starting gate."

Glover was among several local candidates who auditioned for WHJJ after John DePetro left last year to take a job with WRKO in Boston.

But WHJJ decided to go with a syndicated lineup from liberal talk network Air America. Ratings immediately dropped, falling 16 percent from the fall of 2003 to the fall of 2004.

Bill George, program director for WHJJ, said the Air America experiment is essentially over.

"We tried to do something big and different," he said. "Needless to say, we were not pleased with the results . . . we are now committed to live and local talk."

WHJJ is still broadcasting The Al Franken Show, Air America's showcase, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., but George said changes in that time slot will be announced within a few weeks.

George said the station was impressed with Glover when she tried out in 2004.

"I'm a middle-aged white woman with an opinion," Glover said at the time. "I'm going to have fun; I'm going to be myself. It's the same philosophy I had when I interviewed to be on Survivor."

In a phone interview yesterday, Glover, 50, said she doesn't want to be pigeon-holed:

"I might surprise you with some of my views. I lean conservative, but I part company with them on, say, gun control . . . I definitely have an opinion on every subject, that's for sure."

Glover, who made it to the final four on Survivor: Thailand, got her first radio exposure doing commentary about the reality show.

Later, she said, she heard from veteran WHJJ host Arlene Violet, who liked her style and invited Glover to fill in on occasion.

"I thought I'd died and gone to heaven," Glover said yesterday. "Someone's going to pay me to talk?"

Glover said she enjoys being in the middle of a conversation, so the job should be just right for her.