KMOV, WXOS Align

The market's top-rated sports-talk radio station is forming an alliance with the TV outlet that has the smallest staff among stations with seven-day-a week news operations.

Beginning Aug. 30, WXOS (101.1 FM) and KMOV (Channel 4) will enter into a personnel-sharing deal. Channel 4 sports director Steve Savard will do reports on 101.1 at 5:45 p.m. weekdays, and WXOS personnel will be contributing to KMOV's content — especially on weekends and for special programming..

KMOV's sports staff finally is back to three full-time on-air staffers, with the recent addition of Jeff Abeln. The department had been operating with just Savard and Doug Vaughn since Todd Schumacher was dropped nearly a year and a half ago. Abeln, 26, went to high school at CBC and college at Lindenwood. However, Channel 4 still doesn't have any producers or editors dedicated to the department, as has been the case since January 2009, and doesn't regularly have sports in its 5 p.m. weekday newscasts.

KSDK (Channel 5) has five full-time sports employees and two part-timers, and KTVI (Channel 2) has five full-timers.