BANGOR – A former radio talk show host will revamp his call-in format for television. “So Goes the Nation,” hosted by Charles Horne, will air from 6 to 9 a.m. weekdays on Channel 30 beginning Monday, June 17. Adelphia Cable subscribers will be able to watch the show on Channel 10.

Horne co-hosted the WVOM-FM morning show for five years, teaming with Thomas Morelli from April 1997 to June 2000 and with Leo Jonason from June 2000 until the show’s demise late last year. Horne and Jonason were fired abruptly in December when Clear Channel Communications, the station’s Texas-based owner, consolidated its programming at its three news-talk stations in Maine.

Former disc jockeys Mike Violette and Eric Leimbach took over the phones Jan. 2 working out of Augusta. Postings on the “Voice of Maine” Web site in January decried the loss of the former hosts. One listener wrote that the switch was ” a loss for the people of northern Maine.”

Horne will host the new show solo with an array of guest hosts this summer. They will include his former sidekick, Morelli, a Brewer photographer; Dan Cashman, host of “The Nite Show,” and former WVOM owner Jerry Evans. It will be broadcast from the WVII-TV (Channel 7) studios.

Former co-host Jonason will not reunite with Horne. The Bangor resident is pursuing other interests but wished his former partner “the best of luck.”

“We feel the talk market is empty right now,” Horne said. “I don’t believe what’s airing now represents northern Maine thinking or sensibilities. We’re going to have a local focus that the new [radio show] does not. … We’re doing [Don] Imus in reverse.”

While “So Goes the Nation” will be broadcast only on television, the goal is to simulcast the show on several radio stations and over the Internet, according to Mitchell Lambert, vice president and general manager of Bangor Communication, which owns Channel 7 and Channel 30.

He said that as of a week before its premiere, about 70 percent of the advertising time for the show had been sold, much of it to former radio advertisers. Potentially, the show could reach Adelphia’s 31,000 cable subscribers within a 30-mile radius of Bangor, far fewer than the number of listeners WVOM was able to reach.

Horne insisted he is not going to change his style for television.

“People will just have to accept me as I am,” he said, pointing out that the new show’s set had been constructed from materials he’d unearthed in his garage. “This is not going to be a TV show in the traditional sense. I kind of like to think of the show as an open forum,” he said.

Some concessions, however, will be made to the visual nature of the medium, said Lambert. Photos of guests like the governor and other politicians will be used when they are interviewed over the phone instead of in person. The CEO said the show also would feature more broad-based community issues and cultural events than the radio show did.

“I think it’s important that they get a radio simulcast, but in the meantime I’m glad there’s a local outlet for an informed, intelligent discussion on local issues.”

Morelli offered this advice to potential viewers: “Turn your TV to the wall and pretend it’s a radio.”

The phone lines will be open at 6 a.m. Monday. The phone numbers for “So Goes the Nation” are 945-6457, Ext. 3125, and (800) 499-9844, Ext. 3125.