L.A. OUTLET REMAINS IN DOUBT : GRANT RETURNING TO RADIO IN APRIL

After a three-month absence from the airwaves, Dr. Toni Grant will be returning to radio in April over the Westwood One/Mutual Broadcast radio network, it was announced Wednesday.

Though California’s best-known radio psychologist will be heard over several hundred Mutual affiliates two hours each weeknight beginning April 14, it remained unclear whether Mutual’s Los Angeles affiliate would carry her program.

Beginning Monday, KFI-AM (640) will carry Mutual’s six-hour “Larry King Show” at midnight Monday through Friday, but a station spokesman said Wednesday there are no immediate plans to add Grant’s show to the lineup.

Mutual executives positioned her show from 9 to 11 p.m. in order to act as a lead-in to the popular Larry King show and give the network a solid eight hours of all-talk radio to offer affiliates.

Grant estimates that she has spoken to more than 50,000 women during her 10 years as the afternoon host of a popular radio talk show heard locally over KABC-AM (790). She quit the station in a contract dispute in November and has been pursuing several outside projects, including a part in a television series and the writing of a book for Bantam publishing.

Her first love, however, remains radio.

“I think I’ve been very reluctant to try different forms of media,” she said during a phone interview Wednesday. “I like the privacy and the intimacy of radio.”