SNYDER OUT, WINFREY IN ON KABC-TV

Tom Snyder’s mid-afternoon talk show on KABC-TV is being dropped on Sept. 8, when its one-hour time period will be taken over by the Chicago-based “Oprah Winfrey Show” that has proved a ratings hit for ABC-owned WLS-TV in the Windy City.

Winfrey has drawn critical approval both for her off-beat brand of interviews and for her portrayal last year of the character Sofia in “The Color Purple,” for which she was nominated for an Oscar.

Her weekday series, to air from 3 to 4 p.m. on KABC, is produced in Chicago by WLS-TV and syndicated nationally. “We think Oprah Winfrey will be a tremendous success in Southern California,” KABC general manager John Severino said in a prepared statement.

Snyder’s show began on KABC-TV in February, a spokesman said Monday. The brash former anchorman, a success at NBC-owned KNBC-TV in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, joined KABC this year after an unsuccessful stint as an anchor at ABC-owned WABC-TV in New York.

Snyder, said Severino, “did a great job for us . . . and he garnered a very loyal following.” But he said that KABC had made a commitment to carry the Winfrey show at 3 p.m. this fall “before the ‘Tom Snyder Show’ even existed.

“Of course, Tom Snyder is very much a part of the Channel 7 team and we’re developing future plans for him now,” said Severino. He did not disclose what those plans are or whether Snyder will join KABC’s “Eyewitness News” team.