Comic Goldberg to host radio show

Goldberg has hosted the Academy Awards on four occasions

Comic Whoopi Goldberg is to present a syndicated morning radio show in the US, entitled Wake Up With Whoopi.

"Radio is an area I have always wanted to play in," said the 50-year-old, who won an Academy Award in 1991 for Ghost.

"I want everyone who wakes up with me to have a good time," she continued. "I haven't heard someone quite like me in the morning."

Beginning on 31 July, the show will air weekday mornings from 0500 to 0900 on the Clear Channel radio network.

The US stand-up and actress said she hoped her show - a mix of music, comedy, phone-ins and guests - would entice female listeners back to radio.

'Very different'

"There aren't many women helming their own shows," she told the Reuters news agency. "It's hard to compete with the big boys, so our goal is to serve up something very different."

Music icon Bob Dylan and controversial "shock jock" Howard Stern are among the stars who have signed up to appear on satellite radio, but Goldberg said she chose terrestrial radio because it "felt like a better fit".

"I don't want to put anyone down or talk mean about people," she said.

Goldberg's recent work includes voicing the character of Ermintrude in the US version of the recent Magic Roundabout film, released as Doogal in America.

She will also be heard shortly in Farce of the Penguins, a parody of Oscar-winning nature documentary March of the Penguins.