Cumulus guts WABC

Posted on May 4, 2014 by Fred Stiening

Not a surprise – basically the entire weekend is now infomercials.

Gone are Monica Crowley, Aaron Klein(moved to WNYM) and Jason Matera. Of course, Mark Simone is long gone (WOR) along with Sean Hannity and Rush. But the costs are way down!

This entry was posted in Cumulus Media, Radio Biz. Bookmark the permalink.

17 Responses to Cumulus guts WABC

  1. polokfla says:
    May 4, 2014 at 6:48 pm

    It was the original home of Mark Levin/Andrew Wilcow as well. How the mighty have fallen.

  2. Linda S. says:
    May 4, 2014 at 7:06 pm

    Thank you for the info about Aaron’s show on WNYM. I have sent the news to several whom I know always listened on WABC and have ready received ‘THANKS” from many!

    • Art Stone says:
      May 4, 2014 at 9:37 pm

      that info came via email from Tom Taylor – I hadn’t confirmed it independently yet… but it makes sense given the general programming philosophy of Salem Broadcasting

  3. CC1s121LrBGT says:
    May 4, 2014 at 7:18 pm

    At least Curtis and Kuby are back… not opposite Rush rather than the morning drive time. Stunning part to me was that they said it has been 6 1/2 years since WABC had let them go. Time flies when you get older. lol

  4. Linda S. says:
    May 4, 2014 at 7:42 pm

    I’ll take Rush any day! Never cared for Kuby. He was that ponytailed guy Rush used to make fun of…

    • CC1s121LrBGT says:
      May 4, 2014 at 10:07 pm

      Yes. He sill is, but not it is a grey ponytail. 😉

      Curtis is the guy that Art Bell used to make fun of. WABC had replaced Art with Curtis, then replaced Curtis with Art back and forth in the 1990s. They used to make fun of each other on air. 🙂

  5. polokfla says:
    May 4, 2014 at 9:42 pm

    The Babe in the Bunker , Barbara Simpson of KSFO was summarily fired this weekend. No further are available to the public. She had a weekend show for quite a while and worked in radio for over 25 years.
    She was very good at her job and developed. I’m sure, a large internet following. She’ll be missed and one can only hope she lands on her feet somewhere soon. Any info anyone might have would be appreciated.

    • CC1s121LrBGT says:
      May 4, 2014 at 10:04 pm

      Wow. That is a disappointment. She used to fill in for CoasttoCoastAM after Art Bell but back before they found George Noory.

    • Art Stone says:
      May 5, 2014 at 8:44 am

      The rumor is that Clear Channel is going to gut their programming as well this month – it’s a race to the bottom.

      Debt is slavery

      • CC1s121LrBGT says:
        May 5, 2014 at 9:58 am

        I know we disagree on this one, but much of the talent is overpaid. Sure Rush and Hannity can put on a good show. Howard Stern and Oprah too. I just don’t think they earn what they are paid.

        • Art Stone says:
          May 5, 2014 at 10:10 am

          Hannity, Beck and Limbaugh have long term contracts. It isn’t them who are going to be cut – it will be the remaining local talent. Clear Channel has already let a lot of program directors go. Computers and the internet make it so easy to just run the entire station from 1000 miles away. They’ve done the same with sales – want to advertise on a clear channel station? Call a toll-free customer service center in India.

          There was a brief experiment that might resurface eventually – Google tried to break into the radio business by offering a service to radio to market their unsold ad avails (availabilites – ie time slots for ads) using the same concepts as Adwords – that potential advertisers could bid in real time to buy ads on radio stations, and the highest bid gets the commerical aired. Google didn’t understand radio and that you can’t just allow random people to create their own ads (using non-union voices) and slam in on the air and wait for someone to break FCC rules and get the station fined. But the basic idea makes sense – it just is too hard to do with humans and telephones.

          • CC1s121LrBGT says:
            May 5, 2014 at 3:54 pm

            Let’s hope GOOG can perfect that adinsert thing. It may be able to kill Smokey Bear while neither forest fires nor wild fires haven’t.

            The non-union voices thing has got to go. How widespread is that?

      • polokfla says:
        May 5, 2014 at 6:40 pm

        I was told by the customer rep at KSFO that almost no one has a contract in Radio (that explains Barbara Simpsons sudden departure) Then what prevents a host who is raking in the listeners and ad revenue from simply bolting at any better offer? Don’t the stations want that protection?
        This is nuts.

        • Art Stone says:
          May 6, 2014 at 7:30 am

          Possibly a more accurate description is people in radio have contracts with an indefinite duration. As you point out, if there was no contract, there could not be a non-compete agreement. That’s similar to my contract in Chicago – the contract was nominally for six months, but could be terminated at any time (“at will”) without cause. However, there were conditions that survived the contract – that I would not go to work directly for the client, wouldn’t recruit people I met to go work somewhere else, go to work for another company that was a client of the same firm.

          It used to be that you didn’t get on the air on big stations without being a member of AFTRA, the radio labor union. In theory that also protected you from the most abusive of management practices. Unions and government regulations tend to be the result when people who own things behave in a reckless manor with people’s lives

  6. polokfla says:
    May 4, 2014 at 9:51 pm

    *that is NO further information is available to the public….ooopssie.

Leave a Reply