Donald Trump’s business associate and aspiring radio host has told Premiere Radio he’s had enough. His last show will on August 8, and at least temporarily he will be replaced by Joe Pags.
The 6-9 PM Eastern time slot on Premiere previously had been filled by Jason Lewis, who is now doing his show on the GCN radio network and a handful of stations.
This development fits in perfectly with my belief that Mark Levin is going to leave Cumulus and go to Clear Channel – this would be the timeslot that matches his existing show.
In a somewhat related development, Clear Channel held their own earnings call yesterday. Because Clear Channel is only slightly publicly owned (outdoor advertising business), they refused to discuss the situation with the radio business and how much revenue was down. The Wall Street types are not impressed when companies conceal negative information.
Anyone know when Levin’s Cumulus contract is up? Premiere announced Joe “Pags” as an “interim” host for the 6-9 pm ET slot.
I wonder if CC would dump nightly sports talk on WOR in New York to carry Levin.
Mark Levin was syndicated by ABC radio, which then went through Citadels’s bankruptcy – at which point citadel used the bankruptcy to break the contracts with the talent force them to renegotiate their contracts. After that was done, then Cumukus picked up Citadel.
Last time I looked, the only thing I could find was ABC’s signing him to a “multiyear” contract in 2009..
I was only halfway listening, but a day or two ago he slipped up and seemed to disclose that he’s no longer living in Maryland, then tried to reel that back in very quickly.
People tend to assume that Levin is from New York, based on his connection with WABC – but he was raised in Philadelphia, and has lived in the DC area since he worked for the Reagan administration in the 1980s.
I know this is 7 days ago, but Jason Lewis just quit, or as he? put it, “Gone Galt”
http://blog.galt.io/2014/07/jason-lewis-walks-off-in-middle-of-his.html
Dan Conry had to fill in for the last half of his show
My memory of the details of Lewis are not very clear. He seems to have been in a similar situation – given an offer by Premiere that he didn’t want. He was on very few stations. That probably was his last day.
Andy Dean was a contestant on Donald Trump’s “You’re fired!” TV show, and impressed Trump enough that he was hired to do publicity work for Trump. When Trump decided he might like to run for President, getting Andy Dean this job meant a ton of free advertising for Trump, who regularly appeared on the show. I don’t care for Andy Dean at all. If you look up “brown noser” in the dictionary, you’ll see his picture.
Dean’s real name is Andrew Dean Litinsky, and he’s a graduate of Harvard’s School of Government. He is not exactly your prototypical TEA party member.
This is surreal 🙂
Just after reading your message, I was testing KNEW-AM, a Clear Channel Talk station in Oakland, California. They showed Jason Lewis on the schedule – what are the chances of that? Is that a 2 year old out of date schedule or are they actually carrying Jason’s GCN show?
I click on the stream to see what I hear (just before the bottom of the hour) and hear the recording of what you explained above – audio of Jason walking off the show at Clear Channel.
After the break, the walkout replay is continuing. The show ID’ed itself as being from GCN.
http://www.thepatriot960.com/
The mind boggles.
For those of you who weren’t here at the time, this web site “Went Galt” the day that Atlas Shrugged Part 1 debuted. I gave a few small hints, but basically it was unexpected. There was a link that actually took you to the hidden valley version of the web site, but a lot of people either didn’t see it, didn’t “get it” or were just plain pissed at me for “selling out” to big corporate interests 🙂
Did I mention lately that Atlas Shrugged Part III is coming out soon?
HA, that’s timing!
here’s something else I found.
From:
http://www.talkers.com/tag/jason-lewis/
Jason Lewis to End GCN Syndication Run. As tipped by “Free Talk Live” host Ian Freeman, nationally syndicated talk show host Jason Lewis will cease his syndication efforts with Genesis Communications Network effective August 1. Lewis first ventured into syndication from his Twin Cities home base several years ago with Premiere Networks. After his relationship with Premiere Networks ended, he joined GCN for national syndication three years ago. There’s no indication whether Lewis will leave flagship station KTLK, Minneapolis at that time.
You’re right, it was his last day…looks like he just left about an hour early 🙂
Listening to the producer go “Jason? . . . uhh Jason?” was priceless tho.
So Jason exited his Genesis “syndication” by replaying his exodus from Clear Channel.
Brilliant!
Now that you mention it, I vaguely remember hearing that he was leaving GCN. Maybe he moved to Argentina. I hear things are good down there right now.
No wonder I was confused – he was syndicated by GCN, but doing his show from a Clear Channel radio station. You were discussing what just happened.
My assumption has always been that the way you get syndicated by GCN is you pay them – rather than GCN selling ads and paying the host. Alex Jones is of course the big gorilla on the block – most of the other shows feel like infomercials.
Syndicators have to give their affiliates 30 days notice before a host leaves, and Andy Dean only gave Premiere 2 weeks notice. That left a hole that Premiere (aka Clear Channel) had to fill for two weeks.
Andy Dean’s show started August 8th, 2011 – so it looks like this was a failed contract renegotiation.
I just discovered that Clear Channel already pulled the show from all of their O&O stations – maybe it’s even off the network – not sure. I heard him a day or two ago, but it may have been a taped show, as I wasn’t looking for a change like this ahead of time. The new show is not “America Now with Joe Pags”, it’s the “Joe Pags Show”.
It looks like Pags has earned himself a permanant network gig. He’s the hardest working man in talk radio.
I’m going to pull the Andy Dean show entirely and assume it is dead until proven otherwise.
I like Joe quite a bit. He realizes this is show biz. While he is a definite Conservative (unlike Mike Savage), he realizes you aren’t going to change minds by just feeding the hate monster. He always comes prepared with facts. He spends a lot of time actually talking to callers, not talking over them or spending three hours in a monolog “informing” his listeners so they become “high Rush’s view of information voters”.
It’s looking like the clear channel web sites showing the “Joe Pags” show was premature. Andy seems to be on the same stations doing a live show.
While Joe Pags is the hardest working man in radio, I doubt he is keeping The Weekend. I am picking up schedule changes this weekend where stations are removing that show from their schedule. That also suggest this is a more permanent job for Joe Pags
Joe pays seems to have lost the non-Premiere affiliates – Andy Dean started with Premiere after they had largely disbanded their affiliate relations department, so his show never have many affiliates not owned by Clear Channel.
For whatever his motivations, Joe Pags is streaming himself on you stream if you want to see what it is like to syndicate your program from your second bedroom.
http://www.joepags.com
Joe spent most of the show flirting with his staff. He’s doing the weekend show in Weekday drive time. Is this the future?
The America Now web site tonight describes Joe Pags as “guest host”, while stations are saying it’s a new program – the Joe Pags Show.
That would be consistent if Premiere is in negotiations for a permanent new host but don’t have a deal yet [to get Mark Levin], and the Clear Channel O&O stations don’t have “need to know” yet.