Totally no surprise here. Johnny has been at WABC in New York so long that he was there playing music back in the days before Rush Limbaugh.
For those keeping score at home, Donovan’s voice is heard on Rush Limbaugh’s show. That will continue to be true to the extent Rush continues to pay him directly. You used to hear him on Hannity until Hannity went to Clear Channel.
Another place you could have heard Donovan was the Memorial Day annual “WABC rewind” show when people would hear what WABC was like when back when it was “the” radio station of America’s youth. Well, those youth are now drooling in the nursing home and Lew Dickey has no use for spending money of foolish memories – when there is an opportunity to run infomercials to sell you herbal cures to clean out the spackle in your colon.
http://youtu.be/hXmHKbdzBLk
The Hannity interview from 2013 telegraphs this was coming.
This is interesting Cumulus news. I had some from lunchtime today. I was streaming KCMO listening to the Plante show. At the top of the hour, KCMO mentioned it was a Cumulus station AND “your home for CBS Radio News”.
I am certainly not as up to speed on the radio industry as Art is, but this association between Cumulus and CBS Radio News seems new to me. Cumulus had been more associated with ABC, I believe… just as this Cumulus story above mentions the WABC association.
Cumulus dumped ABC Radio News at the start of the year, a bit odd since that was one of the reasons to buy ABC Radio. ABC Radio News lives on, created and distributed by ABC TV but not carried by Cumulus. Cumulus switched to a “white label” generic news, with content provided by CNN.
CBS/Viacom owner Sumner Redstone is in poor health. There have been rumors of a CBS Radio / Cumulus merger for a year, but I really doubt it. Too many stations in major markets that would push them over the FCC limits.
Westwood One used to be closely affiliated with CBS Radio – the management of Westwood One seems to be driving programming decisions now, not the Dickey brothers.
What no rewind weekend this weekend? I remember waking up to the 1999 rewind (the first one, I believe) when my alarm clock woke me up early on Saturday (I forgot to turn it off for the weekend.) I was 90% asleep and hearing local NYC commercials from my youth and could not seem to wake up. Eventually I realized I was awake but WTF was I hearing on the radio!?! lol
I started listening to WABC in the late 1960s. If you miss the rewind weekends or are just curious, you can find all their source audio material on a fan nostalgia site, including this short 4 minute clip of Johnny Donovan from 1972, just after he joined WABC from WOR. The clip is an aircheck where you hear the talking between the songs, but the songs are mostly removed. There are also some cool station jingles.
Enjoy
http://www.musicradio77.com/images/donovan72.mp3
Look mom, no Hamberg! 😉
http://www.musicradio77.com/WOR-FM/worfmsked1969.html
Johnny before Joan.