Cumulus Media has been clearing the schedule of most of their news/talk stations of non-Cumulus programs – replacing them with their own syndication – Chris Plante, Mark Levin, John Batchelor and the Redeye Radio show (hosted by former Midnight Radio Network hosts Gary McNamara and Eric Harley).
Back in February, Cumulus Media announced it is going to syndicate Mike Huckabee in direct competition with Rush Limbaugh starting on April 2nd. Rush is syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks, a subsidiary of Clear Channel. Lew Dickey (CEO of Cumulus) is positioning the Huckabee show as a way for radio stations to reduce programming costs if they want an alternative to Rush Limbaugh.
Cumulus owns the former ABC Radio stations that formed the original core of Rush’s syndication prior to Jacor and then Clear Channel buying his syndication rights. Rush’s current contract with Premiere runs until 2016
The pregnant question sitting there is whether Cumulus will dump Rush from the former ABC Radio stations, most significant being WABC-AM in New York, WLS-AM in Chicago, WMAL-AM in Washington DC, WBAP in Dallas Texas and WJR-AM in Detroit. Of course, there are probably contractual issues related to that major of a decision, but the question still sits there…
Here is the complete list of Cumulus stations that currently carry Rush: (disclaimer: I only monitor stations that stream)
+------------+-------------------+--------+ | streamname | CityName | Statex | +------------+-------------------+--------+ | WVNN AM | ATHENS | AL | | WLWI AM | MONTGOMERY | AL | | KFAY AM | FARMINGTON | AR | | KARN FM/HD | SHERIDAN | AR | | KVOR AM/HD | COLORADO SPRINGS | CO | | WXLM AM | GROTON | CT | | WMAL AM | WASHINGTON | DC | | WFTW AM | FORT WALTON BEACH | FL | | WCOA AM | PENSACOLA | FL | | WCOA AM | PENSACOLA | FL | | WALG AM | ALBANY | GA | | WMAC AM | MACON | GA | | KBOI AM/HD | BOISE | ID | | WLS AM | CHICAGO | IL | | WROK AM | ROCKFORD | IL | | KMAJ AM | TOPEKA | KS | | KAOK AM | LAKE CHARLES | LA | | WBCK FM | BATTLE CREEK | MI | | WJR AM | DETROIT | MI | | WWCK AM | FLINT | MI | | WKMI AM | KALAMAZOO | MI | | WJIM AM | LANSING | MI | | KFRU AM | COLUMBIA | MO | | WFNC AM | FAYETTEVILLE | NC | | WAAV AM | LELAND | NC | | KKOB AM | ALBUQUERQUE | NM | | KKOH AM | RENO | NV | | WNBF AM | BINGHAMTON | NY | | WABC AM | NEW YORK | NY | | WSBA AM | YORK | PA | | WGOW AM | CHATTANOOGA | TN | | WJCW AM | JOHNSON CITY | TN | | WOKI FM | OLIVER SPRINGS | TN | | WBAP AM | FORT WORTH | TX | | WFNR AM | BLACKSBURG | VA | | WOSH AM | OSHKOSH | WI | +------------+-------------------+--------+
A few more shows like the one today over the Georgetown contraception flap escalating all the way to the White House, and some station managers and program directors might start entertaining the unthinkable and take a chance on dropping Rush.
Back after Paul Harvey died and Mike Huckabee stepped forward at ABC to try to fill his shoes, I wrote at the time that Huckabee’s experience doing radio (Huckabee got his first radio job at the age of 14) and his first hand knowledge of politics and current events, and his strong faith make him a formidable alternative to Rush Limbaugh. Unlike a few other Hollywood personalities and former TV hosts with no prior radio experience, Huckabee will hit the ground running from the first day.
Change is in the air.
Poking around on the Internet, Sleep Number beds and Quicken Loans have already pulled their advertising. The owner of Carbonite says he has a meeting with Rush face to face next week to discuss the situation.
If stations and advertisers dump Rush for his comments about Ms. Fluke’s public testimony to Congress, that might be the motivation I needed to buy a subscription to Rush 24/7. I had a similar encounter on a Facebook thread when the mandatory free contraception rule first came out. I was arguing that my medical insurance costs had already increased 300% under Obamacare, and I saw no logical reason why I should have to pay for contraceptives that are already easily inexpensively acquired and available even free from non-profit organizations. So this young women (a friend of my FB friend) chimed in and in complete seriousness wrote that her birth control pills cost $25 a month, and if she had to pay that herself she wouldn’t be able to go to the movies every month! No Constitutional or Libertarian arguments I provided would move her off her absolute belief that I should be required to pay for her “health” (translation: recreational sex) costs.
So I think all this hullabaloo isn’t really about Rush’s comments about Ms Fluke’s promiscuity at a Catholic University. It may be the long awaited start of Atlas Shrugged, the start of the war between the ants (producers) and the grasshoppers (entitlement consumers).
The entire point of her testimony – using several examples – is there are reasons why women take contraceptives that are unrelated to having sex with men they aren’t married to – and Georgetown’s blanket prohibition on covering expenses goes too far.
The more interesting question to me (until I read her testimony) is why there was any connection at all between Ms Fluke and Georgetown having any say in what her health care insurance covers – she’s a student, not an employee. She indicates that she and her fellow students are in this situation because they are enrolled in a health insurance plan offered to students by the University.
The answer turns out to be that Georgetown REQUIRES all of its students to buy health insurance coverage through their plan for $1,895 a year unless they obtain a waiver that they already have health care insurance in place
http://studentaffairs.georgetown.edu/insurance/
This is a ‘back door’ health care mandate that universities have been using for several years. It is helpful to the ‘single payer’ crowd because 1) it makes young people (the next generation of tax payers) accustomed to being forced to purchase health insurance and 2) makes for a nice legal precedent for any challenges to the national healthcare mandate (i.e. “colleges in x number of states have had mandates like this for 3 years or more and no one has said it was unconstitutional”).
The University of North Carolina system has had such a mandate for several years now.
I agree with your description – it’s new to me.
Probably significant to the story is that their health insurance provider is United HealthCare, which is becoming the defacto nationaled health insurance providers as other people leave the business. When it fails at some point, as it has to – given what Obamacare madates – then it’s just a matter of another “government rescue” and the deed is done.
Charles Murray, in his (recently released) book, “Coming Apart”, by analyzing all the available data, provides a comparison of the white upper middle class and the white working class. The data shows that the white upper middle class is living a moral life with a good work ethic, while the white working class is rapidly degenerating, in both its morals and work ethic, with no end in sight.
One of Murray’s solutions is to have the upper middle class begin setting national moral and work ethic standards, by becoming bluntly and unapologetically judgmental, as opposed to the upper middle class’s current moral relativist and non-judgmental attitude.
It seems to me that Rush is doing exactly what Murray suggests needs to happen. It is not surprising that Rush is attracting condemnation from those who don’t want any national moral and work ethic standards to be publically advocated by powerful and influencial groups in society.
If Rush is not supported when he bluntly and unapologetically advocates a healthy moral code, the working class, which needs publically acknowledged national standards of good moral behavior and a good work ethic, will continue to rapidly degenerate, and the American Project (Murray’s term) will fail.
Mike Huckabee? I thought he was going to do a show on Fox with ‘Joe The Plumber’ ?
When Red State Update interviewed ‘Joe The Plumber ‘ he said he was going to be on Fox with Huckabee. That was four years ago so that probably changed. (its on Youtube if you want to look up the interview)
What happened with Dennis Miller supposedly go to run over Rush? He may gain some stations now.
parrott
In related news, Toyota dealerships nationwide have decided to start selling Fiats. “Fiats are so much less expensive than Toyotas,” says a spokesman for the group, “and they have a much better profit margin.”
The new Fiat dealers dismissed the possibility that other Toyota dealers might perhaps crop up in their neighborhoods to compete with their new Fiat business. “Did you see my sales figures last year?” said one former Toyota dealer. “That has nothing to do with the product. It’s all my ability as a salesman to get you to buy. My customers will eventually tire of their current Camrys and Rav4s and will buy whatever I sell them in the future.”
If you think Rush will just suddenly be unavailable in a market as his contract expires with station “A,” then you are a complete idiot. Dittoheads will turn on their radio, and when that equally stupid Huckabee is yakking at them they’ll reach their thumb over to the ‘scan’ button on the steering wheel and wait until they hear Rush’s voice. Then they’ll depress the ‘preset 1’ button for five seconds to set the new station. Problem solved, and the Cumulus station simply ceases to exist for those customers.