Cumulus Radio inherited Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee when they acquired Citadel Broadcasting who had acquired ABC radio. Huckabee was brought in to fill the void left by the death of Paul Harvey.
Lew Dickey, the head of Cumulus came up with a brilliant plan. Put Mike Huckabee on the air in direct competition with Rush Limbaugh, but less confrontational. Clear the decks of Cumulus stations to carry Huckabee. Begin the first day by having the head of programming call into the show telling Mike what a brilliant concept this show was (without identifying who he was)
The show started in April. How is it going? Is Huckabee kicking Rush’s butt yet?
While stipulating that streaming is not the same as over the air,
For the past week, Rush has had 2,538 listening attempts, Huckabee had 42 – landing Huckabee at #50, lower than Alex Jones.
Building on that success, Cumulus has launched Geraldo Rivera in competition. How is it going?
Beck 1,773 Geraldo Rivera 14
I was going to send this directly to Art but here’s a good opportunity to share it with everyone. I heard a promo over the air on Cumulus’ WABC-AM New York a couple of days ago touting their election coverage — they mentioned Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, John Batchelor and Geraldo Rivera. What, if anything, can we infer from the omission of the guy in the noon-to-3 (Eastern) slot?
Don’t be silly! Rush doesn’t talk about politics.
Either that, or Rush will be on WOR before the election.
Our local station decided to carry Huckabee at 8:00 pm. They decided that removing Rush would be death to the station. Carrying Geraldo had already sent listeners to another local station carrying Beck. They do come back for Rush. This is the sister station to 770 WABC – 770 WVNN.
Btw, Huckabee is a fairly easy to listen to, talker. Though, he is no Rush Limbaugh.
Huckabee worked in radio as a kid so he knows how to do radio, similar to Rush Limbaugh. The biggest difference is that Mike Huckabee is a “Homer” for the Republican Party where Rush is not – at least not most of the time. Only on rare occasions does Rush have a guest on the show – Huckabee is close to a 3 hour free ad for the Party Establishment.
Cumulus borrowed a lot of money to pull off the merger and buy Citadel after its trip through bankruptcy. It’s very complicated, but I think Disney still owns a piece of Cumulus via their ABC/Citadel debt. September 16th was the one year anniversary of the merge. The stock price is essentially unchanged.
Local cumulus runs Rush, noon to 3 then Hannity 3-6, then they go off the air. Back in the summer when they stay on the air to 8:45 they carry Huckabee from 6pm on.
But right now he is gone.
Huckabee ought to RUN away from cumu-last , LOL
Parrott