Is it true? It sounds right.
Hannity has a peculiar contract because he was originally syndicated by ABC Radio, not Clear Channel. When Citadel acquired ABC, he had an opt out clause that would let him move the Syndication to Clear Channel’s Premiere to be with his buddy Rush Limbaugh. After the year, he did opt out – Premiere handles the syndication now for Hannity, however there is some kind of revenue split from the former ABC stations. When Cumulus took over Citadel, that baggage came long.
According to Jerry del Colliano, Hannity has told the Dickey brothers who run Cumulus to go pound sand and he is leaving their stations. Jerry reports that Sean says Cumulus treats their employees like shit – sub-human. I’ve seen nothing to contradict that.
At least in the past, Limbaugh and Hannity were sold together – if you wanted Rush, you had to take Hannity. Where does this leave Rush?
That gaping hole in WGN middays is looking more and more significant. The big problem though with that theory is the Chicago Cubs games – because Wrigley Field is in a residential neighborhood, many of the home games are still played in the afternoon which creates a scheduling conflict. Tribune (who owns WGN) no longer owns the Cubs, so if Rush & Hannity wind up there, baseball probably has to move somewhere else.
The war drums are pounding, the fat lady is warming up, the priming powder is being loaded into the cannon…
And where does it leave Mark Levin? Mark is one of the last ABC radio holdovers. I have no idea when his contract is up or how cheaply he will work just to have a forum to shout at libs
Rush, Hannity and Levin comprise a sort of trio. They support each other when the circumstances demand. For instance, do you think Rush is getting paid to talk-up Levin’s new book? No. He is doing it to spread the word about the book and boost sales. A few years ago when Levin was voicing concerns about continuing in talk radio, both Sean and Rush openly encouraged him to stay-the-course.
Michael “Savage” Weiner has announced he will be replacing that fake conservative, Sean “wall banger” Hannity.
That sounds right – 9 PM ET is too late for an AM syndicated talk show. Savage will work cheap. It’s a win win, except clear channel isn’t going to replace Hannity with Savage. I look forward to hearing Savage interviewing that fake Conservative Mije Huckabee.
Cumulus getting rid of the shouting Hannity and Levin?
It sounds like the Dewey decibel system.
I believe you may have meant to say Hannity getting rid of Cumukus.
Well, if the renewal terms were less than the current terms, the side making the reduction is taking the action that leads to the end of the relationship.
You can take it to the bank that Dickey won’t be matching the terms of the ABC era contracts
ABC found its strategy now working as well as they had hoped, so Disney sold the company.
Disney also has recently just turned off two of their Disney Radio radio stations. They have reportedly been for sale for years – Disney already bailed on their smaller market stations.
Selling WRDZ-AM in Chicago to Clear Channel might be another interesting possibility – it isn’t WGN or WLS, but does cover most of the city.
Radio Disney is an interesting concept. It is basically top 40 but with a filter to screen out the kinds of lyrics that most parents don’t want their kids to sing at a young age.
They are tied into promoting the Disney studio movies… it seems more explicit than the way MSNBC/NBC/CNBC talks about Universal movies, CNN CNN HLN promote Time Warner movies, ABC News promotes Disney movies, Fox News/FBN promotes Fox movies etc.
Radio Disney also promotes the Disney cable channels more than CBS news promotes its Showtime to the consumer (not necessarily how they promote it to cable operators) or CNN/CNN HLN promotes its HBO documentaries through Fareed Zaharia.
The puzzling thing to me is why they would put a music stream on AM.