Tom Taylor knows everyone in the radio business and he’s careful – so his rumors are highly reliable.<\/p>\n
Less than two weeks ago, the people who run Dial Global gave up and agreed to be acquired by Cumulus Media. Fallout was inevitable.<\/p>\n
Talk Radio Network (TRN) was the third remaining significant producer of news\/talk content for terrestrial radio. It is based in Oregon and run by the son of eccentric personality Roy Masters.<\/p>\n
TRN has an active lawsuit against Dial Global – TRN didn’t do the leg work of syndication – they farmed out the management of relations of their affiliates to their competitor Dial Global, and felt DG was steering customers away from TRN programs. It may have dawned on someone that Dial Global has no money and isn’t worth suing.<\/p>\n
The “talent” left at TRN is getting thin – Mike Savage left for Cumulus, Laura Ingraham switched to more or less doing her own syndication, and Phil Hendrie left and vanished down a rabbit hole called Dial Global.<\/p>\n
The talent left at TRN are Jerry Doyle, Rusty Humphries, Andrea Tantaros and the TRN news (John McCaslin, etc…) and a few thinly distributed hosts like Louie Anderson and Barry Farber.<\/p>\n
Michael Savage won a judgement against TRN to get his legal expenses paid because TRN tried to keep him from leaving and lost in arbitration (hint: if you sue your talent, it may get hard to hire a replacement). I tend to think that check for $1 million hasn’t gone out yet and never will.<\/p>\n
Taylor is reporting that TRN stopped paying its bills and missed paychecks for its talent. TRN leases its satellite Channels from Dial Global.<\/p>\n
So it sounds like TRN may finally be toast. That means by 2014, you can have the Cumulus Flavor or the Clear Channel flavor. If a station doesn’t align with one or the other, they are left with choices like Dave Ramsey, Alex Jones, Free Talk Live, John Gibson and Al Sharpton.<\/p>\n
On the positive side, there are lots of sports talk syndicators!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tom Taylor knows everyone in the radio business and he’s careful – so his rumors are highly reliable. Less than two weeks ago, the people who run Dial Global gave up and agreed to be acquired by Cumulus Media. Fallout … Continue reading