I'm basing this on comparisons to other syndicated talk hosts, based on dayparts. Glenn Beck has been doing this for decades and his show is widely carried. The only notable late morning host is Fox News Radio's Brian Kilmeade show.
Being widely carried alone does not make an A-lister, though I will give you that Beck is, at least, in a prime daypart when people are actually listening to talk radio, and, yes, he has been there for quite awhile now. That's better than what can be said for many of the syndicated talk hosts. He also built it into a media empire, though you don't really have to be an A-lister in radio to do that.
The morning daypart is really only filled by DelGiorno. I don't think there are any other talk shows live in that daypart.
Or it could've, you know, hired a local morning host for that slot. Maybe that's not feasible anymore in a market the size of Northwest Arkansas and in the current economic climate, but that's where you really want to put a local talent. I would assert that you don't really have any A-listers offered via syndication in morning drive. Not only is the schedule a grind, but you also don't have as many available stations because that's where so many talkers air local programming. I've been out of talk radio for a minute, to say the least, but I seem to remember Smerconish was also offered in mornings. He was the most palatable of the morning offerings to me, though I wouldn't call him an A-lister by any means. At least, when you listened to Smerconish, you could tell his opinions were his own; he wasn't just parroting talking points.
Clay and Buck won the mid-day daypart by default when Dan Bongino, left WW1 to be FBI deputy director (briefly). Nobody else had major market carriage.
Hannity wins PM drive by longevity, and Levin early evenings for similar reasoning.
Clay and Buck won the daypart against Bongino, too. He didn't get great numbers much of anywhere. From what I understand, Clay and Buck have lower numbers than Limbaugh, but they do better among younger and more salable demos. Rush's audience got old with him.
Hannity wins because he's been appointment listening pretty much since he signed on nationally almost 25 years ago. I worked at a station that carried him but didn't carry Rush because he was on the heritage talker across town. We put up billboards that said, "Rush Over to Hannity," and they seemed to work. Quite well, in fact.
Levin has been around for awhile, but he's on when most nobody is listening. He rides what little numbers talk radio has after dinnertime and doesn't run its core listeners off, but he doesn't bring people in. You can certainly make a good living doing that. Ask Delilah. If, however, Levin generated competitive numbers on his own, he'd be syndicated during the daytime.
Coast To Coast is undoubtedly the top late night program, if that is worth anything.
Agreed, though Coast-to-Coast was always where we made up barter inventory that was missed or pre-empted due to sports. It didn't air many paid spots. It is what it is and wouldn't work in any other daypart. It's a small niche. On a personal note, one of my cousins was an occasional guest on Coast-to-Coast when Art Bell hosted. He was a weird kid, really weird, though he became popular in the sci-fi community and may have been ahead of his time when it came to AI. He was definitely the kind of person who Bell's audience would've enjoyed, and I see how he got on that show.
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