KSFO San Francisco dropped him in 2012. As a result, iHeart put him on KNEW and build a syndicated station similar to Talk 1200 around him. They did something similar in LA with KEIB. I notice that he recently returned to KSFO. Cumulus threatened to drop him from all their talk stations after the Fluke incident. Only one station, WABC followed through on the threat, and he was picked up by WOR after iHeart bought the station. I don't know if WOR is secondary (none of the AM talkers are doing well in NY), but it's not the station it was on originally. KMBZ Kansas City dropped him from the FM signal. Just on the AM.
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30th. Anniversary of The Rush Limbaugh Show, debut August 1, 1988
- Thread starter FreddyE1977
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KSFO San Francisco dropped him in 2012. As a result, iHeart put him on KNEW and build a syndicated station similar to Talk 1200 around him. They did something similar in LA with KEIB. I notice that he recently returned to KSFO. Cumulus threatened to drop him from all their talk stations after the Fluke incident. Only one station, WABC followed through on the threat, and he was picked up by WOR after iHeart bought the station. I don't know if WOR is secondary (none of the AM talkers are doing well in NY), but it's not the station it was on originally. KMBZ Kansas City dropped him from the FM signal. Just on the AM.
Consider the source, PTBoardOp. Unsubstantiated comments are quite common from this poster.
Not true. You just might not agree with them. You and everyone else are welcome to their opinion and their corrections.
I respect you, BigA, but it certainly seems your original observation in this case was unsubstantiated. You said "in most places" Limbaugh has been moved to a secondary talker, but evidence sure indicates otherwise. Can you somehow back up that original assertion?
That may have been overstating the case, but as I said in post #21 there was a huge outcry in 2012. Cumulus threatened to drop the show on all their talk stations. That would have caused a major problem for the show. The fact that iHeart moved the show off KFI in LA and created a second tier talk station there was significant. Did "most stations" follow suit? Maybe not, but the affiliate base certainly changed at that time, and it brought a lot of discussion, here and in other places, that Rush might hang it up. As it turned out, he didn't.
There are some details here, including the station drops and the advertiser protest. I can tell you I still see sales orders that say "Do not air in Rush Limbaugh."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Rush_Limbaugh–Sandra_Fluke_controversy/Archive_3
He might be but i haven't heard anything about that, as with people on radio local or national you very rarely mentioned how many years and how much money they are signed for.
Bill Press is 78 years old, and he is still doing radio show the currently only airs on one terrestrial radio station, where currently it is seen or heard on satellite radio, his website for the show, and his Youtube channel as well.
There was no wholesale move of Limbaugh to secondary stations. It did happen in some markets, but more due to Cumulus' prior management making a since failed attempt to try to develop their own syndicated programming. Mike Huckabee's short lived 12-3 show comes to mind. He was a good host and would've likely been successful in another daypart, say mid-mornings, but that's not what they went with.
In any case, I think it's beyond clear that the statement in question was not correct and has not been supported.
I've never heard about Rush being put on secondary stations. If a station airs Rush, that means it's the "primary" station.
Regarding how long he can continue, it appeared his career might be over years ago due to a hearing problem, and he has overcome that. On September 11, 2001, he had the day off because of a doctor's appointment or something related to this (but would anyone have aired the show?). I just had to hear what he would say the next day, and he started by saying he had the day off and needed to stop doing that because things happened on his days off (I think he meant because he was gone something terrible happened). He didn't explain until days or months later.
Regarding how long he can continue, it appeared his career might be over years ago due to a hearing problem, and he has overcome that. On September 11, 2001, he had the day off because of a doctor's appointment or something related to this (but would anyone have aired the show?). I just had to hear what he would say the next day, and he started by saying he had the day off and needed to stop doing that because things happened on his days off (I think he meant because he was gone something terrible happened). He didn't explain until days or months later.
In the early '90s, I was working for a station that carried Larry King's show in its original late night slot. We carried it over both our AM and FM stations. I remember that Larry often had some extreme left-wing opinions (far more so than on his TV show), but I did not sit and listen to him, as I had other things to do. We were carrying him over our AM station, and simulcast onto our FM. I seriously doubt that we had very many listeners at that time of night. AM listeners (probably my parents' age, even then) had likely already gone to bed, while FM listeners just flipped the dial in search of a station still playing music.
Fast forward about a year, and King is on in that late afternoon slot on that station (although at least, in the daytime, he was no longer simulcast on the FM!). It is my understanding that the station got calls from extremely irate listeners about Larry's left-wing opinions. Some of them said, if you are going to carry Larry, at least balance him out with Rush. It is my understanding that that is exactly what they did, and they are still carrying him all these years later.
What would you consider "extreme left wing?" Unlike today's talk shows, where the host just talks by himself, Larry's show was an interview show with guests. Larry saw his job as drawing out his guest. That might mean, in the case of interviewing a politician, of letting them explain their positions on subjects. It wasn't a debate or an argument, as you see with Tucker Carlson or even Leslie Stahl. That's not what he did. If he had Jessie Jackson on, Jessie said what he wanted without getting attacked. Larry's show was done in Washington, so he had some political guests. But he had a lot of entertainers and non-political guests. It was a very different kind of show from what's being done now. That's why I think it failed. Other shows were far more aggressive, and Larry was very passive. Perfect for overnight, but not for daytime. People wanted to see a bull fight or wrestling, and what they got instead was baseball.
Larry had a contract. It wasn't his decision. You may be right about the callers, because the show was on far fewer stations than the night show, and listeners were far less patient in the daytime. But based on the number and quality of stations, the show was not a success. Larry was replaced by David Brenner. That show didn't really improve things in that slot. The big winner was Jim Bohannon, who took over the Larry King slot at night, and is still on today after almost 25 years.
I remember the news coming from Larry. I think he announced it on air but it could have been a notice to stations. It sounded like his decision but I don't doubt your word. Jim Bohannon was Larry's regular weekend replacement for years.
I don't even know what a radio station that would be considered secondary, would that be like a nation that broadcasts on both AM and FM dial?
On September 11th, 2001 I ma sure the people that got to do a show at all, would have been anybody that did an overnight show or a morning drive show. As you remember the first plane hit it was at least 8:48 (eastern time) and once that first plane hit that really became the big main story the day? Do you eve remember any other news that happened that day that was not released at all to the attacks? I would think it would be doubtful that anybody would have aired his show, as it became a wall to wall news story. As everybody was waiting to see what will happen next. The late Carl Kassell worth about in his book that he was working at NPR that day in his usual shift as the top of the hour newsman on NPR he wrote that he had a hard time keeping up with the news. as whatever he wrote for his newscast would soon be outdated. And he also wrote that he didn't have time to react to the events of that day like a normal American citizen had until he finally got done. And I am sure that after hosts that did morning drive radio got off, radio stations stared with national wall to wall coverage of what was going on that day, ad nobody else would have gotten on air again until the next day.
Assuming you meant "station" rather than "nation":
A secondary right-wing talk station is any station in the same market as a highly rated station -- sometimes an AM owned by the same company that operates the more-listened-to FM, but often a separately owned competitor on either band that constantly draws fewer listeners and ad dollars than the primary talker. Here in the Hartford market, the example would be Entercom-owned WTIC (home of Rush and a solid lineup of local hosts) and Red Wolf-owned WDRC (low-rated local talent, no Rush, fringe national personalities like Michael Savage). WTIC is the dominant talker, WDRC the secondary.
That would have had nothing to do with first or second tier talk stations. I seem to recall Rush had a planned day off with a guest host filling in. The show was likely still produced but almost no one aired it.
King, by his own admission, once admitted that he was to the left of Jesse Jackson. I didn't care; it was after midnight (our time) and he could say whatever he wanted. It was no reflection on me, or even on my (former) station. It was usually in that last hour, well after midnight, when he seemed to "fly off the rails." When he interviewed celebrity guests, he was usually quite cordial, regardless of the guest's political opinion, or whether he even agreed with them. It was actually quite similar to his demeanor on his TV show.
I noticed, however, that he could often be extremely rude with callers during that last hour, which he called "open-phone Americas" or something like that. Again, not even political; it just seemed like he got agitated quite easily. But as I said earlier, this was well after midnight on the central time zone, and my only concern was just making sure that we had a program on the air, and didn't have dead air! (I even got a call from a listener once, requesting his number. I gave it to him, but I don't know if he ever got through or not.)
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