-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
POLITICO: Cumulus to drop Limbaugh and Hannity at end of the year
- Thread starter sjs1959
- Start date
For those who are saying, "Rush loses 40 stations, he picks up 40 stations," I have a different point of view: That of someone who was in radio management at a Rush station previously, left radio, and is in management in another industry.
Point 1: Rush, at the start, COSTS stations money. Premiere charges a serious amount of money for stations to carry his show. In the mid 1990s, Premiere was charging $6,000 per year to the medium market station where I worked. It's now 20 years later. Imagine what they're charging today! In major (top 25) markets, the cost to carry Rush per year is in six figures.
Point 2: The time for calculating next year's budgets, for companies whose corporate year runs on a calendar year, starts in August. By Oct. 1, budgets for 2014 will be pretty much locked in. Now, imagine you're a non-CC station being approached to carry Rush next year with a price tag higher than you are probably paying some of your local talent. Oh, and by the way, you only get to have so many minutes of commercial inventory per hour.
I think it is just as plausible that, in markets where CC has no available AM station for Rush, Premiere has a difficult if not impossible time finding a new station for him. Fast forward one year later: Reports come in that the former Rush stations are "better off" without him, and his high fees and low local commercial avails.
Come late 2014/early 2015, more station owners start to say, "Yeah, maybe it's time we cut the Rush cord like the Cumulus stations did." More non-CC stations dump him.
Plausible, IMHO.
Would Rush and Hannity's programs die immediate quick deaths? Certainly not. Could this cause Premiere to do some things like lower the prices they charge for Rush and allow more local commercial minutes per hour? It could. Could this be the beginning of a slow end for the biggest nationally syndicated conservative talker in history? Plausible.
Perhaps the most plausible development out of all of this: Premiere gives in to Cumulus and seriously reduces what it's charging their stations to carry the program. Other non-CC owners start asking Premiere for "the Cumulus deal." Revenue Premiere makes from Rush takes a serious decline as a result.
Point 1: Rush, at the start, COSTS stations money. Premiere charges a serious amount of money for stations to carry his show. In the mid 1990s, Premiere was charging $6,000 per year to the medium market station where I worked. It's now 20 years later. Imagine what they're charging today! In major (top 25) markets, the cost to carry Rush per year is in six figures.
Point 2: The time for calculating next year's budgets, for companies whose corporate year runs on a calendar year, starts in August. By Oct. 1, budgets for 2014 will be pretty much locked in. Now, imagine you're a non-CC station being approached to carry Rush next year with a price tag higher than you are probably paying some of your local talent. Oh, and by the way, you only get to have so many minutes of commercial inventory per hour.
I think it is just as plausible that, in markets where CC has no available AM station for Rush, Premiere has a difficult if not impossible time finding a new station for him. Fast forward one year later: Reports come in that the former Rush stations are "better off" without him, and his high fees and low local commercial avails.
Come late 2014/early 2015, more station owners start to say, "Yeah, maybe it's time we cut the Rush cord like the Cumulus stations did." More non-CC stations dump him.
Plausible, IMHO.
Would Rush and Hannity's programs die immediate quick deaths? Certainly not. Could this cause Premiere to do some things like lower the prices they charge for Rush and allow more local commercial minutes per hour? It could. Could this be the beginning of a slow end for the biggest nationally syndicated conservative talker in history? Plausible.
Perhaps the most plausible development out of all of this: Premiere gives in to Cumulus and seriously reduces what it's charging their stations to carry the program. Other non-CC owners start asking Premiere for "the Cumulus deal." Revenue Premiere makes from Rush takes a serious decline as a result.
radiophiler said:
Exactly. I doubt that Premiere charges CC stations for these shows. So they need to decide if SOME money is better than NO money. That might be the debate with Cumulus, who is probably suggesting that no money on WABC, WLS, WBAP, and WMAL is better than no money on WOR and a bunch of 1K AMs. That would be my approach if I was negotiating. Cumulus is happy either way. Because if they lose Rush & Hannity, and they drop a point, they also gain a lot of inventory to make up for that ratings loss. Who cares if they're not #1? They've already lost that battle in DC and Chicago, so a ratings drop is no big deal.
The next question is how much of Rush & Hannity's contract comes from that additional station money, or is all of it guaranteed? Because if they get a percentage of the station money, then they take the haircut now, not when the contract is up. Otherwise, Premiere has to eat it for two more years.
1998 wants their posts back.sjs1959 said:
Revenue may take a hit, the shows will still make money...radiophiler said:
F
FredLeonard
Guest
RadioTalker101 said:
Winner: Dumb Post of the Day! Congratulations. And thank you for adding to the discussion.
Maybe you missed the 200 other threads over the pat 10 years signaling the impending doom of talk radio. More likely, you wished they were true.FredLeonard said:
A real headline should read: Limbaugh/Hannity to lose stations with #2 radio group and move to stations owned by the #1 radio grop...
radiophiler said:
Even in the 1990's, that $6,000 sounds like a bargain. Let's say for the sake of argument, are you telling me a local personality in New Haven or Nashville or Flint would make less than $6,000 a year for doing a call in show every day? I can't imagine Jerry Kristafer or Paul Pacelli at WELI New Haven were making only $6,000 a year for their morning and afternoon call in shows back in the day.
F
FredLeonard
Guest
Jimme said:
The medium market station which became the first to drop Rush in the mid 90s said publicly they wanted about three times that (and that was before Premiere owned the show).
http://popwatch.ew.com/2013/07/29/rush-limbaugh-sean-hannity-radio-negotiation/
About 40 stations. No doubt they surface on WOR in NY. Some Clear Channel stations could pick them up if both they and Cumulus are in same market.
For some time now in Prov. Cumulus' WPRO has opted for local hosts while CC's WHJJ has
Rush, Sean, etc.
Pol. talk has suffered under PPMs, ad market, etc. (in New England prog talk is only on in Bangor and Brattleboro, full time) and sports continues to do quite well. But Rush and Sean are still doing OK and even if they went off terrestrial radio they could do satellite/streaming like Stern and do well.
About 40 stations. No doubt they surface on WOR in NY. Some Clear Channel stations could pick them up if both they and Cumulus are in same market.
For some time now in Prov. Cumulus' WPRO has opted for local hosts while CC's WHJJ has
Rush, Sean, etc.
Pol. talk has suffered under PPMs, ad market, etc. (in New England prog talk is only on in Bangor and Brattleboro, full time) and sports continues to do quite well. But Rush and Sean are still doing OK and even if they went off terrestrial radio they could do satellite/streaming like Stern and do well.
TheBigA said:
CC owns KFXR 1190 in Dallas Fort Worth
D
del_griffith
Guest
The station has a 12 tower night directional.
F
FredLeonard
Guest
umfan said:
Look up "hyperbole" in the dictionary.
Colmes: Hannity's ex-stooge.
It's sort of disgusting. Rush tells you what you want to hear and therefore he (a) can do no wrong and (b) will stay on forever. People on the right have a need to attach themselves to a strong leader or authority figure and to hate those who don't conform. As long as such people are around, there will always be people like Rush.
I will agree that Rush is not imploding (as satisfying as that might be) but his career is on the downhill run. As we've seen in markets where long-standing "affiliates" have dropped/lost Rush, the right-wing talk audience divides. Some follow Rush; some stay with the station. Rush continues to take on water.
- Status