Speculation on Huckabee Eventually Replacing Limbaugh on WABC

[Barry]

Cumulus has been lining up affiliates for its upcoming conservative talk show featuring former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.
There is talk that Cumulus may want to put Huckabee on many of their own talk stations, as a replacement for Rush Limbaugh. That focuses speculation on their intentions with regard to their talk station in New York, WABC.
From a Reuters article: "Cumulus licenses Limbaugh's show on about three dozen of its own stations. It is expected to replace Limbaugh with Huckabee once these contracts expire.
'I can guarantee you that the minute Cumulus' contract with Rush expires in New York, they will replace him with Huckabee,' said Joel Hollander, the former CEO of CBS Radio now running private investment firm 264 Echo Place Partners.
For now Limbaugh has some breathing room - the vast majority of his contracts with Cumulus do not expire until next year. Dickey said Cumulus has "no plans to drop Rush" from any of its stations at this time [emphasis mine] and will 'honor its contracts.' "

Does anyone know when Limbaugh's contract with WABC ends?

Reuters Article: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/17/entertainment-us-cumulus-huckabee-idUSBRE82G01Z20120317

 

[wpb1999]

They are one of his flagship stations (the other one being KFI in LA), so I don't think they will drop him. I do think that he will be dropped on WLS and KABC, though I don't think we will know for a while.

 

[recto101]

Well to see evidence that cumulus did get rid of Rush. You have to go back to New Years week in San Francisco when Rush moved to 910 AM KKSF the CC Newstalk station from Cumulus KSFO-AM in the market. Also the former KGO talk hosts like Gil Gross, Len Tillem, Rosie Allen, Ed Baxter, Gene Burns and former KOFY TV 20 Owner James Gabbert were fired out of Cumulus KGO 810 to 910 AM in SFO. I know during the Noon hour KFBK's Tom Sullivan has a show on 910 am. But Tom Sullivan show intro would say "from Fox News Radio".

I know Gil Gross did hourly News on ABC/Cumulus and did a talk show. But also I heard Gil was a former WCBS-AM host.

 

[wpb1999]

They are one of his flagship stations (the other one being KFI in LA), so I don't think they will drop him. I do think that he will be dropped on WLS and KABC, though I don't think we will know for a while.

Sorry.... I meant WBAP would drop Rush...... not KABC. KFI has Rush in Los Angeles.

 

[recto101]

They are one of his flagship stations (the other one being KFI in LA), so I don't think they will drop him. I do think that he will be dropped on WLS and KABC, though I don't think we will know for a while.

Wait I thought Rush Limbaugh other Flagship station is KFBK in Sacramento. I hear promo's for Rush with KFBK saying he used to be a local host there. I know Rush Replaced Morton Downey on KFBK when Morton went to do a TV talk show. Then when Rush went National Tom Sullivan replaced Rush's Sacramento Spot.

 

[WNTIRadio]

The only way that would happen is if CC puts their own talk station on in the market, and with all 5 of the FM signals doing well, I wouldn't expect that to happen anytime soon. Perhaps they would flush Power 105, but not Z-100, Lite, Q or KTU.

Like I've said on this board, WABC isn't going to drop Rush. Makes too much money for them, and if they did drop him, he would be over at WOR in about a millisecond. That would be great for WOR, they could finally get rid of Joan Hamburg yakking about food and theater and the completely paint drying Dave Ramsey show. But do you think that WABC would send Rush packing, and over to WOR, and seal their own demise?

Huckabee doesn't have the track record of ratings and billing that Rush does.

Now a real interesting scenario would be if WABC had a moment of shear stupid, got rid of Rush and he landed on WNYM....

 

[TimeIsTight]

'I can guarantee you that the minute Cumulus' contract with Rush expires in New York, they will replace him with Huckabee,' said Joel Hollander, the former CEO of CBS Radio now running private investment firm 264 Echo Place Partners.

I think Hollander is right on this call. It does seem that Cumulus would prefer to keep all of its programming and spot revenue in-house. They are even going to start doing their own traffic reports next month.

This sponsor boycott of Rush's show has yet to fully play out. While Rush's show has "made money" for WABC in the past, if too many of the big sponsors don't want any connection to it, those profit figures may change. Look what happened to Beck's Fox TV show, despite very high ratings.

As to Rush going to WOR, if there are too many negatives attached they might not want him for some of the same sponsor related reasons WABC no longer would. It's fixable, but it's even got to be a headache to worry about moving certain spots out of network news feeds if those newscasts are heard on a station during Rush's show and those sponsors want absolutely no connection to him.

As to Rush going on WNYM, while it would certainly boost that station's cume, and the public awareness of the station, that signal, unfortunately, doesn't reach some of the big Conservative and Republican suburban strongholds with a strong enough signal.

Examples include the Morristown market, where WABC ranks near the top of the ratings, and WNYM doesn't even show.

Likewise, in the Monmouth-Ocean market, where WABC is also near the top in an area with one-million listeners and WNYM doesn't even show.

Both of those markets are also part of the greater New York radio market, so that suggests Rush would have to find some suburban affiliates to provide full NY market coverage.

The bottom line: If Huckabee's show does well elsewhere, WABC will not renew Rush's contract next time around.

 

[WNTIRadio]

'I can guarantee you that the minute Cumulus' contract with Rush expires in New York, they will replace him with Huckabee,' said Joel Hollander, the former CEO of CBS Radio now running private investment firm 264 Echo Place Partners.

Cumulus should take heed and do the opposite from the guy who didn't keep Howard. That did real well for his group of stations...

This "boycott" will blow over and be forgotten soon. It's already moved to the back pages. McDonald's and Coke wouldn't advertise on Stern, and there were plenty more to take their place and make hundreds of millions for CBS.

WABC signed Imus, and his controversy was far greater than Rush. Rush hasn't been fired, suspended or otherwise. My point is, that if WABC lets him go, WOR would have to be R.P. McMurphy lobotomized to not snap up the opportunity.

 

[fybush]

WABC signed Imus, and his controversy was far greater than Rush. Rush hasn't been fired, suspended or otherwise. My point is, that if WABC lets him go, WOR would have to be R.P. McMurphy lobotomized to not snap up the opportunity.

Maybe, maybe not.

There's a lot that we don't know here. Rush isn't just a barter show, it's a cash-and-barter show, emphasis on "cash." If Premiere is really paying Rush the "$50 million a year" that's widely claimed, what is it charging affiliates to help pay that salary?

If you're WOR, and you're accustomed to being paid to provide #1-market carriage for lesser shows, how much better do your ratings have to get with Rush to cover the cost of paying for the show? And even if your ratings get that much better, will your revenues follow suit? As you've pointed out over in the AAA thread, raw ratings don't always equate to bottom-line revenue, after all.

(And conversely, if you're Cumulus, how much of a ratings loss can you gladly sustain to replace the cost of an expensive Rush from an outside source with a free in-house Huckabee, complete with more local avails to sell?)

There is no business I've ever seen with less sentiment than radio. Rush has made lots of station owners very, very rich over the years, without a doubt. But it doesn't take much in this environment to flip the bottom line in the other direction, and when it does, watch out below.

"Too big to fail" isn't always the best position to be in right now in this industry.

 

[OC3]

Exactly.

Foilks...a lot of your logic is based on facts that are so out of date they are not even part of the consideration anymore. It's a different ball game folks with new rules. $$$$$ rules!

 

[davideduardo]

Likewise, in the Monmouth-Ocean market, where WABC is also near the top in an area with one-million listeners and WNYM doesn't even show.

Both of those markets are also part of the greater New York radio market, so that suggests Rush would have to find some suburban affiliates to provide full NY market coverage.

Actually, Monmouth-Ocean is half in the NY market and half outside. Ocean County is not in the NY MSA.

But the real issue here is that no local advertiser can buy a NY station for coverage of one of the suburban or adjacent market areas... there is too much spillage and the rates are too high. So it does not really matter if a show does well in one or another of the embedded markets if the station, overall, can not deliver the right rates and delivery of other stations.

 

[TimeIsTight]

But the real issue here is that no local advertiser can buy a NY station for coverage of one of the suburban or adjacent market areas...

That's true, but the real issue in this thread is whether WNYM, as a Conservative talk station, would cover the entire New York Radio Market the way its rival WABC does should the Rush Limbaugh show be forced to switch New York affiliates.

And using the Monmouth-Ocean and Morristown embedded markets to illustrate the point that WNYM doesn't offer the same signal reach potential, WABC shows up near the top of the ratings in both of those embedded markets and WNYM doesn't show at all. And that's in spite of the fact that both areas are within the predicted WNYM pattern.

I was in Morristown an hour ago listening to WNYM on my car radio, and while the audio was well processed and as clear as a bell there were clicks, pops, buzz and other electrical interference problems that might discourage some people from listening. Rival talk stations WABC and WOR did not have those interference problems in the same location. WNYM had top consultants design the 50-kw signal pattern, and it has a really top notch chief engineer, whom I'm sure has everything tuned to perfection. It is just a directional signal that is best in urban areas that have high Democratic voter registration, and is not as good in suburban areas that are traditional Republican strongholds. The problem is, its programming is designed to appeal to suburban Republicans, and they live in places like Morristown, and Monmouth-Ocean, not in Brooklyn, and Hudson County, New Jersey where WNYM may have the best AM signal on the dial.

 

[wadio]

WNYM had top consultants design the 50-kw signal pattern, and it has a really top notch chief engineer, ...

And there's a really big "notch" in the pattern that keeps anyone in Fairfield County, CT from hearing the station! That's a fairly big deal from an advertising standpoint. But the likelihood of Rush landing on WNYM is near zero, IMO.

While I personally think Rush should be given a pass for his remarks -- he was making an analogy, not literally calling the young lady a slut (although he should have been careful to make that crystal clear) -- I do believe his ship has sailed. This controversy comes at a time when talk radio is morphing away from the Rush formula.

I know the 6+ ratings don't mean much, still it's interesting to note that WABC is down to a 3.0. Time to reinvent? I think so.

 

[wprt949]

could clear channel have rush radio 105.1 in mind for nyc ??

 

[scott5]

Well to see evidence that cumulus did get rid of Rush. You have to go back to New Years week in San Francisco when Rush moved to 910 AM KKSF the CC Newstalk station from Cumulus KSFO-AM in the market. Also the former KGO talk hosts like Gil Gross, Len Tillem, Rosie Allen, Ed Baxter, Gene Burns and former KOFY TV 20 Owner James Gabbert were fired out of Cumulus KGO 810 to 910 AM in SFO. I know during the Noon hour KFBK's Tom Sullivan has a show on 910 am. But Tom Sullivan show intro would say "from Fox News Radio".

I know Gil Gross did hourly News on ABC/Cumulus and did a talk show. But also I heard Gil was a former WCBS-AM host.

New ratings came out today in SF, CC's KKSF (formerly KNEW) surpassed KSFO in the cume for the first time! KSFO without Rush is rushing downhill.

http://www.radio-info.com/markets/san-francisco

 

[TimeIsTight]

could clear channel have rush radio 105.1 in mind for nyc ??

You would have to wonder why Clear Channel would want to blow up an FM music format with a consistent cume of about 2.5-million with younger demos, to switch to a talk format with older demos that has consistently pulled a cume of about 1.1-million, or less than half?

And the original talk station wouldn't be going away either, so you would be adding a fourth competitor to a Right-wing Leaning political talk group that doesn't have a combined cume of 2.5-million, and brings a lot of, less attractive to advertisers, older demos with it.

The NY FM dial will probably see a couple of sports talk or even all news FMs before it sees an older leaning political talk station, there just aren't that many full market FM signals to go around, and all of Clear Channel's Music FMs are doing just fine the way they are.

 

[Seltzer]

WABC drops Rush? WOR will grab the show in a heartbeat.

 

[del_griffith]

WABC drops Rush? WOR will grab the show in a heartbeat.

That will be the Huckabee litmus test. On what big Cumulus heritage sticks does he replace Limbaugh when deals mature.

And if he does, is Rush an automatic on WOR? People have said they won't pay for programming. Or Salem's talker which if it isn't home grown, it's pay for play. Will Premiere have to cut a check to clear Rush in NYC if he ends up on a Salem talker?

Or in Nashville, does Huck also replace the first hour of Ramsey who is in pretty tight with the Dickey's.

 

[badjef]

As it was in the beginning, it still is: a station that airs Rush, is given a credibility it would not enjoy if his show was elsewhere.

Were WABC to place Huck is 12-3p, then, as Phil Boyce says, you don't have to beat WABC to be successful. But, now we are talking about countering the current WABC and without Rush, the game changes.

Take the Yankees and Red Sox out of the equation, and my Rays are the the American League division champs every year.

(I love baseball analogies.)

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[badjef]

Likewise, in the Monmouth-Ocean market, where WABC is also near the top in an area with one-million listeners and WNYM doesn't even show.

Both of those markets are also part of the greater New York radio market, so that suggests Rush would have to find some suburban affiliates to provide full NY market coverage.

Actually, Monmouth-Ocean is half in the NY market and half outside. Ocean County is not in the NY MSA.

But the real issue here is that no local advertiser can buy a NY station for coverage of one of the suburban or adjacent market areas... there is too much spillage and the rates are too high. So it does not really matter if a show does well in one or another of the embedded markets if the station, overall, can not deliver the right rates and delivery of other stations.

Personally, I enjoyed working at an Ocean County station much more than the Monmouth County stations. And there was signal overlap, not only from New York City, but the Philly stations as well. Something on virtually every frequency on the dial - sometimes two or three.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!