Rush, love or hate, was IMO the glue that held conservative talk radio together and was the constant in a format that tends to vary from market to market outside of iHeart stations. In any midsized market, you could find him 12-3 on EST on a leading news/talk station and he was the draw. You expected to find him on a talker worth anything unless they were all local (rare and in bigger markets only) or a third or fourth rate talker like Salem has (WGTK is actually impressive for Salem). Similar situation with Coast to Coast AM but they have less loyal of a following.
Cumulus stations are getting Dan Bongino. Audacy is getting Dana Loesch. iHeart is going with Clay Travis/Buck Sexton. The most popular syndicated talk show will be gone with a lot of scattered replacements that are top-down dictations. IMO the loss of Rush (again, love or hate) is going to hurt almost any talk station that carried him as the talk audience is going to be so fragmented. The question is as time goes on, how will the format be affected? Is Audacy committed to Dana, so even if ratings are bad, they will keep her, for example? I feel like Bongino would have probably done a lot better on 106.3. Again, WORD is at their weakest point programming wise in years IMO and if Salem would be less cookie cutter and take this chance to head on compete with them I think they’d have a chance. They have Hannity who is very popular (#2 behind Rush I believe) and Gallagher who is somehow popular in this area. It’ll never happen, but I feel like a stronger morning show and going local for at least part of the 12-3 time slot on 94.5 would make WORD nervous. Not to mention a signal that blows 106.3 out of the water. Most Salem talkers don’t have much of a competitive chance due to being relegated to poor AM signals generally but 94.5 has a prime opportunity in a prime market on a blowtorch signal and could do a lot better if they would break it out of the typical Salem mold (which they have done to a certain extent by carrying shows like Sean Hannity).
Cumulus stations are getting Dan Bongino. Audacy is getting Dana Loesch. iHeart is going with Clay Travis/Buck Sexton. The most popular syndicated talk show will be gone with a lot of scattered replacements that are top-down dictations. IMO the loss of Rush (again, love or hate) is going to hurt almost any talk station that carried him as the talk audience is going to be so fragmented. The question is as time goes on, how will the format be affected? Is Audacy committed to Dana, so even if ratings are bad, they will keep her, for example? I feel like Bongino would have probably done a lot better on 106.3. Again, WORD is at their weakest point programming wise in years IMO and if Salem would be less cookie cutter and take this chance to head on compete with them I think they’d have a chance. They have Hannity who is very popular (#2 behind Rush I believe) and Gallagher who is somehow popular in this area. It’ll never happen, but I feel like a stronger morning show and going local for at least part of the 12-3 time slot on 94.5 would make WORD nervous. Not to mention a signal that blows 106.3 out of the water. Most Salem talkers don’t have much of a competitive chance due to being relegated to poor AM signals generally but 94.5 has a prime opportunity in a prime market on a blowtorch signal and could do a lot better if they would break it out of the typical Salem mold (which they have done to a certain extent by carrying shows like Sean Hannity).
