Hardball corporate negotiations may well end up causing some of the top hosts in the radio world to go head-to-head against each other in the same time slots. The two biggest players in the national radio market, Clear Channel and Cumulus, are clashing over renewal of the syndication arrangements for Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, the number one and two shows. Dylan Byers writes at Politico:
In a major shakeup for the radio industry, Cumulus Media, the second-biggest broadcaster in the
country, is planning to drop both Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity from its stations at the end of the year, an industry source told POLITICO on Sunday.
Cumulus has decided that it will not renew its contracts with either host, the source said, a move that would remove the two most highly rated conservative talk personalities from more than 40 Cumulus channels in major markets.
Cumulus, which owns "approximately 525 stations in 110 cities," gained ownership in 2011 of the important, big market, high powered AM talk radio outlets developed by ABC radio in the nation's largest cities. But the acquisition of Citadel Broadcasting, which had purchased the talk radio blowtorches from ABC, was expensive. And Cumulus has been struggling with its earnings, and has blamed Rush Limbaugh's Sandra Fluke controversy for some of its profit weakness.
As Jeff Lord at the American Spectator put it, Cumulus "bit off much more than they can chew."
Among other things, the Dickeys [Lew and John, brothers who control the company] may have overpaid for the stations Cumulus purchased. A decent profit is a problem when, as the Atlanta-Journal Constitution noted, the $2.4 billion Cumulus deal to buy Citadel and its formerly ABC properties meant that