Limbaugh Shakeup? Cumulus May Dump Rush As Feud Escalates

Two reports over the weekend point suggest that the stage has been set for the biggest shakeup in talk radio history:

Rush Limbaugh insists it’s not his fault that ad revenue has dropped at his flagship WABC radio station — and if his boss keeps saying it is, Rush just may pack up his megadittoes and leave…

Lew Dickey, the CEO of WABC parent company Cumulus, has said Limbaugh’s controversial comments have diminished ad revenue for the past year — and the slump remains a “residual hangover” for the station.

Team Rush fired back:

But the rift blew open over the weekend when a source close to Limbaugh told the Daily News: “Lew needs someone to blame, (so) he’s pointing fingers instead of fixing his own sales problem.”

…Limbaugh has said the departees were replaced, and a source close to the show said revenue was “very minimally impacted in the short term.”

Dickey, however, told analysts that fallout from the Fluke controversy cost Cumulus “a couple of million” in the first quarter of 2012 and “a couple of million” in the second quarter.

The timing of the Cumulus-Limbaugh blow-up is telling:

Cumulus Media, which has a contract with Limbaugh through 2013, declined to comment for this report: “Cumulus owns the premier talk radio distribution platform in the United States and doesn’t comment on negotiations with talent under contract,” Davidson Goldin, a Cumulus spokesman, told POLITICO. Clear Channel, which distributes the Rush Limbaugh Program through its Premiere Radio division, also declined to comment.

The news of Limbaugh’s possible departure comes one day ahead of Cumulus’s Tuesday earnings call, at which Dickey Is once again likely to address the impact the Fluke controversy has had on advertising. The source close to the show described Dickey’s remarks about advertising revenue as unjustified, and said such “criticism” of Limbaugh had resulted in the consideration to leave the company.

Grab the popcorn, talk radio fans…

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.