Rush Limbaugh Controversy Good News For Mike Huckabee's New Radio Show Reuters | By Peter Lauria | 03/17/2012 12:59 pm Earlier this week, Cumulus Media sent out an email blast to fellow radio station owners with a photoshopped picture of former U.S. Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, promoting him as the conservative talk radio host of the future. Though the email did not name Rush Limbaugh, the long-running, top-rated talk radio host whose program is nationally syndicated by Cumulus' rival, Clear Channel Communications, the intent was obvious to some recipients. "They are going after Rush's affiliates," said one radio company executive who received Cumulus' email and spoke on condition of anonymity. "They are positioning Huckabee as the safe, non-dangerous alternative to Rush and saying to station owners, 'If you are looking for conservative content, we want you to consider our guy instead of theirs.'" Huckabee presented Cumulus with its best chance ever to grow into a national competitor to Clear Channel in the radio syndication market even before Limbaugh on February 29 ignited his latest controversy by calling birth-control activist Sandra Fluke "a slut. That the April 9 launch of "The Mike Huckabee Show" comes amid an exodus of advertisers from Limbaugh's program and an Internet-driven boycott is simply serendipity for Cumulus. In an interview with Reuters on Friday, Cumulus co-Chief Operating Officer John Dickey described the Huckabee emails as "standard operating procedure" and said the company was "proud to offer up our content to the industry at large." "Only one station in a city can offer Rush, so there are lots of other stations that are looking to put up an alternative to him regardless of whether he put his foot in his mouth," said Dickey. He was referring to how Limbaugh's contracts typically contain exclusivity clauses restricting him to one station in a market, instead of it being simulcast on multiple stations. "We have been growing the affiliate base on that fact alone, but recent developments with Rush have put some wind in our sails and accelerated our efforts," Dickey said. Cumulus owns the second-largest U.S. radio network, with 580 stations, behind Clear Channel, which owns about 900 stations. Cumulus ranks as the third-largest radio company by revenue, behind Clear Channel and CBS Radio. Huckabee's show, which was born out of a dinner conversation between a representative for the former Arkansas governor and Dickey in the fall of 2010, will go head-to-head against Limbaugh from noon to 3 p.m. in all time U.S. time zones, Monday through Friday. As of last week, about 140 stations had signed on to carry Huckabee's show, and Dickey said that number is growing daily. More important, only about 45 of those stations are owned and operated by Cumulus, meaning that the other stations that agreed to carry Huckabee's show have no affiliation with the company. Dickey said some of these stations plan to swap in Huckabee once their contracts with Limbaugh expire, though he declined to name which ones or where they were located. Calls to Clear Channel for comment were referred to Premiere Networks, the company that syndicates Limbaugh's program. Those deals transformed Cumulus from a sleepy small- to mid-market company into a national player. Before them, the largest market in which Cumulus had a presence was ranked 125th nationally. Now, the family-run company is in seven of the top 10 U.S. radio markets. With a big national footprint and its own network, Cumulus is now able to develop and syndicate its own content as opposed to paying to license it from competitors such as Clear Channel. Moreover, Cumulus can now shop its content to outside radio station owners, potentially stealing market share from Clear Channel. In essence, Cumulus has gone from being a purchaser of content to a creator of one. "We eat our own cooking here. If something works for us, it should also work for others in the industry," said Dickey, referring to Cumulus' goal to license homegrown talent to others in the industry. But if Limbaugh does stick with traditional radio, he will likely remain a major voice for two main reasons: a shortage of stars and political talk radio has a rabid fan base. Traditional radio's lack of stars is the reason Don Imus returned just eight months after being removed in 2007 for calling the Rutgers University women's basketball team a bunch of "nappy-headed hoes." And it is the reason why the source familiar with Premiere's thinking said the syndicator has no intention of removing Limbaugh from its air waves. 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." read: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/16/rush-limbaugh-mike-huckabee-radio-show_n_1354910.html ....... Mike Huckabee has a certain charm that Limbaugh certainly does not have, and would be an exceptionally fine drag on the same time slot as Limbaugh. But I really do not think that Limbaugh is going to be allowed to wriggle out of this latest tirade especially after losing so many advertisers, and the possibility of law suits. His words hurled out into the airwaves...."slut".... ...prostitute and the admonition that if the college student wanted birth control pills, then she should make some porn videos so he could watch her having sex was, and is still, totally unconscionable. The FCC should not waste time and should ban Limbaugh for flagrant libelous language to a private citizen, a person he had never met, over the airwaves without giving her a chance to respond. It was a dastardly attack on womanhood and the college student in particular. This needs some immediate justice and must be permanent because of the disgusting images Limbaugh has put on the student which explicitly characterized all womanhood. Limbaugh is an uncouth, cowardly, woman-hater shock-jock who has to be a detriment to any honest station owners.
ever replace Rush.. I don't think what Rush said was appropriate..but mush mouth will never draw an audience like Rush.. Huck has delusions of grandeur..what happened to he show on FOX..is it still there..? I change the channel when he appears as a guest..He is just another RINO..per his service as gov. of Arkansas..He didn't run this year because he knew he didn't have a chance..
If Rush is too scared to follow up iwth the fatcs that now ought be discussed loudly and national, Huck will do the job. Rush and Santorum have been put on the spot by Obama when the ruling came down forcing religion to pay insurance companies to offer contraception and abortion. The issue now is why would the churches oppose these ideas, and why should all America do likewise? Thrgovernment is paying a subsidy to women who do the wrong things. That plan will get more women doing more and more wrong things. We will get more sexual promiscuity, more abortions, more Single Mothers, more criminal children raised by Single Mothers, and more expense for Welfare. The same thing always happens when the government pays for anything with a subsidy. The farmers give us so much milk, for instance, that we can neither give it away or use it. Federal funds to dairies required more funds for renting Silos, building Silos, or giving the cheese and dry milk away in intercities for free, and not knowing what to do with too much milk. Same when sex was subsidized. Welfare and crime bloomed and still does.
well. where did the Huck Show go? Sinking fast. As huck says. It's okay to have an opinion but that opinion has to be backed up by fact. (stupid statement) Fact is, nobody is watching, nobody cares, no bottom line money is being made.
