Shock Radio: Rush May Drop Cumulus Affiliates

Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh insists it’s not his fault that ad revenue has dropped at his flagship WABC 770 AM  — and if his boss keeps saying it is, Rush just may pack up his megadittoes and leave all Cumulus stations, according to the NY Daily News and other sources.

If Limbaugh were to leave Cumulus, the move would affect some 36 markets. In addition to WABC, Cumulus also carries Limbaugh on other major market stations including 890 WLS Chicago, 820/96.7 WBAP Dallas, 630/105.9 WMAL Washington, and 760 WJR Detroit. Others include, but not limited to: WPRO 630-AM in Providence, WXLM 980-AM in Groton, Connecticut, WSBA 910-AM in York, Pennsylvania.

In New York, that would very likely take him to Clear Channel’s WOR 710 AM, which would create the biggest shakeup in city talk radio since WOR scooped up Bob Grant after WABC fired him in 1995.

Limbaugh’s contract with WABC expires at the end of the year.

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.

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

The roots of this simmering dispute go back to February, 2012, when Limbaugh called law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” after she pressed D.C. lawmakers to mandate insurance coverage of birth control.

Media Matters and other progressive groups called for advertisers to drop Limbaugh’s show. 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 2012 and “a couple of million” in the second quarter.  He said last May he hoped the problem would disappear. But it hasn’t, he said.

Nonsense, said the source close to the Limbaugh show: “Rush Limbaugh's ratings have outperformed every other program on WABC and many other Cumulus stations for years.”

Limbaugh began his national career on WABC in 1988, and his show is widely credited with launching the modern surge of talk radio into a major political force.

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Tom’s Take: Is the brouhaha the cover for moving Rush to WOR?  Also, this flap blows-up just one day ahead of Cumulus earnings call Tuesday.