FNC/Cumulus
FROM JERRY DEL COLLIANO'S INSIDE MUSIC MEDIA:
Finally, a high profile radio personality stands up to the Dickeys.
Sean Hannity, the popular conservative radio and TV talk show host, turns down a recent Cumulus offer to renew his contract to continue aitring his show on 40 of their stations.
And now Lew "Trickey" Dickey has apparently seized the low road again.
He allowed Michael "I hope you get AIDS and die, you pig" Savage to go on Cumulus stations and predict that he - the 71-year-old talker - will replace Hannity in afternoon drive. All the gory details were covered in a Mediaite article along with potentially disparaging comments that the Dickeys are prevented from personally making due to current contract stipulations.
Savage is their apparent surrogate.
Sources close to the situation who wish to remain anonymous in my witness protection program say it's the other way around.
I have known for weeks that the opposite is true.
Cumulus tried as recently as the past few weeks to re-up the show but it was Hannity who rejected it.
And you know what happens when you reject a Dickey.
Hannity and his syndicator Clear Channel-owned Premiere asked Cumulus for a release so they can negotiate a new deal but to date Cumulus has failed to respond.
By contract, Hannity can't renew his syndication deal with Clear Channel until late October even though Cumulus know that renewel will completed in a New York minute.
It's Mister Mean Genes at work again.
And speaking of New York, Hannity and Rush Limbaugh will leave Cumulus-owned WABC for Clear Channel's WOR January 1, thus eviscerating whatever ratings WABC had left.
My prediction?
If Savage replaces Hannity on WABC, Savage will be number one in angry men, 70 years old and older.
Savage likely can taste afternoon drive so there are those who think he's willing to carry Dickey's water.
Meanwhile, sources close to Hannity say he has had enough of Cumulus.
These sources quote Hannity as saying "The Dickeys are the single worst operators in the history of radio. They have destroyed legendary stations like KGO and KSFO. They are currently in the process of destroying WLS, WABC, WJR, WBAP and WMAL."
hannity was overheard in private discussions as describing WABC as "a ghost town as the Dickeys have fired the program director, the general manager. There's no personalities and the once vibrant radio station has become a ghost town so the Dickeys can line their pockets."
Something fishy is happening.
Lew Dickey famously stood before investment analysts to blame his company's decline in revenue on Rush Limbaugh's Sandra Fluke controversy. He also criticized talk radio as appealing to increasingly older demographics.
So what did Dickey do?
He puts a 71-year-old angry man who some advertisers think is unsellable on the air in prime time.
For a guy who hates the talk format because it's too old, Lew Dickey is sure putting a lot of old people on the air. Hey, Geraldo is 70 even if he insists 70 is the new 50, which he did recently in a tweet.
It's like Dickey knows he's taking down talk and getting the willful cooperation of surrogates to trash it.
Now, it's personal.
Hannity rebuffed Dickey.
Dickey turned the hounds loose to besmirch his reputation.
And Hannity appears willing to wage war if necessary but he's not going to work for the Dickeys no matter what they try to say about him.
Rush Limbaugh, on the other hand, wants to stay with Cumulus at his own peril.
My prediction?
Next time Rush gets his ass caught in a ringer again like he did with Sandra Fluke, the left will have him for dinner and Cumulus will be the first to kick him in the nuts publicly.
It was only months ago that Rush and Lew were having a public pissing match and now Limbaugh wants to keep working for these people.
it gets uglier for Dickey.
Clear Channel is 100% behind Hannity and will replace 80% of the Cumulus stations as soon as the current deal is up.
They will renew Hannity for a multi-year extension so he can stay on the more than 500 radio stations that now carry the show through Premiere.
Hannity represented close to $20 million in revenue annually to Cumulus. If analysts believe, as Dickey told them a few weeks ago, that the company only has one code-red (underperforming) station left in the top 10 markets, then without the Hannity billing, they're all headed back to "code-red" status after January.
Hannity apparently believes, as I have stated many times here, that Cumulus is not long for the talk format.
When you take talk off FM and relegate it to AM, as Cumulus did in Birmingham recently to put their second sports station on in the market with no major sports teams, it speaks volumes.
Hannity is in better shape than Cumulus.
He's got a new Clear Channel deal coming.
His stations are profitable.
His ratings were higher than Limbaugh's on Cumulus stations.
And he's made it known that the company treats its employees 'like dirt, shit, sub-human" according to sources who know Hannity.
Savage is probably toast on the 4 Clear Channel stations that run his Cumulus show once the contract is up so he's marrying Lew Dickey and you know what happens when Lew gets to the altar.
He leaves you there.
This may sound like a food fight to insiders, but there is more at stake.
Much more.
This self-inflicted wound is a public relations nightmare for Cumulus, a company trying to sell itself to investment banks and venture money as a legitimate company trying to raise $4-5 billion to buy CBS Radio next year.
It's one thing when we in the industry know about mean genes.
It's quite another when the coming public war between a popular personality and an unpopular radio CEO threatens the lifeline Cumulus needs to survive.
Without a debt-free acquisition like CBS Radio in which Cumulus can bury its significant debt, it's all over.
And as I will be reporting in the coming weeks, Cumulus is reportedly not making debt payments on its loans.
Therfore, by trashing their most popular talk personality, Cumulus is in the uneviable position of shining light on its Achilles heel:
Cumulus is not fit to raise money to buy CBS Radio let alone actually operate it.