If reports were correct, it is good bye to Sean Hannity on Cumulus Media stations. But in the case of reports about Rush Limbaugh being dropped by Cumulus, it turned out that in this particular instance “Rush is right” turned out to be correct – and reports suggesting he might be leaving the media giant are wrong. He’ll be sticking around for a while — three more years:
Rush Limbaugh has signed a new three-year deal with Cumulus, he revealed Friday.
The news confirmed recent reports last week that he would not be getting dropped by the radio network. The announcement came after weeks of speculation that Cumulus was prepared to walk away over the high cost of distributing his show.
“There will not be any changes,” Limbaugh told listeners on Friday. The only exception is that he is leaving WABC in New York City for WOR.
He said that the negotiations wrapped up very recently, and insisted that the show was “never going to change.” The tense talks lasted for weeks and Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey’s criticism of the cost of Limbaugh’s Sandra Fluke attacks spurred rumors about Limbaugh’s fate after his contract expires at the end of the year.
Meanwhile, all signs point to Hannity finding radio work outside Cumulus stations — most likely going head to head with his likely replacement, conservative talker Michael Savage.
The Hollywood Reporter:
A month ago you couldn’t turn on the drive-by media without reading that I was finished,” the conservative talk show host tells his audience on Friday.
Rush Limbaugh has struck a new deal that will keep him, for the next three years, on all the Cumulus Media stations currently carrying him except for WABC in New York, the radio star announced Friday on his show. In that market, his show will move to WOR, a station owned by Clear Channel, the parent of Premiere Networks, which syndicates Limbaugh’s show.
Rush Limbaugh Accuses Obama of Promoting Boycotts Aimed at Conservative Media
Limbaugh took the opportunity to celebrate media speculation — now proven wrong — that Cumulus was dumping him and any new arrangement would result in him losing markets.The conservative host noted that President Barack Obama on CNN Friday morning blamed Limbaugh for gridlock, and Limbaugh joked he had “whiplash” from going from irrelevant to relevant so quickly.
“You were reading that it was over for me. That I was bad news for broadcast stations,” Limbaugh said Friday. “In this interview today, Obama blamed me. After a month of being irrelevant, after a month of being almost over, after a month of being a has-been … a month ago you couldn’t turn on the drive-by media without reading that I was finished.”
The host thanked his audience for their loyalty to his sponsors, and reminisced about the early days of his show, saying that the media has never understood how it became popular.
So do a lot of centrists, moderates, independent voters and solution seeking Republicans as well.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.