At the beginning of 2014, Clear Channel moved Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to their then Liberal Talk stations in Los Angeles and San Francisco and rebranded them as Conservative Talk “The Patriot“.
The San Francisco version won’t make it past nine months. Cumulus Media has announced that the trio of shows will move from “960 The Patriot” KNEW San Francisco to their 560 KSFO on Monday, September 29. KSFO was Limbaugh’s longtime affiliate in San Francisco until Clear Channel moved him first to 910 in January 2012 and later 960.
While Rush will stay in his live 9am-12pm timeslot replacing the exiting Spencer Hughes, both Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity will lose their live clearances with the move as they will air 9pm-12am and 6-9pm respectively on KSFO.
960 KNEW gives up on Conservative Talk after registering just a 0.5 share in the August 2014 Nielsen Audio PPM ratings. KSFO fared better with a 1.7 share.
What’s next for 960? Back in July, it was reported that Bloomberg was planning to launch a Business/Tech news station in San Francisco. The company currently leases 1200 WXKS Boston from Clear Channel and it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to see that partnership expand to another market.
Cumulus announces that The Rush Limbaugh Show will return to the weekday programming lineup of Hot Talk 560/KSFO-AM in San Francisco. America’s most listened-to talk radio host will be heard live on the station from 9:00 a.m. to Noon PT, beginning September 28. KSFO originally broadcast the show from 2000 through 2011. The iconic radio host, who is heard by up to 20 million people each week, was recently nominated for a 2014 NAB Marconi Radio Award for “Syndicated Personality of the Year”.
Also returning to KSFO-AM are top talk radio personalities Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. Beginning September 28, KSFO listeners will once again be able to hear The Sean Hannity Show, which will air weekdays from 6:00-9:00 p.m. PT and The Glenn Beck Program, which will air weeknights from 9:00 p.m.-Midnight PT.
KSFO-AM’s complete weekday programming schedule beginning September 28 is:
5:00a-9:00a Brian Sussman with Katie Green
9:00a-12:00N Rush Limbaugh
12:00N-3:00P Savage Nation
3:00P-6:00P Mark Levin
6:00P-9:00P Sean Hannity
9:00P-12:00M Glenn Beck
12:00M-5:00A Redeye RadioJohn Dickey, Executive Vice President of Content and Programming for Cumulus said: “KSFO is the voice of conservatism in the Bay Area. This is where Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck belong. We’re very pleased to add this trio to an already star-studded line-up that includes Brian Sussman, Michael Savage and Mark Levin.”
Kevin Metheny, Operations Manager for KSFO-AM said: “The new KSFO lineup will be like listening to the Conservative Talk All-Star Game all day, every day.”
Nathan Obral 
StogieGuy 
Dr. Akbar 
airplane777 
If there was ever a metaphor for “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” this would be it.
This not only shows the folly of launching a conservatalker in a clearly non-conservative market like San Francisco, but also on one of the poorest AM signals in the entire market. Really, what did CC think was going to happen?
And Hannity, less than a year after publicly ‘firing’ Cumulus, must be thrilled about going back to KFSO in Memorex fashion.
Talk radio audiences tend to be creatures of habit, and we’re finding that they don’t tend to follow individual hosts/shows to other signals with as much enthusiasm as radio management may think. Frankly, these moves have been somewhat foolish (by all parties involved) because they’ve spread the audience too thin between multiple stations. Returning Rush and Hannity to KSFO is probably a good move. KSFO has retained most of the conservative talk audience and they’ll probably see a little bounce by “placing all of their eggs in one basket”.
Cumulus also has to get to work returning KGO to some semblance of it’s past glory days as well.
That line-up is radio’s equivalent of a root canal. YIKES!
I am glad the Savage Nation is on KSFO, Too bad they are bringing in Sean Hannity though, the Laura Ingram show is much better and Clyde Lewis is much better than Red Eye Radio.
KSFO has already let Spencer Hughes go, and is temporarily filling his time slot with former WTAM/1100 talker Bob Frantz for the next few days.
Frantz worked as KTCT back in their “Ticket 1050” era. Metheny and Frantz worked together at Clear Channel Cleveland in two different periods. So this shouldn’t surprise anyone.