With Sean Hannity set to depart all Cumulus owned stations at the end of the year and Michael Savage moving into afternoon drive on most of their Conservative Talk stations, will Cumulus pull the plug on Hannity early?
After wiping Hannity’s name off their station sites earlier this month, a few of Cumulus’ stations are now showing Savage in the 3-6pm eastern timeslot. The station sites include those of 770 WABC New York, 820 WBAP Dallas, 710/103.7 KCMO Kansas City, and 1440 WLWI Montgomery. Other stations like 630/105.9 WMAL Washington continue to show “WMAL Talk” in the daypart on their schedule. WBAP’s bio of Savage was posted on their website at 2:26pm this afternoon.
New York and Dallas are the two markets where Clear Channel has already lined up a new affiliate for Hannity with their own 710 WOR New York and Salem’s “660 The Answer” KSKY Dallas are preparing to pick up his show as of January 1.
We’ve heard from one of our trusted sources that Cumulus could sever its airing of Sean Hannity before the January 1 switchover in order to give Savage a boost while Clear Channel is still negotiating affiliation deals for Hannity in many of the markets where Cumulus will drop his show.