Another day, another move in the Conservative Talk syndication shuffle.
As first reported by Politco, Mike Huckabee announced today that his Cumulus Media Networks program will end on Thursday, December 14.
The Fox News host and former Arkansas Governor and Presidential candidate began syndication in the 12-3pm Eastern timeslot in April 2012. Yesterday it was announced that Westwood One was moving Dennis Miller into that slot and replacing Huckabee on KLIF Dallas and KCMO Kansas City among other stations. On Monday, Cumulus announced that Geraldo Rivera would end his syndicated show at the end of the year.
Huckabee made the following statement on his Facebook page regarding the end of the program:
The Mike Huckabee Show on radio, which was heard 3 hours a day on over 200 radio stations across the country since April of 2012 will conclude its run at the end of the final show on Thursday, December 12. This does not in any way effect The Huckabee Report, my three times daily commentary which is now heard on over 500 radio stations and continues to grow. It will remain without interruption and grow in the future. I have loved doing the Mike Huckabee Show, and it’s success of going from launch to over 200 stations in less than 2 years is significant, but the contract was at a decision point for both Cumulus Media and me, and we mutually agreed to conclude. I have opportunities in some other areas that cannot be accomplished given the 8-9 hours a day I was devoting to the daily long form show. In the original development of the show, I set out to develop a talk radio show that focused on civil discourse on complicated topics as well as human events and stories from the entertainment world, I feel we have done that and done it well. I am forever grateful to the really wonderful affiliates and their listeners who have been so very supportive, and to the advertisers who entrusted me with their brands and products. I look forward to doing some Town Hall events in conjunction with Cumulus Media in 2014 as well as continuing with the Huckabee Report. As for the new endeavors, at this time, it would best for me to say, “Stay tuned!”
Could Mike Huckabee resurface as morning-drive host on all of Clear Channel’s talk stations, displacing dozens of local morning shows, perhaps based at WOR-710 in New York (who will soon need a morning show themselves)??
It would be logical for Huckabee and CC, but it also would put dozens of local CC employees out of work and result in most CC talk stations losing their remaining local weekday programming.
You’re forgetting that Huckabee is still contracted to Cumulus for his thrice-daily commentaries (he was Citadel’s de facto replacement for Paul Harvey) which he stated as enjoying in the above statement and that it would continue without interruption.
As for Clear Channel, there is no way that they would be that dumb.
Well, yes, Clear Channel could be that dumb – or more specifically, short-shortsightedly greedy. I think they would be very happy to replace all, many or most of their local morning-drive hosts with a syndicated show if they could find talent who could pull it off. Cumulus has Imus and he’s over the hill any way. Howard shows no sign of being interested in coming back to terrestrial radio. None of the current local hosts seems hot enough to make the jump to national distribution. And Huckabee wasn’t up to midday, so he’s not ready for prime time (aka morning drive).
By killing off radio’s farm system, Clear Channel destroyed the source of future radio superstars who could carry morning drive in syndication.