Cumulus Radio Wages War on Conservatives

In the American Spectator Tuesday, Jeffrey Lord exposes Cumulus Media owners Lew and John Dickey for their dishonest corporatist ways. While Cumulus made noise about how Hannity was dragging the stations down, as we reported yesterday, the actual numbers show the complete opposite: Cumulus is dragging Hannity down — which is why Hannity fired them.

Lord also reminds his readers that in an obvious swipe at conservative talkers and listeners, Cumulus came up with the slogan, “More Conversation, Less Controversy”… and then hired 72-year-old flamethrower Michael Savage to replace the two-decade younger Hannity in order to improve the 25-54 demo:

It would appear the Dickeys are either the most cynical radio station operators in the business — or the dumbest. Hannity will be gone from 30-very-replaceable Cumulus stations that in fact are not a big part of his audience. Meanwhile the Team of Dickey, Dickey and Savage will make “radio history” — Savage’s words — without doubt. Although one can be reasonably sure that “radio history” will not be the way it was.

As one radio source (who does not have a talk show) told me months ago, the Dickey aim is to own all of radio. At this moment they are trying to buy CBS Radio, thereby combining, in the memorable words of Inside Music Media’s Jerry Del Colliano, “the worst radio company with the best.” Hint: “the worst” does not refer to CBS.

The Dickeys are, in the thoughts of the above-mentioned source, a one-trick pony. They buy a station or stations, then immediately set about cutting costs — firing popular (read: expensive) hosts and good staff, regardless of whether it wrecks popular formats and angers the audience. This has been, says the source, their operating modus operandi wherever they go. The only difference with conservative talk radio is that the hosts and the format are so visible on the national level.

This has made the Dickeys, naturally and obviously, wildly unpopular with radio professionals from one end of the country to the other, as witness the “worst radio company” comment above from Del Colliano.

Lord goes on to point out that, in their cheap dealings and dishonest spin, the Dickeys have tried (and failed) to serve Hannity’s head up to the left on a silver platter:

What kind of fire have the Dickeys been playing with?

Google “Hannity fired” and one finds…ready?… 2,460,000 results from desperate — and I do mean desperate — Hannity-hating liberals.

Over there at Media Matters they’ve run 15 Hannity-hating stories in the last 28 days alone. Say again….15 stories in 28 days. Media Matters has become so obsessed with Hannity they make the word “fanatical” into an understatement.