Limbaugh re-ups with Cumulus

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7. HOWEVER, Limbaugh will lose his New York City-based flagship station 77 WABC. HUGE.

According to All Access, Limbaugh will move to the lower-rated 710 WOR in NYC effective 1/1/2014. It quotes Rush: " The only change that's going to happen is that on JANUARY 1st we are going to leave WABC and move to WOR in NEW YORK. My syndication partner is CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, and they own WOR, and so we're gonna go to our own radio station in NEW YORK. And this has been mutually agreed to."

The assumption here is that WABC will replace Limbaugh with the Cumulus-distributed host Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas whose show competes in the same time slot with Rush. The symbolism here is that Rush isn't on the station where he began his national radio career; after a few years as a local host on KFBK Sacramento Rush moved to New York to do a show with ABC Radio Networks out of WABC.

Sean Hannity, who did his radio show out of WABC studios for nearly a decade and a few more years, is also moving to WOR.

As I've previously posted, Cumulus stations that have Limbaugh are mostly in smaller markets like Albuquerque (KKOB), Reno (KKOH), or Little Rock (KARN). However, the news/talk Cumulus stations in these top-25 markets will still have Rush noise pollution: #3 Chicago (WLS), #5 Dallas (WBAP), #11 Detroit (WJR), and #8 Washington DC (WMAL).

Rush and his people know the markets; losing Cumulus would mean becoming outcasts because the Cumulus stations like WJR, WMAL, and WLS are the only stations in their markets where the show fits!