So from where I sit, I could see either Philly's WNTP or the new 106.9 being the Philly market station for the new Mike Huckabee Show.
Unfortunately, for Huckabee fans, neither of these two stations will likely carry his show.
WNTP is owned by Salem, and carries the talk shows from Salem's own network. It also provides clearance in the Philadelphia market for ads that network sells. While it is still possible that Huckabee's syndicator, Cumulus, could pay Salem to carry the show, and move one of its own shows to a different time, that isn't likely. The station's really low cume isn't attractive and wouldn't add much to Huckabee's national audience.
As far as the new Merlin news station on 106.9, the one thing you can take to the bank is that there is NO WAY that Huckabee's show would wind up there now.
The last thing Merlin wants for its new FM is an old white male audience, which is what Conservative talk mainly attracts.
In other cities, Merlin has attempted to attract a young female audience, because they are most attractive to advertisers because they control the biggest chunk of consumer spending. And it is still targeting young adults who may never listen to AM, and probably care very little about their father's kind of talk radio.
Merlin is going all news because it is a foreground format, where listeners pay closer attention than to music stations, and because you can stuff more commercials in an all news format. The last thing it would want to do is take a syndicated network talk show where it is limited to network spot breaks and have to give spots to the network. It also wouldn't want to break the format where it offers traffic and weather every 10-minutes 24/7.
While all news is expensive to do, Merlin has the bucks thanks to backing by a deep pocketed private investment firm from Chicago. It also fills a lot of air time with traffic, weather, and network news items.
These are just a few of the many reasons Huckabee ain't going there. More likely is that CBS starts to worry about backlash from the Limbaugh situation if the advertiser boycotts continue and doesn't renew Rush on WPHT when the contract comes around. That could be where Huckabee winds up in Philly if he proves himself in other markets first.
