News. It would be nice to see them go news from 5a to 8pm and tape delay huckabee.
I don't see that happening. Cumulus has boasted that Huckabee is going to knock off Rush Limbaugh. Of course, it seems that they were counting on help from Media Matter's boycott campaign as a means of signing up stations. But the boasts are still out there and, presumably, they are still trying to attract more affiliates beyond just the Cumulus owned stations such as WBAP where Cumulus is rumored to want to drop Limbaugh in favor of Huckabee when their contract with him expires. (And, if Cumulus decides it is not in their best interests to kill off stations such as WBAP by doing so, my hunch is that Rush/Premiere will initiate the pull from such stations and take Hannity with them.)
How would Cumulus' boasts about the Huckabee program look to prospective affiliates if Cumulus just relegates it to a tape delay verses going head to head with Rush? Would that not imply that KLIF/Cumulus does not regard the show as being competitive with Rush in that time slot? Would it not imply that the only way the show can be a money maker for them would be to place it opposite lower rated programs in different time slots? If Cumulus is not willing to put its money where its mouth is - why should prospective affiliates?
Indeed, for the above reasons, it surprised me that KLIF did not carry all hours of the Huckabee program from the get-go. I am not sure if Cumulus dropped Ramsey or if it was the other way around. But it wouldn't surprise me that, if he were dropped, the reason was to make room for the extra hour of Huckabee. My strong guess is that Cumulus places far more importance on the Huckabee show than it does with the performance of KLIF. The big test is whether they will be willing to sacrifice successful former ABC/Citadel stations such as WBAP. But, as I mentioned above parenthetically, Cumulus might not be given a choice in the matter. #
CumulusFail
