Boston Herald Reports Imus A Short-timer on 969 FM Talk

[Scott Fybush]

At 01:15 PM 9/12/2005 -0400, David Tomm wrote:
>If he gets dropped by WTKK, who would pick him up?  WZLX? They just got a 
>new local morning show.  WROR?  Loren & Wally have that station 
>covered.  WODS?  Replacing Uncle Dale?  Highly unlikely.  WKLB?  Why would 
>Greater Media move him there if his political show isn't working on their 
>talk station?  Same thing goes for WBOS.  WXRV couldn't run him because 
>technically they are part of the Portsmouth/Dover/Rochester market and 
>WQSO/Rochester is the Imus affiliate there.  I suppose WRKO would be a 
>possibility, but I doubt that they would want to go syndicated in that 
>slot and besides, I thought the new PD there was going to try to infuse 
>more attitude into the station?  Adding Imus won't accomplish 
>that.   There's a reason that WTKK played hardball with Imus to get him to 
>come to the "Kiss Me I'm Imus"  event last March.  They know the show 
>won't get picked up locally if WTKK drops him and Westwood One knows it 
>too.  Boston is an important market for the I-man.  If he loses Boston, 
>other markets may follow and syndication would be just about dead.

It just about is already. Imus never had the national reach that Stern does 
(at least for a few months more). He's had a fairly consistent run in 
Washington, albeit on some lesser-signalled stations (currently 570 and 
1260), but he's lost a lot of other markets over the years. He's not on in 
Los Angeles, for instance (so far as I can tell), or in Chicago, and his 
Philadelphia affiliate is a daytimer on 860 with no pre-sunrise authority, 
so in the winter they can't even sign on until 7:15 or 7:30. Here in 
Rochester, he's been off for years, ever since Westwood One tried to raise 
the fees they wanted to charge WHTK and were sent packing.

Imus is a specialty product. Outside NYC, he doesn't draw huge ratings, but 
he still draws a very desirable demographic of political and business 
insiders in places like Boston and DC. If I were running WBIX or WBNW and 
if I thought I could afford WW1's rates, I'd be thinking about Imus as a 
morning possibility if WTKK in fact drops him.

OTOH, if I were WTKK I wouldn't be so quick to drop him. At the very least, 
I'd be curious to see if Stern's departure to Sirius in a few months brings 
any bounce to Imus' numbers. It's not like anything better's waiting in the 
wings, right?

s