THERE WAS NO BOSS AT CBS RADIO--REAL REASON IMUS IS GONE

"Mr. Imus's problems were compounded by a power vacuum at CBS Radio, which produced his show. Two weeks earlier, CEO Joel Hollander, a longtime supporter of Mr. Imus and his various charities, had resigned. The company had been underperforming lately and was still reeling from the loss of shock-jock Howard Stern to satellite radio. Mr. Hollander's successor, Mr. Mason, wasn't due to start until April 16. He consulted with CBS executives by phone and email from his home outside Washington, D.C."

• I find this the single reason Imus is off radio--not phony "Reverends" or anything else. The boss had resigned 2 weeks ago and a new one won't start til 4/16/07. There was no one there to take charge of all the emails by various types.

Item from The Wall Street Journal, 4/13/07 "Behind the Fall of Imus, a Digital Brushfire"

• An ironic twist, from Mediaweek report:

"(Les) Moonves and (Joel) Hollander clashed over several major decisions,

• particularly Moonves' decision to keep Stern on the air for the ad dollars at the expense of the on-air product. Stern was responsible for about $100 million of CBS' radio revenue.

In the end, CBS ended up virtually supporting Stern's on-air infomercials about satellite radio, then tried to sue Stern."

• So Moonves had an extended track record of 'looking the other way' on radio host controversy if it meant big bucks. I heard Stern quite a bit during that time and though I'm a big fan of his was surprised he was kept on.

Item from Katy Bachman's Mediaweek column, 3/26/07, "CBS Names Company Veteran Mason President/CEO"

• MLB, Inc. itself is responsible for significant loss of revenue at CBS stations:

I was shocked on first hearing that "Bud" Selig sold rights to XM to carry all MLB games WITHOUT ADVISING OR SEEKING PERMISSION FROM LOCAL RADIO STATIONS CONTRACTED TO CARRY GAMES.

• Local stations had paid money for geographic rights to games the value of which instantly dropped. ADVERTISERS PAID A PREMIUM TO LOCAL STATIONS TO RUN THEIR ADS. All of a sudden, the reason to spend this extra money vanished into thin air (or into MLB owners' pockets). In the New York area alone, this loss affected 2 CBS radio stations, WFAN and WCBS.

*Add to that the fact that a local station isn't allowed to stream its MLB games, advantage MLB and XM. Then there's the fact that internet listening isn't always allowed to be credited to the local station. At least some of CBS Radio's 'woes' can be attributed to these problems.

• ***P.S. Regarding "big-time advertisers" dropping out, first P&G drops out of everything--they long ago allowed themselves to be intimidated by social interest groups. 2nd, you don't know exactly who else supposedly dropped out or who dropped out for the opposite reason (as Chris Russo maintained)--some advertisers quit IN SUPPORT of Imus.

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