Cumulus to drop Limbaugh, Hannity?

[Oak Hills]

Well, I'd heard that Premiere was thinking about pulling those two off of Cumulus stations, but I was never expecting Cumulus to drop them on its own. This could be an interesting problem for the two, as there are some markets where the only talk station with decent signal coverage over the area is a Cumulus station, and I live in one of them (Knoxville). WOKI-FM in Knoxville carries Limbaugh noon to three, then local host Phil Williams three to six, then Hannity on tape-delay six to nine, and then Levin on tape-delay nine to midnight. If this happens, Limbaugh will certainly be replaced with Huckabee, whose show airs in the same day part, and Hannity will likely be replaced by a live airing of Levin, whose nine-midnight tape-delayed broadcast will likely be replaced by Savage’s live broadcast, as his show is not now cleared in the market. That would probably leave Limbaugh replacing Dave Ramsey noon to three on WKVL-AM, which despite its 50 kW daytime signal, I can barely pick up and I’m not that far away! It then airs a popular local sports show three to six, which likely leave Hannity six to nine on the station, replacing Jerry Doyle. There is one problem though, WKVL is a daytimer, so it has to sign off at nightfall, which is before six o’clock in parts of the winter. This should be quite interesting.
Even more interesting, in Chicago the No. 3 market, Rush and Sean are on Cumulus station WLS-AM, and the only other major talk stations are Tribune’s WGN-AM, which makes more money airing local shows all day and will not pick up these shows, as they would actually hurt its business, and WVON-AM, which, though Clear Channel-owned, is targeted primarily at the African-American community, and would not benefit from the shows either. That would leave Clear Channel needing to blow up a music format or put them on a station with a bad signal, neither of which are desirable to them.