Media Curmudgeon

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April 12, 2007

Imus Is Fired

“Ding, dong, the witch is dead, which old witch, the wicked witch…” Yes, today, CBS fired Don Imus a day after NBC canceled his program on MSBC. The chronology of the events was interesting. NBC had less to lose in firing “Imus in the Morning,” and it was the first network to move. Also, its press release was high minded and indicated that it respected the feelings of its employees, especially its female employees. The next morning, one of the first indications that CBS might ax Imus instead of just suspending his program came from CBS Chairman Sumner Redstone, who was quoted as saying that he was sure that CEO Les Moonves “would do the right thing.”

Moonves is no dummy. He knew what his boss meant. Even though a greater percentage of CBS Radio’s revenue comes from the Imus show than MSNBC’s does, after NBC fired him, CBS would look like an idiot if it didn’t do the same, and it did. After the magnificent, heart tugging, uplifting televised press conference performance of the Rutgers women’s basketball team coach, C. Vivian Stringer, and the members of the team, Imus was toast. I have two daughters and I would have been honored to have every one of the young women on the Rutgers team as their sisters. The team captain, Essence Carson, is America’s new sweetheart and she and her team members rallied America’s women to wave the anti-Imus banner, including the women at NBC.

However, CBS blundered by indicating that CBS CEO Les Moonves met with Rev. Al Sharpton and then, later in the afternoon, he and NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker decided to fire Imus. By making the announcement after meeting with Sharpton, CBS enabled the camera-hungry demagogue. CBS made it look like it caved into his ransom demands, which will make him seem more powerful than he is—that’s a shame. Not that Sharpton didn’t have a right to be outraged, he did. But CBS should have taken a cue from NBC and said it fired Imus for its employees and integrity, not because Rev. Al asked them to. They would have been smarter (and typically cynical) to indicate that they fired Imus because its ratings-challenged, $15-million anchor Katie Couric demanded it to give her a much-needed boost. Now it looks like Moonves and Zucker did it because Sumner Redstone thought it was the right thing, not because they thought so.

Now, the big question is where does Imus go? Some people think he goes to satellite radio like Howard Stern did so he can say anything he wants. After all, Sirius Satellite Radio has no public conscience or moral standards, it’s run by CEO Mel Karmazin who loved Howard Stern when Mel was President of Infinity Radio and then CEO of CBS and who paid millions of dollars of FCC fines for Stern’s indecency but still kept him on the air. Karmazin brought Stern to Sirius. But Stern despises Imus, so the old redneck won’t go to Sirius, I’ll bet. How about XM Satellite Radio? Well, XM desperately wants the FCC to approve its proposed merger with Sirius, so it won’t slap the FCC’s face by hiring Imus. Finally, no national advertisers will follow Imus to satellite radio, even though some of his macho, racist, red-neck fans might. Who wants this high-priced trouble?

So where? He might wind up on Blogtalkradio.com or on some other Internet site—even YouTube. He belongs on the Internet with all the other right-wing (and left-wing) nuts, raunchy comedians, and porn. He presents his image as that of a cowboy. Well then, he belongs on the wild, free-wheeling, unpoliced frontier of the Web. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I fired Imus when I was general manager of WNBC-AM in 1977. Wouldn’t it be ironic if two old has-beens like us wound up on Blogtalkradio.com doing programs? I’m sure he’d get a much bigger audience than I ever will.

Who will replace Imus? If I were the head of programming for MSNBC, I’d make a deal with WFAN and CBS Radio to put Keith Olbermann in the time slot. Olbermann is almost twenty years younger than Imus, much smarter, and has an encyclopedic knowledge and love of sports, especially baseball. His blog today on MSNBC is about baseball, not politics, which he usually covers in his MSBNC prime-time program “Countdown.” Therefore, he would fit in perfectly with the WFAN-AM all-sports format. Olbermann would have to stop doing his one-hour stint every weekday on the ESPN Radio’s “The Dan Patrick Show,” which airs in New York on 1050, ESPAN Radio and is the best talk programming hour on radio—it’s that good.

Imus simulcast his morning program from MSNBC studios. Olbermann could do that and make the last hour the “The Countdown,” which would be replayed at 8:00 p.m.--hard but not impossible. It would be tough on Olbermann, too, but if he were given the same $10 million a year was making, he might be persuaded.

Posted by Charles Warner at April 12, 2007 11:54 PM

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