Radio Program Cancellations

Video killed the radio star -- or at least his cable TV show. NBC's decision Wednesday to cancel its simulcast of Don Imus' morning radio show is the latest development in an escalating furor that might have burned out by now, if not for the television and Internet clips that blasted Imus' comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team well beyond the hot-air belt of talk radio.

It took Don Imus decades to get to the pinnacle of the radio world, and about a second to utter the five syllables that would ruin him. After an eight-day media drumbeat and unrelenting pressure from activists, advertisers, a member of CBS Corp.'s own board of directors and its staff, CBS Corp. announced on Thursday afternoon that the "Imus in the Morning" radio program would cease to be broadcast "effective immediately, on a permanent basis." His MSNBC TV simulcast was canceled the day before.

They came by the hundreds that hot August day in tiny Johnson City, Tenn., gathering on an asphalt parking lot to meet Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. It was not just that he might become the state's first black senator. More than that, even in Republican eastern Tennessee, the Democratic congressman was a celebrity -- a regular guest on Don Imus' radio show.

KCAA-AM (1050) in San Bernardino used to be the only station in Southern California that aired Don Imus' morning radio program. Next week, it may be the only one in the nation. In the wake of CBS' dismissal of the shock jock for what has been criticized as a racist and sexist remark, officials with the small, 1,400-watt station said they would kick off an ongoing "Best of Imus" series next week -- beginning with the program that has destroyed the 40-year radio veteran's career.

In the last 18 months, CBS Radio has lost two of the most influential, provocative and lucrative talk show hosts in radio history. And with them, loads of money and profit. First, Howard Stern defected to satellite radio in December 2005. The shock jock's departure cost CBS an estimated $100 million in annual revenue and was a major reason behind the company's 7% drop in sales in 2006.

One month after CBS Radio fired radio host Don Imus, it has permanently pulled the plug on a pair of suspended New York shock jocks for a prank phone call rife with offensive Asian stereotypes. "The Dog House With JV and Elvis," hosted by Jeff Vandergrift and Dan Lay, "will no longer be broadcast," CBS Radio spokeswoman Karen Mateo said.

Popular cable TV host Bill O'Reilly will step down as the host of his syndicated talk radio show early next year, saying he can "no longer give both TV and radio the time they deserve." "The Radio Factor" -- which began in 2002 and runs on more than 400 radio stations, as well as satellite operator Sirius XM Radio Inc. -- will end in the first quarter of 2009, Fox News Channel said. Locally, the show airs weekdays 9-11 a.m. on KABC-AM (790). O'Reilly will continue hosting "The O'Reilly Factor" on the Fox News Channel and writing his weekly newspaper column.

In a cost-saving move, National Public Radio said Wednesday it was canceling its midday newsmagazine "Day to Day," the marquee show of the network's NPR West production facility in Culver City. Hamstrung by a souring economy and the resulting precipitous drop in corporate underwriting, NPR's second-largest source of income, the network also plans to cut its workforce by 7% and trim other expenses. The cuts mean layoffs for 64 of NPR's staff of 889 and the elimination of 21 positions that were vacant.

Dan Rather's daily CBS radio broadcast is off the air where he grew up. Houston CBS radio affiliate KPRC hasn't been running it for the last couple of weeks in reaction to his "60 Minutes" report questioning President Bush's National Guard service. "I felt no anchor ... should ever be the story or bigger than the story," Ken Charles, program director of the news-talk station, said Monday. "I thought it was appropriate to take him off the air."