Talk Radio on WABC Shifts Focus to the Local

WABC-AM (770), which is owned by Cumulus Media, will introduce a new lineup on Thursday that emphasizes live and local programming, as its two most popular hosts, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, move to a rival station, WOR-AM (710).

Weekday programming at WABC will include the return of Curtis Sliwa’s and Ron Kuby’s show, “Curtis and Kuby,” from noon to 3 p.m., after an absence of more than six years, and, starting Monday, a one-hour program at 5 p.m. with Pat Kiernan, the NY1 television anchor.

Geraldo Rivera, who joined WABC in early 2012, will turn his focus to New York news in a two-hour live show at 10 a.m., as Cumulus announced in November. Michael Savage’s syndicated program, which has been heard in the evenings, will now run from 3 to 5 p.m. “Imus in the Morning,” with Don Imus, will continue from 6 to 10 a.m.

“We’re delivering on our pledge to invest in localized content that will entertain, inform and engage listeners while also providing advertisers unique opportunities to reach their customers on a sustained basis,” John Dickey, Cumulus’s co-chief operating officer, said in a statement.

The changes come as Cumulus tries to build its programming chest to compete against Clear Channel, whose 850 stations include WOR. Once a small player in the radio industry, Cumulus expanded greatly in 2011 when it bought Citadel Broadcasting for $2.5 billion, and it now operates about 460 stations.

Mr. Limbaugh and Mr. Hannity, whose shows are syndicated to hundreds of stations by Clear Channel’s Premiere Networks division, are by far the country’s most popular talk hosts, and their combined presence helped make WABC the dominant talk outlet in New York. Talkers, a trade magazine, estimates that Mr. Limbaugh reaches more than 14 million listeners each week and Mr. Hannity 13.25 million.

Last year, however, Cumulus executives said millions of dollars were lost after advertisers withdrew from the shows, largely in response to Mr. Limbaugh’s ridicule of Sandra Fluke, an advocate of insurance coverage for birth control.

Mr. Limbaugh’s and Mr. Hannity’s shows left WABC at the end of 2013 as a result of complex negotiations between Cumulus and Clear Channel. Mr. Hannity’s show was dropped from dozens of Cumulus stations, while the syndication contract for Mr. Limbaugh was renewed at most stations, but discontinued at WABC. In New York, their shows are now heard on WOR.

“Curtis and Kuby,” which ran on WABC from 2000 to late 2007, will now compete against Mr. Limbaugh, and Mr. Savage’s show will be up against Mr. Hannity.

While none of the new figures on WABC have followings on the scale of WOR’s syndicated hosts, Cumulus is betting on the appeal of locally focused content to draw New York listeners.

Mr. Kiernan, who is on NY1 each weekday morning, said his show, which will include a co-host who has not been named, would be a recap of the major news and pop culture events of the day. He also emphasized the importance of local programming on the radio, as stations compete not only against one another but also against an ocean of media online.

“In an era when listeners can go off in so many different directions,” Mr. Kiernan said, “local is something you can’t take away from people.”

Media Decoder: Apple Is Said to Be Pressing to Complete Deals for Internet Radio

After months of stalled negotiations over its planned Internet radio service, Apple is pushing to complete licensing deals with music companies so it can reveal the service as early as next week, according to people briefed on the talks.

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Apple’s service, a Pandora-like feature that would tailor streams of music to each user’s taste, has been planned since at least last summer. But Apple has made little progress with record labels and music publishers, which have been seeking higher royalty rates and guaranteed minimum payments, according to these people, who spoke anonymously about the private talks.

While it is still at odds with some music companies over deal terms, Apple is said to be eager to get the licenses in time to unveil the service — nicknamed iRadio by the technology press — at its annual developers conference, which begins June 10 in San Francisco.

Apple has signed a deal with the Universal Music Group for its recorded music rights, but not for music publishing — the part of the business that deals with songwriting. Over the weekend, Apple also signed a deal with the Warner Music Group for both rights. It is still in talks with Sony Music Entertainment and Sony’s separate publishing arm, Sony/ATV, whose songwriters include Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga.

Representatives for Apple and the music companies declined to comment.

Apple’s Internet radio feature is expected to be free and supported by advertising, and would represent a relatively late arrival by the company into what has become a fast-growing — if low-margin — sector of the music business. Pandora has more than 70 million regular users, the vast majority of whom do not pay, and similar features have been introduced by Google, Spotify and the radio company Clear Channel Communications.

The licensing fees paid by Pandora have been a sore spot for music companies, which see promise in Apple’s service, particularly since it can be linked to sales through Apple’s iTunes store, but want higher rates. Publishers, for instance, are paid about 4 percent of Pandora’s revenue, but want as much as 10 percent from Apple.

Apple is said to be negotiating directly with the music groups because it wants more extensive licensing terms.