By RODNEY HO/ rho@ajc.com, originally filed March 22, 2012
Now that Q100 has dumped the syndicated night show of Billy Bush, Star 94 has quickly scooped him up.
They placed the "Access Hollywood" host from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. this week, slicing two hours from Tim Orff, who had been doing 7 p.m. to midnight but is now handling 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Star 94 program director Scott Lindy said the versatile Orff (last heard on Dave FM) will come in earlier and work on other things for him.
Q100’s decision to drop Bush wasn’t a local one. It was a system-wide decision made by Atlanta-based Cumulus Media.
Bush is part of Dial Global, a company which syndicates a wide variety of talk and music shows including Neal Boortz, Clark Howard, "Loveline" with Drew Pinsky and Rick Dees' Weekly Top 40.
Lindy hopes to utilize Bush for station events such as Starfest or Jingle Jam, perhaps having Bush send out “Access” cameras to the events if Star gets big enough stars. Or if they could get Bush to come to Atlanta to host an event or two. And the station could get him on the phone to talk about pop culture events of the day and promote “Access.” l
In related news, 790/The Zone has signed on to Dial Global’s access to the NFL (including the Super Bowl), the NCAA (including March Madness) and the Olympics from 680/The Fan, which is owned by Dickey Broadcasting. Dickey Broadcasting is separate from Cumulus Media but there is some common owners.
This Radio Business Report story explains the inside-baseball tensions between Cumulus and Dial Global that led to the Bush break-up.
- In other inside radio type news, Rock 100.5's The Regular Guys got a little slap on the wrist from Arbitron for soliciting Arbitron people meter users in a Tweet. ("If you have Arbitron PPM, make sure to tune in to TRG (The Regular Guys), 6-10a, Rock 100.5 ATL Thx." ) Arbitron doesn't like such obvious references to its users who measure radio ratings. Arbitron did not penalize Rock 100.5 but simply made it known to the public that it's watching social media.
The show itself is no longer drawing the numbers it used to. In February, the Regular Guys ranked 16th among 25 to 54 year olds and 12th among 18 to 34 year olds.
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