BrietbartNews.com reported late yesterday (9/26) that Westwood One syndicated talker Michael Savage was “abruptly pulled off the air on Monday afternoon after launching into a segment on Hillary Clinton’s delicate health.” The report goes on to say that WABC/New York — Savage’s Cumulus Media-owned local affiliate in the Big Apple — pulled The Savage Nation from it’s usual afternoon time slot, with longtime WABC local duo Curtis & Kuby taking over live as the presidential debate action at nearby Hofstra University was kicking into high gear.
The Breitbart story also reported that Savage’s live network feed was “suddenly cut off to many of his other affiliates and a replay of an earlier episode was substituted.” Breitbart reporter Aaron Klein said Savage characterized the alleged pulling of his broadcast as, “Pure sabotage.” We’d call that a pretty serious accusation by a host aimed at his network, so that’s why NTS MediaOnline Today reached out to Bart Tessler, longtime EVP News & Talk Programming for Westwood One, who gave us the not-quite-so-sensational real story behind the whole brouhaha with this simple clarification. “WABC decided to go local during afternoon drive yesterday to cover the presidential debate at Hofstra, a local as well as a national story. Affiliates are permitted to pre-empt programming on certain occasions when there’s a big local story. That’s the whole deal. All other affiliates carried The Savage Nation yesterday as usual.”
Not surprising, as Savage is known to be a loose cannon similar to Trump!
If that’s the excuse Westwood One is giving to cover for the real reason they yanked Savage off the air abruptly during his talk about Hillary’s health issues, I wonder if they’d be interested in buying the Brooklyn Bridge? That’s how naive its spokesman has to be to think we’re going to believe the snake oil he’s trying to sell to us.
I can understand one local radio station pre-empting a network show to cover an event that is happening locally; what is unexplained is why the NETWORK cancelled the live show in order to rebroadcast an older show.
This is not over. Savage likes to sue his networks to get out of contracts. I predict a big lawsuit over this one.
Then he’ll probably go to a streaming Internet model such as what broadcasters Alex Jones and Jeff Rense had to do – both of whom are now prospering without the censorship that they both encountered on terrestrial radio.
Sounded like he was more agitated about Sliwa taunting him on the air. Funny he was calling the two hosts an ex-McDonalds manager and a failed lawyer who worked for the radical william kunstler.