(Reuters) - Earlier this week, Cumulus Media sent out an email blast to fellow radio station owners with a photoshopped picture of former U.S. Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, promoting him as the conservative talk radio host of the future.

Though the email did not name Rush Limbaugh, the long-running, top-rated talk radio host whose program is nationally syndicated by Cumulus' rival, Clear Channel Communications, the intent was obvious to some recipients.

"They are going after Rush's affiliates," said one radio company executive who received Cumulus' email and spoke on condition of anonymity. "They are positioning Huckabee as the safe, non-dangerous alternative to Rush and saying to station owners, 'If you are looking for conservative content, we want you to consider our guy instead of theirs.'"

Huckabee presented Cumulus with its best chance ever to grow into a national competitor to Clear Channel in the radio syndication market even before Limbaugh on February 29 ignited his latest controversy by calling birth-control activist Sandra Fluke "a slut.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/16/rush-limbaugh-mike-huckabee-radio-show_n_1354910.html