Imus Returns to Radio on Monday

Source: NYT/AP

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 1, 2007

NEW YORK (AP) -- Will Don Imus be defiant or contrite? Will he mock his skeptics while making his triumphant return to radio Monday. Or will he muzzle his mouth? ''That question is part of the drama of his reemergence,'' said Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine, an industry trade journal. ''Imus faces some choices.''

Imus isn't talking, yet, but it's safe to say radio's best-known curmudgeon will have lots to say when his show kicks off at 6 a.m. EST Monday on WABC-AM and other Citadel Broadcasting Corp. stations around the country, ending his nearly eight-month banishment from the air. The morning show will be simulcast on cable's RFD-TV, owned by the Rural Media Group Inc., and rebroadcast on radio in the evenings.

Monday's four-hour premiere will be broadcast from Town Hall in Times Square, where $100 tickets were sold to benefit the Imus Ranch for Kids With Cancer. After its debut, the Imus spectacle will be on 6-9 a.m. weekdays, from a studio across the street from Madison Square Garden.

Not much is known about the show's format, other than at least one black person will participate regularly, along with longtime newsreader Charles McCord. Imus, through a spokesman, declined to comment. Whether this will temper his staunchest critics, like as Rev. Al Sharpton, is unclear. Sharpton's spokeswoman said the civil rights leader wasn't commenting. In Boston on Friday, a group of black community leaders protested a local station's plan to air the Imus program.

MSNBC and then CBS Radio jettisoned Imus in April after he called the Rutgers University women's basketball players ''nappy-headed hos.''...

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Imus-Returns.html

I'll have to check it out and see if MY RFD will simulcast that.

He'll be small potatoes at first, with a mere fraction of his prior audience. He'll be speaking to his core listening base, I guess....middle aged white men who are "of the heartland" of America and have a variety of views of things, often conservative, but sometimes surprisingly liberal, depending on the issue.

I'm female and hardly typical of his core audience, but though I disliked some things he said and views he held, I watched his show regularly for the variety of political and entertainment guests. It was eclectic, to say the least. And presented both conservative and liberal politicians in a favorable, or unfavorable, light. I found it provocative.

The bad news is, for Clinton supporters, that he detests Hillary Clinton. So if he finds his voice in the next 6 months, he'll be a strong voice against her.

Think about it the next time you listen to him. He's not just talk. He gave the female employees of MSNBC misery while he was there. Keith Olbermann said so, and he has a record of having spoken out against harassment of the women at ESPN, so he should know.

This is America, making millions for being a loud racist asshole is what this country is all about.

There will be just enough fake "controversy" and celeb and politico dirt to keep the sheep entertained.

Bring on the bread and circuses!

Fuck that cadaverous old fart and the horse he rode in on.