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Do you want to know what has changed almost everything at WNEW? It’s not the ratings… they’re about the same as they’ve been for the last year. It’s not Leslie Gold getting any worse or better. It’s not Ron and Fez’s good or bad performance. It’s not Don and Mike doing poorly.

What changed everything at WNEW is Opie and Anthony’s new contract. The ripple effect of that is why Leslie Gold is now out, why Ron and Fez can now go to evenings and why Don and Mike will go to middays. Here’s why:

Up until O&A’s new contract, Don and Mike considered themselves Infinity’s afternoon syndication property positioned to bookend to Howard Stern in mornings. While no one will ever confirm this, my suspicion is that there was a “gentleman’s agreement” that D&M would ultimately end up in afternoons at WNEW. Such a move to PM Drive in New York would then have been the catalyst to get them into other syndicated markets around the country. What fouled up that scenario was Opie and Anthony’s huge success here. There was no way GM Ken Stevens (or PD Jeremy Coleman) could move O&A. That left Don and Mike stranded in nights on tape delay in New York… a bad daypart for them and one that obviously wasn’t working.

Such was the situation for over a year… and then it got even worse for Don and Mike. Opie and Anthony got that new contract… one that guaranteed they would get syndicated into big markets all over the country. That development, in effect, bounced Don and Mike from the “Infinity East Coast PM Drive Syndication Throne”. Not only were they still stuck at night in New York but also their prospects for syndication in other markets were reduced to almost zero.

That left them with two choices. Accept their PM Drive syndication fate and be satisfied with success as a local only Washington D.C. show… or… change dayparts. It’s now clear that they determined that changing dayparts was the better choice. From their point of view, it does make some sense. Infinity will likely try and promote this entire “Extreme Talk” format to stations across the country as a package. Stern is a proven winner in AM Drive. O&A are yet to be proven in syndication… but… if they pull it off, any show sandwiched in between these two will be sitting pretty. This midday move is a “Hail Mary pass” from Don and Mike. They’re down but not out thanks to O&A so they’re now making a play.

What does all this have to do with WNEW? It allows Ken Stevens and Jeremy Coleman to move Don and Mike to middays… and that changes everything because WNEW can finally do the obvious: Put Ron and Fez on at night. I don’t think there’s anyone on the planet who believes that is not the daypart for that show. It also forces Leslie Gold out. She commented today “for lack of a better word, "political" considerations are taking precedence over performance. A chain of events was set in motion a while ago, and for reasons having nothing to do with us, or our performance, we were to be the sacrificial lamb.”

Outside of morning drive, Don and Mike have been the biggest problem imaginable for WNEW. Obviously they have some kind of arrangement with Stevens to keep their show on WNEW. Since they couldn’t do afternoons, Stevens had to stick them at night. That prevented WNEW from properly programming that daypart… and that forced Ron and Fez to middays. As result, both evenings and middays have been greatly under performing. That may now change… finally.

One last point: Don and Mike failed in evenings in New York City. All the hype and all the spin that they and WNEW kept putting out about how this show was supposedly doing well here was baloney. That said, give Don and Mike credit. They’re rolling the dice. If they don’t get decent numbers in middays in New York, they’re done here… and probably have no realistic shot at a long-term syndication deal. This is a courageous move on their part. It risks their success in D.C. in order to try and succeed in a market that is now openly hostile to them. I have been a critic of this show but I salute them for throwing a “Hail Mary” with this move. I’m not optimistic that they’ll succeed in middays.

And why did all this happen? Opie and Anthony landed that new contract which included syndication. This is all ripple effect. It’s better than a soap opera. Stay tuned.

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