KSL makes it official: Sean Hannity going

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Confirming speculation from earlier this week, KSL-AM & FM Salt Lake City is dropping Premiere-syndicated Sean Hannity later this year. The official announcement focuses on airing local content, rather than any discomfort with Hannity by the station’s owner, the LDS Church.


This was sent to RBR-TVBR by KSL late Thursday:

“The syndicated Sean Hannity Show and KSL NewsRadio today announced a conclusion to their successful and long-running relationship.  Sean’s last broadcast on KSL will be October 1.  KSL regrets that portions of this decision were made public earlier this week.  Station managers, however, felt it was important to agree on a severance date with our partners before commenting.

‘We acknowledge the great partnership we’ve had with Sean Hannity and appreciate his contributions to furthering public dialogue,’ said Mark Willes, CEO of KSL Broadcasting Inc. and its parent organization, Deseret Media Companies.  ‘At the end of the day, we simply feel our future success and competitive advantage reside in creating unique local content, and that is our objective for developing replacement programming.’  

Hannity has broadcast on KSL since October 2001 and is heard on more than 500 affiliates nationwide.  In Salt Lake City, it was the #1 rated show from 1-4PM in total listeners under the Arbitron diary ratings system.  The Sean Hannity Show was also the top-rated program in 6 of the first 9 months of electronic measurement that began last fall.

KSL NewsRadio is part of the Deseret Media Companies (DMC). Deseret Media Companies is a for-profit arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

As noted, the show produced strong ratings for KSL and will almost certainly relocate to Clear Channel’s KNRS-FM, which is already the Salt Lake City home of Premiere’s other two talk superstars, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Premiere Radio Networks is owned by Clear Channel.

Hannity is the only daily syndicated program currently airing on KSL. The rest of its on-air line-up consists of local news programming and local talk hosts.