D.C.-Area Imus Fans Are Out of Luck
On the morning of Monday, Dec. 3, Clarence Page, The Chicago Tribune’s Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist, rolled over in bed in suburban Washington, D.C., and looked at his Bose stereo clock radio.
A thought pierced the groggy haze: It was Don Imus’ first day back on the air. Mr. Page, who once got Mr. Imus to join him in an on-air pledge to, among other things, “cease all simian references to black athletes,” and who later in the day would comment to NPR on Mr. Imus’ return, was eager to tune in. Looking for the show, he hit the scan button—again, and again, and again.
Nothing.
For the time being, Mr. Imus’ new show, whose appeal is based in some part on his unscripted interviews of Washington insiders, is not available to radio listeners in the D.C. area.
To date, WABC officials have said publicly that Mr. Imus’ show is airing in more than a dozen cities, but they have remained vague about the specifics.
Prior to his forced sabbatical, Mr. Imus could be heard in the greater D.C. area on WTNT—a talk radio station, owned by Clear Channel, that features syndicated shows with popular conservative hosts like Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham and Michael Savage.
Contacted by The Observer on Tuesday morning, Bill Hess, the operations manager for WTNT, said that he was currently in negotiations with the ABC Radio Networks on an Imus syndication deal, but that nothing was final. “We don’t have a deal yet,” said Mr. Hess. “Whether we can get one, I don’t know. We’re just seeing if we can work out the appropriate business details.” He declined to say what might be holding up the deal.
According to Mr. Hess, prior to the forced sabbatical, Mr. Imus’ program was the top-rated show on WTNT. “The program has a history of being successful on our station,” said Mr. Hess. “I see no reason why it wouldn’t be, moving forward.”
Back in Mr. Page’s bedroom, he eventually resigned himself to the usual slate of choices—NPR, Pacifica, Air America and C-SPAN radio.
“I settled for NPR,” said Mr. Page.
Too bad there is not some kind of network interlinking computers that could carry Mr. Imus's broadcast as a "stream" of data, so to speak.
But, Bercovici, in order for users to take advantage of such a technological marvel as you describe, someone would have to come up with a program to enable us to comb through, or "search," all the information on that interlinked network in order to locate the "sites," so to speak, from which the Imus data was being "streamed." Also, we would need the computer companies to include hardware on the typical home computer enabling them to process audio. ;-p
To hear Imus anywhere, Mr. Page should get Replay Radio AV for his windows based PC and listen on his computer or automatically put the mp3 files into I-Tunes. You can divide the stream every 60 minutes to make more manageable files.
http://www.replay-video.com/replay-av/index8_radio.php
I have listened to Imus on my I-Pod each day this week here in San Francisco. The broadcast is close to unlistenable because the levels are all off. the problem appears to be that they are broadcasting from a remote TV studio instead of from WABC. This all started with C-SPAN televising the radio show, but they have lost that concept to the show's detriment.
So this tired old embittered old man has returned -- does anyone car
It's time Imaus retied for good and supported his children.
Too bad...oh well DC doesn't have Air America, I guess the Democrats will have to find another radio show to go on.