Imus: Great Timing

Don Imus couldn’t have picked a worse time to grenade his career with a racial slur, Politico's Ryan Grim reports. The standard career path for popular white male DJs with FCC problems leads to one of the satellite radio companies, XM or Sirius. But there’s some debris in Imus’ way.

Next Tuesday the full Senate commerce committee holds a hearing on a merger between XM and Sirius. The companies hope the coupling can strengthen both as they compete with other forms of media -radio, podcasting, all that - while lawmakers and other people with opinions on such things wonder if the merger violates antitrust laws by creating a satellite-radio monopoly.

Blair Levin, managing director of the financial firm Stifel Nicolaus and former FCC chief of staff, thinks that the satellite companies might be reluctant to grab onto the Imus lightning rod just before heading into a congressional storm, but argues that economic calculations will be the primary motivation to keep him away.

“Imus did not get kicked off because of fear the FCC would fine CBS. This is a business decision made because of the impact of the statements on advertising, which was reflecting on the value of the brand,” he said. “Why wouldn’t same be true for XM and Sirius?”