http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/64800.htm wrote:
April 20, 2006 -- Long-banished radio bad boys Opie & Anthony are returning to the air to save the company that fired them nearly four years ago, sources say.
The toxic twosome, canned by CBS's WNEW-FM after contestants on one of their shows were caught making love inside St. Patrick's Cathedral, are expected to return "within weeks" to the sister station Howard Stern abandoned - "Free FM" (92.3), formerly K-Rock, according to the sources.
That means curtains for Stern successor David Lee Roth, who's been fighting with CBS over his show's format after lousy initial ratings.
Opie & Anthony - a k a Gregg Hughes, 41, and Anthony Cumia, 43 - were No. 1 with men in "afternoon drive" until the St. Pat's scandal drove them to unregulated XM Satellite Radio 18 months ago.
Stern, a longtime enemy of "O&A," debuted on rival Sirius Satellite Radio in January.
XM is expected to continue to air O&A while syndicating them - carrying both a sanitized, "FCC-compatible" version for Roth's seven CBS stations as well as a shorter, free-wheeling version for anything-goes XM. The unprecedented arrangement means radio's highest-rated rebels will finally go head to head with Stern.
Ironically, Opie & Anthony will expand their potential audience massively by adding conventional stations in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and elsewhere while Stern's current satellite-radio audience is only about a tenth of what it was on more than three dozen "terrestrial" stations.
The toxic twosome, canned by CBS's WNEW-FM after contestants on one of their shows were caught making love inside St. Patrick's Cathedral, are expected to return "within weeks" to the sister station Howard Stern abandoned - "Free FM" (92.3), formerly K-Rock, according to the sources.
That means curtains for Stern successor David Lee Roth, who's been fighting with CBS over his show's format after lousy initial ratings.
Opie & Anthony - a k a Gregg Hughes, 41, and Anthony Cumia, 43 - were No. 1 with men in "afternoon drive" until the St. Pat's scandal drove them to unregulated XM Satellite Radio 18 months ago.
Stern, a longtime enemy of "O&A," debuted on rival Sirius Satellite Radio in January.
XM is expected to continue to air O&A while syndicating them - carrying both a sanitized, "FCC-compatible" version for Roth's seven CBS stations as well as a shorter, free-wheeling version for anything-goes XM. The unprecedented arrangement means radio's highest-rated rebels will finally go head to head with Stern.
Ironically, Opie & Anthony will expand their potential audience massively by adding conventional stations in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and elsewhere while Stern's current satellite-radio audience is only about a tenth of what it was on more than three dozen "terrestrial" stations.
Should be interesting