Sarah McBride | November 2

WSJ - Just months after controversial radio host Don Imus was ousted from CBS Radio in the wake of racially insensitive comments, he is headed back to the airwaves, in a move underscoring the radio industry's need for bankable talent.

Mr. Imus and Citadel Broadcasting Corp. on Wednesday put the finishing touches on a deal that will bring him to WABC-AM, the flagship station in New York that Citadel acquired last year when it bought Walt Disney Co.'s radio-station assets. He will start Dec. 3, and ABC Radio Networks will syndicate the show nationally. Through a representative, Mr. Imus declined to comment.

His salary is in the region of $5 million, a person familiar with the matter said, although he could boost that through syndication deals as they emerge. At CBS, Mr. Imus's salary was around $10 million, including syndication.

Although many advertisers, including General Motors Corp. and Staples Inc., dropped both the radio and television shows in April, industry executives say many former advertisers will likely return. "If you think about all the broadcast personalities who have been boycotted for one reason, or another, and come back again to have a successful second life, I would think Don Imus has little to worry about," says Matt Feinberg, director of radio and interactive broadcast extensions at ZenithOptimedia, a unit of Publicis Groupe SA.

The situation is evidence that in radio today almost no proven talent is beyond redemption. The reason: when popular radio hosts leave for whatever reason -- such as Mr. Imus's ouster or Howard Stern's defection to Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. from CBS Radio -- stations are hard pressed to find replacements. CBS Radio struggled to find hosts to fill Mr. Stern's shoes after his departure at the end of 2005. And Mr. Imus's old flagship station, WFAN, took months to settle on a replacement: a sports show hosted by Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton.

Changes in the radio industry, in part stemming from consolidation, have left many stations so focused on profits that they don't have the time or resources to train rising talent.

"The problem is that the farm team has disappeared," says Holland Cooke, a radio-industry consultant. "That up-and-comer who starts out in Eugene, Oregon, and makes his way to Spokane, and gets a big break in Seattle and jumps to Chicago, that pathway has been interrupted."

The upshot for Mr. Imus is that -- despite the opprobrium heaped on him six months ago after he used a derogatory phrase to describe the Rutgers University women's basketball team -- he was in a strong bargaining position. Many radio groups and smaller syndicators reached out to Mr. Imus, but his most serious talks were with Citadel and Buckley Broadcasting Corp., which owns WOR in New York and has a syndication arm.

Following his comments, Mr. Imus was fired from CBS Radio and from MSNBC, which had televised his program. He apologized for the comments, and retreated from public, spending much of the summer at his ranch in New Mexico. He threatened to sue CBS for violating the terms of his contract, which explicitly stated that the company acknowledged Mr. Imus's show was of an "irreverent" and "controversial" character.

Meanwhile, radio companies reached out behind the scenes. Rick Buckley, president of Buckley Broadcasting, contacted Michael Lynne, president of New Line Cinema and a friend of Mr. Imus, to express interest in putting Mr. Imus on WOR. Meanwhile, Farid Suleman, chairman and chief executive of Citadel, who had worked with Mr. Imus during Mr. Suleman's tenure at CBS Radio, was also talking to the Imus camp.

Serious negotiations began in September, after Mr. Imus and CBS settled their contract issues, and after a Rutgers University basketball player withdrew her suit for slander and defamation against Mr. Imus. Citadel moved quickly. It was prepared to put Mr. Imus on WABC, which has more listeners than WOR -- a cumulative weekly audience of 979,500 in the summer compared with 683,700 for WOR, according to ratings service Arbitron Inc. Buckley Broadcasting, unsure of how Mr. Imus would perform in syndication, proposed a revenue-sharing agreement.

Rev. Al Sharpton, who led a move to oust Mr. Imus in April through a rally and his radio show, in recent months has said he is ready to see Mr. Imus back on the air, although he said yesterday he reserved the right to agitate with advertisers if Citadel didn't explain how it planned to "safeguard against Mr. Imus returning to his former vile and biased behavior." But some groups aren't ready. The National Association of Black Journalists has already said it objects to any return to the airwaves by Mr. Imus.

Write to Sarah McBride at sarah.mcbride@wsj.com