Radio Talk Show Hosts Clash Over Future of Don Imus

Richard Drew

Radio personality Don Imus appears on Rev.Al Sharpton's radio show, in New York Monday April 9, 2007. Imus issued another apology for referring to the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos" on his morning show last week. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Leo Terrell, a civil rights attorney and a radio talk show host, told CNBC’s “Morning Call” that Don Imus “is history” because his guests and advertisers will abandon him following his racially charged comments about a women’s basketball team.

“Once (Imus is) off the air, he loses credibility,” Terrell said Thursday. “He will not have the political-economic connections to generate any interest in any future show. He is dead.”

MSNBC dropped its simulcast of Imus’ radio show and CBS is thinking about it. Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone said he expects Les Moonves, his lieutenant at CBS, to do the right thing and fire Imus for his comments about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.

Ben Ferguson, a radio talk show host, said another company will pick up Imus’ show and syndicate it if CBS drops him simply because there’s money to be made.

“I am not, by any means, defending what Don Imus said,” Ferguson told CNBC. “What he said was horrible, disgusting, disgraceful – I could go on and on. But the reality is, Don Imus will survive because there’s still money to be made from him. CBS may not syndicate him, but some other organization will because this is a huge money-making machine. Six months from now, he’ll still be on the radio.”