Ever since the debut of the Rush Limbaugh show in 1988, conservatives have dominated talk radio.
That all may be coming to an end.
And now George Soros has one scary plan to take Sean Hannity off the air.
Soros Management Fund buys stake in Audacy network
Audacy is the nation’s second biggest radio network, boasting a lineup of 220 affiliates.
These stations reach an audience of 165 million listeners.
Sean Hannity, Dana Loesch, Erick Erickson, Glenn Beck and Mark Levin all host shows broadcast on Audacy stations.
Now they may all get taken off the air just before the election.
In February, George Soros bought a $400 million stake in the media company.
Current rules dictate that foreign media ownership in American radio stations isn’t allowed to exceed 25 percent.
But Soros may end-run these standards.
That’s because Soros is pressuring the Democrat controlled Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to fast track his takeover of Audacy so he can begin to make programming changes ahead of the election.
Should the Soros Management Fund get approval for the Audacy takeover, it’s a virtual certainty that conservative talk radio shows will disappear from the airwaves in key markets.
“The idea that George Soros is buying hundreds of local radio stations right before a national election and will keep broadcasting Sean Hannity and other conservative talk radio hosts on Audacy is not credible,” a source told The New York Post.
Former Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr told the Post that the FCC creating a loophole for Soros to win quicker approval for the Audacy takeover would be unprecedented.
“The FCC should not create a special Soros shortcut,” Carr said in an interview with the Post.
Carr explained that the FCC has a process in place for acquisitions of this size.
“When it comes to a broadcast station acquisition of this size and magnitude – hundreds of radio stations across more than 45 markets – the FCC needs to run its full and normal review process,” Carr added.
“The FCC should not be skipping steps or waiving required agency processes,” Carr concluded.
Soros’ track record
Soros buying Audacy means conservative talk radio shows will go away as the Soros group will impose format changes on the stations under their control.
“This is scary,” a Republican source told the Post.
In 2022, the Soros-backed Latino Media Network bought Mambi and 17 other Spanish language radio stations.
Mambi was a mainstay of the anti-communist Cuban exile community.
Two Democrat Party operatives named Stephanie Valencia and Jess Morales Rocketto began running the network.
Host Lourdes Ubieta quit in protest.
Ubieta’s instincts were right, as Ubieta told the Post the Soros-backed group quickly took all the anti-communist shows off the air and replaced them with sports talk and entertainment shows.
“They kept the name Radio Mambi but they made it all soft shows like sports and entertainment,” Ubieta said in an interview with the Post.
“Everything was hard-core anti-Communism politics on Radio Mambi before. That’s all gone now,” Ubieta concluded.
If Soros gets his way with Audacy, a similar plan of action could be put in motion, and Sean Hannity – as well as other conservative hosts – could see their shows removed from stations in the run up to the election.
