BY MARY REINHOLZ |Cumulus Media, the debt-ridden corporate giant that owns 77 WABC talk radio in Manhattan, announced Tuesday that it has chosen FOX News channel contributor Eboni K. Williams to replace legendary criminal-defense attorney Ron Kuby as a co-host with Curtis Sliwa on a new show that airs weekdays from noon to 3 p.m.
“The Curtis and Eboni Show” debuted Monday. It takes over from “Curtis & Kuby,” which had a three-and-a-half-year run. Kuby was abruptly fired about two weeks ago.
Williams, a lawyer who remains a co-host of FOX News channel’s “The Fox News Specialists,” is apparently the first African-American to act as a WABC host. She will also contribute to 77 WABC Radio’s social-media channels, as well as produce an exclusive weekly podcast that will be published on wabcradio.com, according to a statement by Lisa Dollinger, a Cumulus spokesperson.
Dollinger declined to explain why Kuby was terminated.
“He’s no longer with the company, but I cannot give details,” she told The Villager. “It’s company policy not to comment on employee matters.”
Craig Schwalb, program director at 77 WABC talk radio, also declined to comment “at this time.”
Kuby, who said he was paid $300,000 year for co-hosting with Sliwa on WABC, announced his termination on Facebook on May 23, noting he had been told in a brief meeting with Schwalb and a company financial officer that he was being dismissed because of budgetary reasons. He said he learned that Williams would replace him over this past weekend.
Williams wasn’t shy about introducing herself to a new audience with this tweet noted in The New York Post: “Thrilled to announce my new radio show on @77WABCradio […] Check out our premiere today: Terror, Bill Maher, Hamptons vasectomies, etc.”
Sliwa, who is now in his 22nd year with WABC, told this reporter via e-mail that he would call to discuss Kuby’s successor on Monday, but did not do so by press time.
Ellis Henican, who filled in for Kuby shortly after the attorney was fired, said the matter never came up on the air “because Curtis’s mother died around the same time” and a lot of listeners offered condolences. Henican — a columnist and political analyst — also said he had every reason to believe that Kuby’s explanation of a budget cut was “plausible.” He had no reason to doubt that, noting also that Kuby had already given the company notice that he intended to leave at year’s end. Efforts were unavailing to reach Cumulus C.E.O. Mary G. Berner, who was named to replace a company founder after Cumulus stock prices plummeted in 2015, according to The New York Times. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper reported in January that Cumulus owed $2.4 billion in debt and was considering bankruptcy proceedings.
“There’s no business model that will allow [Cumulus] to pay off that debt,” Kuby said in a telephone interview with this reporter. “They bought hundreds of radio stations and paid premium dollar when they bought them. I doubt that they’re saving much money by hiring Eboni. But maybe they think she’ll bring her Fox advertisers and audiences with her, which would result in a revenue increase.
“Curtis always brings in advertising. He courts advertisers. I was never really good at that,” Kuby added. “I always thought I would get whacked if things got tight. The point is, I’m fired. Who the crap cares what the reason is? I wish everybody well who I worked with.”
Kuby sounded unusually cheerful for a man out of a gig paying six figures a year. He noted that he had previously given WABC notice that he planned to leave at the end of the year to practice law full time.
“I would have preferred to stay” until late September, he said. “But I have a fallback position as a reasonably good criminal-defense and civil-rights lawyer. And I get a fully paid summer vacation.”
Both Kuby and Sliwa formerly lived in the East Village. Kuby is also well known in the Downtown area for representing clients ranging from the Hells Angels bike gang at their E. Third St. clubhouse to Ottomanelli & Sons Meat Market in the recent incident where a black deliveryman was given a noose at the Bleecker St. store.
