• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, November 5, 2007

Don Imus is returning to the airwaves courtesy of Citadel Broadcasting, the company confirmed last week, where he will take the morning drive slot from 6 a.m.-10 a.m. at flagship station WABC-AM in New York. Imus, who was drummed out of CBS in April for racist and sexist remarks about the Rutgers' women's basketball team, is set to begin talking again on December 3rd. The show will be syndicated nationally on ABC Radio.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but industry observers believe his new contract is worth somewhere between $5 million and $8 million a year. Imus replaces Ron Kuby and Curtis Sliwa, who have hosted a popular show on WABC for eight years. Kuby didn't hide his dissatisfaction during his final broadcast, taking a swipe at Citadel Broadcasting, which bought WABC last year: "Our show has enjoyed the best audience: intelligent, compassionate, decent and kind. The new owners don't want that kind of show."

As before, Imus will be accompanied by Charles McCord and other sidekicks. However, there was no word whether Imus producer Bernard McGuirk will be returning as well. In their previous CBS show, McGuirk prompted Imus to make the racist and sexist remark that stirred controversy and eventually got them both fired. After McGuirk called the Rutgers' female basketball players "some hard-core hos," Imus elaborated on the description, calling them "nappy-headed hos."

In the wake of Imus' comments, most major advertisers withdrew from his CBS show and the MSNBC-televised simulcast. Advertisers that fled the PR meltdown included Staples Inc., Bigelow Teas, Procter & Gamble, GM, Sprint and American Express.

Various advocacy groups are maintaining their opposition to an Imus return, including the National Association of Black Journalists, whose president Barbara Ciara wrote: "NABJ remains outraged after the racially inflammatory insults made by Don Imus last spring. He used his free speech to broadcast hate speech. To put him back on the air now makes light of his serious and offensive racial remarks that are still ringing in the ears of people all over this country."

Imus does indeed have a history of making offensive comments on the air. In a 1997 interview, Imus admitted to Mike Wallace that he had hired a producer to "do nigger jokes." Four years earlier, Imus referred to NABJ member Gwen Ifill--then a Washington correspondent for The New York Times, now host of PBS' "Washington Week"--as a "cleaning lady, a racist insult that Ifill recalled in an op-ed piece in the Times. Imus also called William C. Rhoden, a respected sportswriter for the newspaper, a "quota hire."

Imus has also made anti-Semitic comments on air. In November 2006, he lambasted the "Jewish management at whoever we work for, CBS," referring to them as "money-grubbing bastards." Two years earlier, Imus referred to publishers of a new book called "The Christmas Thief" as "thieving Jews."