Was Anthony Cumia Fired To Save SiriusXM Money?

SiriusXM has cut corners wherever it can and Anthony Cumia may well have been a victim of the bean counters running the company now.

Over the last few years Sirius has massively cut its budget for original talk programming. The Howard Stern channels, which had Bubba the Love Sponge in the afternoon and Scott Farell at night have been left with almost no original shows.

Even the twice weekly Abe Kanan show was cancelled.

The same has been true up and down the dial where a lot of talk has disappeared and pricey names like Rosie O'Donnell (who left) and Martha Stewart (whose deal expired) have not been replaced.

Cumia was ostensibly fired for remarks he made on Twitter but that seems a little odd because nothing he said differs from things he has said on the air countless times.

That suggests that there were other reasons behind his firing. At the time he was let go Cumia was reported to be making $3 million a year on a contract that ends in October.

Firing him would save the company about $1 million.

Firing the whole Opie and Anthony show would have saved even more but it also would have led to a mass exodus of subscribers.

By just axing Cumia, the satellite company can hold on to some O and A fans who stay out of loyalty to Opie.

Even Cumia himself has said that SiriusXM executives only care about the bottom line.

"We really wanted to do stuff but we were shut down on every suggestion. No we couldn't do this or that, no it's not in the budget, or they'd look into it but they never did," he told The Village Voice.

"You know, we were always put on the back burner with those guys over there so maybe it is the old "blessing in disguise" thing.

I was getting tired of their bullshit and now there is this fun and exciting thing."
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2014/07/anthony_cumia_interview.php?page=2