Why did Dr Laura leave KFI?

Answer 1

"Because of KFI's tremendous respect for Dr. LAURA, which is legitimate, she has been a huge player on KFI and done an enormous amount to help KFI, the station elected with Dr. LAURA's cooperation not to go public with that until later on this week when a statement would be released by both Dr. LAURA's folks and our radio station," HANDEL said. "We were going to do it simultaneously. Of course, the news broke beforehand and the quote came out that she is voluntarily leaving and her contract was up.... It's not true that she elected to leave the station voluntarily. She was told a couple of months ago they they're not going allow her to stay on effective SEPTEMBER 8th. And why is that? Hey, there's no magic to any of this folks, there really isn't. Let me explain how radio works. I've said this time and time again. If your numbers are good, you stay on the air. If your numbers are not good, you're off the air. That's radio. That's it. There's nothing else to be said. You don't stay on the air because of political ideology. You don't stay on the air because someone loves you or management loves you, especially not a decently run radio station, you stay on the air because you deliver listeners. When you don't deliver listeners, you go off the air. That's it. And that literally is the only reason that Dr. LAURA was let go. There's nothing else. They love her. They think she's great. She's a tremendous talent. She's a tremendous host and everybody thinks so but the numbers simply were not there. And that's it

It's even more simple than that. Her contract was up with KFI & as such, she was offered a better deal from KFWB who is switching formats in order to compete with KFI for the AQH (listeners measured in Average Quarter Hour), particularly in the 3pm time slot - which Dr. Laura will keep at KFWB. Simply put, she got a better offer.

While the above comments are certainly true for local radio personalities dependent upon quarterly Arbitron and PPM ratings, she currently holds almost 2 million listeners weekly among her syndication. Her listenership was strong at KFI, helped in part to Rush Limbaugh - who made a great "lead in" for her while there.