Leykis Signs 5-Year CBS Radio Deal (Apr 2, 2007)

No. I'm not talking about the fictious Bradford family from Eight is Enough. I'm talking about the loudest afternoon radio talk show host there is who has upped with a new employer for an eight-figure salary that's estimated to be in the low to mid $10M range.

Tom Leykis, who's been with his employer, Westwood One, which is also the distributor of his almost 13-year old radio show since May 2, 1994, will be getting a new employer come April 2.

Leykis has recently signed a five-year eight-figure deal with CBS Radio, which means, effective next month, Leykis will be no longer employed by his longtime employer Westwood One Radio Networks after his March 30th show ends. He will be working directly for CBS Radio.

As part of the move, Leykis will move his Leykis 101 Man-up Headquarters from the longtime Culver City location (where a new Westwood One studio replaced the old one that once had been the home of the Dr. Demento show) to the Paramount studios in Hollywood. Leykis will give new meaning to the namesake of the building he will be hosting his show from: the building named Mae West, whose famous for the saying "Why don't you come up and see me sometime." Let's see what Leykis can do with that.

In the Los Angeles area only, Leykis was with a representative of KLSX 97.1 "Free-FM" talking to his listeners in the 7pm hour about the news of the future of his radio show, which will continue as it is on the station, but he will be employed by the parent company of KLSX, which is CBS Radio, instead of being employed by another radio company, which syndicates his show and other shows it produces to affilliates around the nation.

What else will change aside of his employer and studio location is the way his radio show is distributed to the nine CBS-owned radio stations branded "Free-FM". CBS Radio will be distributing his show directly to the nine owned and operated "Free-FM" stations in markets such as San Diego, Phoenix, and others. To take care of the Leykis affilliates who are not owned or operated by CBS Radio, Westwood One will simply act as a distributor and send his radio show from Hollywood to the some-40 non-CBS owned radio stations that are affilliated with his show.

After first spending nine years on smaller radio stations, Leykis first hit the big time Los Angeles market in 1988 when KFI (then owned by Cox) to do afternoon drive from 3-7pm where he was one of the few liberal talk show hosts on the air doing a "combat radio" political format, a polar opposite of the weekly conservative talk show the late Wally George used to host on KLAC in the late 1980s.

After being fired in 1992, Leykis moved to Boston to do his talk show there.

In 1994, Westwood One hired Leykis to launch his syndicated radio show, which was first carried in Los Angeles by CCC-owned KMPC 710 for 15 months. When Disney bought CCC and took ownership of its properties, KMPC's format was changed to a women's talk format, which went nowhere but down in the ratings. Leykis was without a radio home in Los Angeles when Disney told KMPC to fire Leykis and to reformat the station in 1995.

In September of 1997, KLSX, which was in its third year of doing a talk-FM format, needed someone in the afternoon drive to drive up the faultering ratings, and Leykis was the man to do just the job.

In October 2005, CBS Radio began rolling out its "Free-FM" handles to nine of its stations across the USA, inclyding rebranding KLSX as "97.1 Free FM". Leykis joined their lineups progressively as the days went on.

Leykis has made household words out of his trademarked language such as "Blow Me Up", "Pussified", "Flash Fridays", "Take Me Out With a Bong Hit", "Hellooooooo, Tom", "Vaginamony", "Porkland, Home of the Other White Meat," and his show is "Not Hosted by a Right Wing Wacko or a Convicted Criminal, No!"