REUTERS Michael Medved suffers for his anti-Trump stance The a conservative radio host loses his prime-time slot in Dallas and is left off a national tour.

Salem Media, home of some of the nation’s most conservative talk show hosts, quietly changed the time slot of one of its hosts in a major market and didn’t include him on a national tour — all in the wake of his anti-Donald Trump stance.

Michael Medved is the only major nationally syndicated host of Salem Media — a fast-growing player in conservative, Christian radio and online media — who is vehemently anti-Donald Trump. (Other more regional hosts like Steve Deace are also on the Never Trump-train).


Medved has blasted Trump as "insecure, unprepared and angrily unhinged."

He’s defended Hillary Clinton when callers call her “the most corrupt candidate in history.”

He’s said “I think Democrats are deluded. I think they’re wrong. But I don’t think they’re evil."

As a result of his unwillingness to even be even a reluctant Trump supporter, he’s angered his syndiator, many local affiliates, and many of Salem’s listeners. He’s also damaged his career, making him one of Trump’s few conservative critics to literally put his livelihood in jeopardy.

“There’s no question it would have helped my career to even be reluctantly on the Trump train,” Medved said, noting that the people who have done well are the Trump supporters. "But the problem is I can’t pretend. I really do see this as not just a job, it’s a vocation."

Medved, 68, has had his own conservative-leaning show on Salem Media since 1996. And while he’s been a steadfast conservative and used to guest host for Rush Limbaugh, he’s long been a “squeaky wheel” compared to some other conservative radio hosts today — he was always in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, blasted those who supported the “birther” movement, and hosts a regular segment shunning conspiracy theories.

Over the course of several interviews, Medved said there was no direct pressure or threats from Salem executives to be pro-Trump and that he thinks Salem is a “wonderful” company. But he did acknowledge his stance has created tension with his employer.

"I’m working with a syndicator that is enthusiastically pro-Trump and where all of the other syndicated hosts are pro-Trump,” Medved said. "Some more enthusiastically than others. But all pro-Trump. And it’s an awkward and uncomfortable position to be unable to board the Trump-train."

Shortly after the Republican conventions, Medved’s show — which normally airs live in the afternoon hours around — was moved to the unenviable slot of 12 a.m. to 3 a.m. on 660 AM The Answer, the Salem affiliate in the prime Dallas market. Host Larry Elder took his slot.

Medved wouldn’t comment on why the time changed, only to acknowledge that it did. Phil Boyce, Salem’s Senior Vice President of spoken word format said in an email that it was simply a business decision.

"That was one market, Dallas. Michael flipped places with another Salem host, Larry Elder who had been airing midnight to 3am,” Boyce said. "We made a business decision that Larry might do better in the 5pm to 8pm slot. I don't comment on specific ratings, but we felt Larry would do better in this one market, in the earlier slot."

Sources in the radio industry said Medved’s time was also changed in other markets over the election season, such as Greenville, S.C. where he is no longer part of the line up. But Boyce denied there were any other changes.

"Only one city,” Boyce said when asked if there were other cities. "It was not random. It was the time available when we moved Larry out of that time and into the earlier time."

(In a follow-up email after this piece published, Boyce said Medved was taken off the Greenville station in late 2015 because of the opportunity to pick up Sean Hannity's show and that it was well before anyone thought Trump would win the nomination.)

Nonetheless, a former radio syndication executive who maintains client relationships with radio stations in several markets, said radio hosts with Salem have been threatened by executives that their schedules would be changed, or syndication deals altered, if they didn’t, at minimum, say they wanted Trump to win. And the reason, the former executive and several other sources within the radio world said, is not business — arguably, conservative radio would benefit more from having a familiar target like Hillary Clinton in the White House — it’s ideological. Salem wants Trump to win.

David Spady, a spokesperson for Salem, said during a September interview that though Salem has an editorial board and a political action committee, there is no “corporate mandate” and that each individual host can decide who, if anyone, to endorse.

“No one I have talked to fears they will lose their jobs,” said a separate high level source in the conservative radio industry. "They just know what is expected of them."

In a USA Today column from last month, Medved noted that his position has “generated primarily anger from our syndicator, many of our 300 local affiliates and thousands of indignant listeners.” Medved wouldn’t go into detail on his professional difficulties, only saying that he appreciates that “up to this point” he and Salem have “been able to work through our disagreements about the presidential campaign and I have been allowed to do what my contract stipulates, that I am solely responsible for the opinions and guests and the content of my show."

Boyce denied there there was an anger from Salem and that any changes to his schedule have nothing to do with his position on Trump.

"There is no anger on the part of the syndicator,” Boyce said. "We love Michael and respect him as one of our most successful hosts. His revenue has been very strong this year and we believe it will continue to be for years to come."

Medved, and his fellow Salem hosts Hugh Hewitt and Mike Gallagher all denied there was any official notice from Salem executives requiring them to be pro-Trump.

“Absolutely not,” Hewitt said when asked in September as he toured the country as part of Salem’s “Decision 2016” tour. "Every host makes their own decisions. It’s always been that way. I don’t imagine it will ever change that … no one has ever told me what to say."

But Medved was not on that “Decision 2016” national tour in September, where Hewitt, Gallagher, host Dennis Prager and actor Jon Voight toured the country’s swing states to talk politics and meet their fans. Medved, who has been part of such tours in the past, said he offered to participate this year in order to help talk up the need to support down-ballot Republican candidates. In response, tour organizers asked if he’d be willing to express support for Trump. Medved said he could not, and was left off the tour.

"From their point of view, I get it, they’re trying to do Trump rallies,” Medved said. “And inviting me to a Trump rally is like inviting me to a ham and cheese festival.” (Medved is an Orthodox Jew, and Kosher rules prohibit pork products entirely and the mixing of meat and dairy in the same meal.)

"The tour was designed to help Trump get elected,” Boyce said. "Michael was not going to be good doing that, as you apparently already know."

Salem has long been a player in Christian and talk radio stations. In recent years it began buying up popular conservative websites like Twitchy and TownHall, becoming a power player in conservative media. The company has its own political action committee, “SalPac”, and allows employees to deduct a portion of their paychecks to the committee. According to FEC reports, the committee has donated $5,000 to Trump’s campaign in June.

Hewitt is one of Salem’s most recognizable hosts (and respected by the right and left), who helped moderate several Republican primary campaigns and is an MSNBC contributor. Though he’s had his issues with Trump, from the Judge Curiel episode and the “rigged election” talk to more recently calling on Trump to drop out after the leak of a 2005 video showing Trump making lewd comments about women, the radio host has been reliably pro-Trump, especially in the face of a possible Hillary Clinton presidency. A constitutional law professor, Hewitt often talks of the importance of the Supreme Court, and how he likes Trump’s list of possible replacements for the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

"I used to be Switzerland for the GOP,” Hewitt said in September, a popular refrain he regularly repeats. “Now I’m the Red Cross for the movement — bandages and smokes for everyone. The election will be over, we’ll all get together again and wounds will heal."

Hewitt declined to comment specifically on Medved’s situation, and Medved declined to comment on individual colleagues as well. Nonetheless, Medved said he believes his fellow radio hosts have pure motives in their support of Trump, but that in "private conversations, the opinions of Mr. Trump tend to be less glowing than what you’ve been hearing on the air in the last stages of the campaign."

Medved doesn’t spend his entire shows bashing Trump. He interviews Trump surrogates on a regular basis and dedicates an hour to every show not talking about the presidential race.

Talk radio is a niche market. And, as Medved himself noted, opposing the GOP nominee in a hotly contested presidential race is not good for ratings.

“The majority of listeners, radio P-1, people who tune in to talk radio, feel passionately that Trump is the preferable candidate,” Medved said. "And it’s always easier, to try to agree with your audience or the largest segment of your audience. That’s much easier than challenging some of the opinions that many if not most of your listeners hold."

Medved declined to comment on his ratings, saying he did not know the full picture. But he said his advertising revenue has not dropped and will in fact be very strong for 2016, a point Boyce supported. On the other end of the spectrum is Gallagher, who has been pro-Trump from the start and said he’s seen a boost in his ratings.

"Year to date my audience is up just under 30 percent. The business side is great. The show has never been as booming as it is this year and I know it’s because I got this one right,” Gallagher said, also in September while on the “Decision 2016” tour.

And while Gallagher said he felt his audience’s frustration at the political atmosphere and early on knew Trump would be an important force, he emphasized the importance of authenticity in radio, he noted that everything in radio is about the ratings.

“It’s silly to say ‘do you do this for ratings?’ We do everything for ratings. Everything a talk radio show does is to garner an audience and grow an audience not to chase the audience away. There's no secret to that,” Gallagher said. "But if we do something on air just for ratings the audience would know that in a split second … We have to be authentic we have to be real and speak from the heart."

Boyce wrote in a blog post for the industry's “Talkers” magazine last month that Trump recognizes the value of conservative talk radio and uses the format well.

"We have been a major player in this presidential campaign,” he said. “I can’t predict the future, and if Hillary wins this election it could have a negative impact on the format. This happened in early 2013 after Obama won his second term. But the good news for all of us: it never lasts. Let the haters keep predicting our demise. It only makes us stronger."

But while talk radio may be a “major player” in the 2016 campaign, Medved thinks that just like the Republican party, it will have to come to terms with itself and move away from its apocalyptic views and politics of anger.

"I think talk radio is in crisis,” Medved said. "I think the kind of reflexive monochromatic falling into line for Trump, the kind of material you hear on Sean Hannity’s show for instance, I think long term that will not work to the benefit of the peolpe involved. I don’t think that’s the right decision politically, ethically, or in terms of business."