Cumulus Radio Blocks Nashville Radio Host From Airing Buttigieg Interview
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Nash FM’s host Blair Garner recorded an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg last week, but parent company Cumulus has blocked the broadcast on most of its country stations.
Cumulus Media, one of the largest broadcasting companies in the country, blocked one of its country radio station hosts from airing his interview with 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
Blair Garner, whose self-titled Nash FM radio show is syndicated nationally across more than 150 radio stations, interviewed Buttigieg on Wednesday while the Democratic candidate visited Nashville, Tennessee, as part of his campaign tour.
It’s important to Pete to reach voters everywhere,” Buttigieg campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith told HuffPost in a statement Sunday. “We’ve made it a point on this campaign to go outside the traditional political media bubble ― that’s why we reached out to Blair about an interview.”
“[Blair] has a big audience,” she added. “And it’s an audience that doesn’t typically hear directly from Democratic candidates for president.”
But Cumulus Media decided to spike the interview, blocking Garner and affiliate radio stations from airing any part of it, the radio host announced Friday.
“My employer decided I couldn’t air it,” he tweeted with a link to the interview published on his personal Soundcloud account.
A spokesperson for Cumulus Media told HuffPost that programming managers decided not to air the interview “because of the large number of political candidates currently in this race.”
“The decision was made by local programming management based solely on concerns related to the application of the FCC’s Equal Time Rule,” the spokesperson said in a statement on Sunday, “The effects of the FCC’s Equal Time Rule are widely understood and considered whenever these types of issues arise.”
