Sean Hannity has fired Lew Dickey.

So says Inside Music Media’s Jerry Del Colliano in this post today. Del Colliano reports: 

Sean Hannity gave Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey a taste of his own medicine.

He fired Cumulus.

Rejected an offer to extend his contract.

And, according to sources, said the company treats its employees “like dirt, s..t, subhuman.”

Talkers, the talk radio inside guide has even more inside detail — detail that makes perfect sense here in this corner where we have written repeatedly about the Dickey brothers and their relationship with talk radio.

The idea of Lew Dickey, says Talkers, is to get rid of Hannity and hire Michael Savage to deliberately sabotage a venue Dickey hates — conservative talk radio. Says Talkers:

Inside and highly reliable sources preferring to remain anonymous indicate to TALKERS that Limbaugh and Hannity are split on this issue with Limbaugh leaning toward staying with Cumulus at this point in the discussions so as to avoid making changes. Adding to the intrigue, last night on his Cumulus radio show, talk host Michael Savage told his listeners that it is most likely going to play out as follows — Hannity will be leaving Cumulus and he (Savage) will be taking over his vacated afternoon show on its stations. Players close to both Hannity and Limbaugh involved in this complicated scenario claim that Savage was put up to this by the Dickey Brothers (Lew and John) themselves as part of an alleged ongoing strategy to devalue the worth of the two hosts (as well as the entire news/talk radio format) in the eyes of the public as well as the advertising community. The point of contention here is that Cumulus has been leaking and overstating claims of Hannity’s so-called ratings decreases and that the company has also overstated the damage caused by the Sandra Fluke incident in terms of how it applies to their larger financial challenges pinning far more of the blame on Limbaugh than is deserved. According to del Colliano, Hannity is fed up with the Dickey Brothers and the alleged bullying culture of Cumulus Media saying privately, “The Dickey Brothers are the single worst operators in the history of radio.”

What Talkers does not ask is this question:

Did Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey write the literal script for radio’s Michael Savage recent announcement?

Savage took to the air waves and, as reported in Mediaite, said:

“I predict, right here, right now, that I Michael Savage and the Savage Nation is going to take over The Sean Hannity Show time slot by the end of the year,” Savage said. “He’s probably a nice guy, but his time is come and his time has gone,” he continued, and “I am the heir apparent to afternoon drive on the east coast and around America on Cumulus stations, which have the most powerful stations in the radio world.”

Hmmmm. Notice this line? This one, bold print for emphasis:

“I am the heir apparent to afternoon drive on the east coast and around America on Cumulus stations, which have the most powerful stations in the radio world.”

The question arises because months ago a source in the world of talk radio who had, as they say, taken a meeting with Lew Dickey, told this columnist that he had heard Lew Dickey say some version of exactly that. The bit about “the most powerful stations in the radio world.”

Then…last night….Michael Savage sits down before his microphone and sounds like…Lew Dickey.

Coincidence? Vulcan mind-melding?

When added to the fact that another talk radio source has said that the Dickeys can’t stand Hannity — and one sees this line of personal attack about how Hannity’s “time is come and his time has gone” one gets the impression that the unpredictable Savage has suddenly become a… what? Paid parrot? Cue card reader for the Dickeys?

Mind you, Lew Dickey is going out of his way to shove Hannity out the door for Savage.

One doesn’t have to spend five seconds Googling to come up with a short list of Savage controversies. Autism is a “fraud and a racket” (here). Here’s the televised incident in which Savage launches on a caller as a “sodomite” — and got fired as a result.

Savage is the same guy who attacked Reaganite Limbaugh as a “water-carrying fat fraud.” Reaganite Hannity as a “fake conservative.” Attacked Reaganite Mark Levin as a “phony.” More tellingly Savage has called Reagan’s Attorney General, Edwin Meese III — one of the pillars of Reagan conservatism — a “low-life Justice Department official.” I forget whether this was before or after Savage gave a $5,600 donation to Reagan’s old nemesis Jerry Brown. Or just when all those frequent appearances were made by Jack Hunter, the now-ex Rand Paul aide who specializes in being a Neo-Confederate and boasted of lifting a “personal toast every May 10 to celebrate John Wilkes Booth’s birthday.”

And Lew Dickey think’s Hannity’s audience will listen to that stuff?

Obama has a better shot of marrying Vladimir Putin.

Make no mistake. This stuff is vile. It has no more to do with conservatism — with Reaganite conservatism, Hannity’s trademark — than the man in then moon.

Yet Lew Dickey thinks Hannity’s audience is going to sit still for this?

Let me say something about Sean Hannity.

Sean Hannity is the real deal. Professionally, politically, and personally. He has spent his time on radio and television endlessly promoting conservatives and the conservative cause. He has done Freedom Concerts that have raised millions for scholarships for the kids of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has relentlessly and selflessly promoted the Heritage Foundation and all manner of blue chip conservative organizations and publications — and yes I most certainly include The American Spectator. This very night Hannity’s television show is an hour long special devoted to Mark Levin’s groundbreaking book The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic. Yes, by chance, this columnist is on the panel tonight. But take a look at all of the other people on this show. They — we — are representative of countless once unknown conservative writers, commentator, and candidates whose work has been ushered into the spotlight because of Sean Hannity. This most decent man, kind and generous on and off the air, who counts not only conservatives but liberals among his friends — is to have his hugely popular radio show shoved off of Cumulus and replaced with what can only be described as the politics of vile garbage? In favor of a man who has done zero — zip — for the conservative movement?

Does Lew Dickey….who made all sorts of news with his harsh comments on the Limbaugh Sandra Fluke incident… really think the future of Cumulus is to ditch the popular Hannity for Savage and this ongoing circus of loathsome, revolting garbage?

Obviously he does.

Or, as Talkers indicates, this is really all about a covert Dickey effort to kill conservative talk radio dead.

News flash.

It won’t work.

Michael Savage may have Hannity’s radio time slot.

But he most assuredly won’t have Hannity’s audience.

We are outta here.