Roth Out; Opie and Anthony In

No question--things are rough for Diamond Dave.

Four months into his radio career, CBS Radio pulled the plug on the ex-Van Halen frontman's flailing morning show, and in a surprise twist, replaced him with XM Satellite stars Greg "Opie" Hughes and Anthony Cumia.

"I was booted, tossed, and it's going to cost somebody," Roth said Friday, hinting that his legal team would go after CBS for the full amount of his reported $4 million contract.

The ousting was made official one day after reports of the deal surfaced and just days before the Roth show's first Arbitron numbers.

In one of the first satellite-to-terrestrial radio syndication deals, XM Satellite Radio agreed to license the Opie & Anthony show to CBS Radio as a replacement for David Lee Roth in the seven markets where he, in turn, replaced Howard Stern in January after Stern's move to Sirius Satellite Radio.

"Apparently, we can talk about it now. So much for keeping a lid on this," Opie and Anthony said Friday on their show's Website. "The Opie and Anthony show will be replacing David Lee Roth in several markets on CBS Radio Free-FM stations."

In a release issued by CBS Radio on Monday, the radio hosts elaborated on their expanded dominance over the airwaves, which goes into effect on Wednesday.

"With the combination of XM and CBS Radio, we now have the best gig in the business. The O & A Show is going to be bigger and better than ever," Opie said.

"We'll now be able to reach millions of new fans and old fans with our new morning show on CBS while offering our loyal XM listeners an uncut show and two extra hours that will only be available on XM," Anthony added.

Opie and Anthony, Stern's longtime rivals, are no strangers to CBS Radio. During their prior tenure on terrestrial radio, they were fired by the company--then called Infinity Broadcasting--after they broadcast a live account of two listeners supposedly having sex in New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral.

After two years of exile, they were hired by XM in 2004 and currently have one of the satellite provider's top 10 shows.

Under the terms of the deal, a three-hour version of the Opie & Anthony XM show will air on WFNY New York, WYSP Philadelphia, WBCN Boston, KLLI Dallas, WNCX Cleveland, WRKZ Pittsburgh and WPBZ West Palm Beach.

The show will air from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. in all markets except Cleveland, where it will air from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

CBS Radio will have control over the portion of the show its stations air, while XM retains control over the uncensored version simulcast on satellite radio, as well as two additional exclusive hours of the program from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Roth said he only learned his show had been pulled while en route to the station last Friday. However, he recently predicted in an on-air rant that the show could be yanked by May after he received four management letters in five days with regard to his content.

Though the rocker was endorsed by Stern himself to take over the morning-drive time slot, listeners never warmed to the show, which one Rolling Stone critic called "skin-crawlingly awful."

Industry analysts have been puzzling over exactly where on the dial Stern's former audience of 12 million is tuning to, as only an estimated 1 million to 2 million of his devoted listeners followed him to satellite.

Recent online polls have shown that ex-Stern listeners who haven't switched over to satellite haven't gravitated to his replacements either, and have instead turned to other well-established morning programs, such as NPR's Morning Edition.

The self-proclaimed King of All Media expressed his displeasure with his terrestrial disciples in a recent interview. "You haven't come with me yet? How dare you?" he told Entertainment Weekly. "We're up to wild, crazy stuff; the show has never sounded better."

Meanwhile, CBS Radio, which sued Stern for more than $200 million in February, is likely hoping to plug any further migration to satellite radio by putting an already established show in the morning slot. And if the hosts of that show happen to have an ongoing feud with a certain ex-host, so much the better.

As for Roth, well, at least he has that whole EMT thing to fall back on.

(Originally published Apr. 20, 2006 at 2:30 p.m. PT.)