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Mel Karmazin taught Farid Suleman, Citadel Communications’ CEO, the radio business and now he is looking to pull one straight from Karmazin’s book and sign Don Imus.

Now that Imus is free from CBS Radio, radio industry insiders and Wall Street analysts have installed Suleman as the front-runner to land the radio raconteur. Such a hiring would not only give Suleman’s ABC Radio Network, which he acquired from Disney last year for $2.7 billion, a financial lift, but also be in line with Karmazin’s lesson plan of making big bets on controversial talent that can produce big returns.

“Mel always understood the plusses and minuses of working with people like Howard Stern and Imus, and Farid does as well,” said one radio industry analyst.

Suleman worked under Karmazin for 16 years at Infinity Broadcasting and in an interview with The Post, Suleman said only that he thinks Imus’ availability represents an opportunity and that he would consider hiring him only if he could make the numbers work.

Such modesty belies the “can’t lose” proposition that bringing Imus back is for Suleman. If the shock jock flames out in his return, Suleman can point to Imus’ comments about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team as having tarnished him forever. If the public embraces Imus’ second act, Suleman will earn kudos for giving him another chance.

Suleman, who has never had a formal employment contract, dismissed the publicity that would come with an Imus hiring as a fleeting distraction that matters little to the bottom line.

“There will be a little publicity for a couple of days, but after that all that will matter is if I made money for my shareholders,” Suleman said.

Sources said that both Suleman and Imus would love to have a deal in place in time to make a big splash at the National Association of Broadcasters’ Radio Show in Charlotte, N.C., on Sept. 26.

New York Post

Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 12:26 am and is filed under Sirius. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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