SBS’s top-rated morning driver “El Mandril” (Ricardo Sanchez) has been off the air at KLAX-FM LA for weeks because of what we’ve heard to be contract negotiations (his current contract ends 1/13). Well, The LA Times says it may be more than that: “Now details are emerging concerning the 47-year-old radio host’s eviction from L.A. airwaves in early November. He’s still going to work every day, but his show is no longer being broadcast…Sanchez’s manager, Fernando Schiantarelli, said Monday that Sanchez was pulled from the air during negotiations over his employment contract.
The suspicion is that PPM holders were contacted by folks associated with the show and encouraged to listen. If true, this would be the first PPM tampering issue. Sanchez had been in fourth place in May and as low as 7th in April. In June, he was #1 and that has continued.
Allegations have been raised that members of Arbitron’s audience panel had been contacted by people connected to Sanchez’s show and encouraged to listen to his program.
A Nielsen spokesperson told The LA Times the company had no comment on its investigation, adding, “Nielsen Audio is committed to the highest standards of integrity in our data and our panels.”
Meanwhile, he is still receiving his paycheck. But the absence also affects SBS’s Chicago and San Francisco stations. A KLAX programming executive also confirmed with the paper that El Mandril was taken off the air because of an investigation. Schiantarelli said a top SBS executive told Sanchez star to show up to work every day but sit around “doing nothing…Mandril is not out because he has been suspended…He is out because SBS considered this the best way to pressure him into negotiating their conditions for a new contract.”
Sanchez’s show aired on some 25 non-SBS-owned affiliates. Entravision’s LER Network began syndicating the show for SBS in March 2012 and carried it on its own Tricolor stations. SBS began syndicating and selling El Mandril a year later in March, 2013. Sun Broadcast Group had sold the show from March-August of this year.
