Samuels, also hosted shows. The ratings grew and by the late 1980s, they were a very successful talk station. From 1984 to 1996 WABC broadcast the popular Bob Grant, a controversial, early "right-wing" talk radio host. After years of what many considered inflammatory remarks, he was fired in 1996 for a controversial comment regarding the death of United States Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown. After a number of years at competitor station WOR, Grant returned as a host as of July 2007, was removed again in December 2008, and returned again as a weekend host in September 2009. Alan Colmes would leave in 1985 and by 1987 he emerged at WNBC on overnights, where he played moderate amounts of music. He would move to afternoons on WNBC and eventually drop music there as well. He was on the air at WNBC's sign off in 1988. Colmes eventually returned to WABC. Within its first years, the revamped WABC brought in Rush Limbaugh, who would go on to be the anchor program of the local station for two decades, and soon after the giant of talk syndication, the model for countless other conservative radio shows to follow. In the early 1990s Phil Boyce took over as program director. Starting in 1997, civil rights attorney Ron Kuby and Guardian Angels' founder Curtis Sliwa co-hosted a WABC radio show on Monday through Friday from 6 to 7 p.m, and on Saturdays from 6 to 10 a.m. On Saturday, September 8, 2001, John Batchelor presented a four-hour program on the attack on the USS Cole, identifying Osama bin Laden as the probable perpetrator. On September 12, Batchelor was invited to broadcast on WABC “until bin Laden is captured.” The day bin Laden was caught, Batchelor and his executive producer were in Cracow; they continued on air and, with a hiatus in 2006, have been on air ever since, covering national and international security. In 2004, the station earned the distinction of being a news/talk radio station even longer than it had been a Top 40 station, by marking 22 years in its present format. Under Citadel and Cumulus On February 6, 2006, the Walt Disney Company announced that it would sell WABC and other radio properties not affiliated with either Radio Disney or ESPN Radio, along with ABC Radio's News & Talk and FM networks, to Citadel Broadcasting for $2.7 billion. The transaction became final