Most of what Rush spewed was B.S. [In my opinion]. My mom listened to him religiously and anything he said was, according to her, the gospel truth, even when I showed her items totally contradicting what he was saying were lies.
Not lies… perspectives.
I have told this story a number of times in different threads here, but here goes again:
When I owned an operated radio stations in Ecuador, there was a little group of news related people that included the correspondent from news week to the reporter from Prensa Latina, the Cuban news agency. Also among us were stringers from AP and UPI as well as Franspress and two friends from local newspapers.
Many if not, all of us would gather over a beer or two after any local event which had international consequences… things like the overthrow of the government, and attempted revolution, the inauguration of the trans-Andean oil pipeline and the like.
What was fascinating was the difference in perspectives of each observer or reporter. The very same event would be seen from different perspectives, both economic, and social by each of the reporters or correspondents. The Prensa Latina reporter saw social change and the “ upcoming revolution” in everything wow the chap from Reuters saw the economic impact on the regional economy.
All of us witnessed the same events. But we wrote, reported, or broadcast the aspects that affected our audience and our employer. For example, the opening of the oil pipeline was economic progress for the country to some of us and a destruction of natural human and animal habitats to others.
Same story, different lens.
But, as far as syndicating his show, I am assuming that it was an "economy of scale" issue happening. The more stations he was on the cost of it was spread out among all the stations.
It truly cost very little to add additional affiliates to that de facto network. All they had to do at the local level, was install a dish and a receiver, while at the national level, the only change was one more contract and and the increased station count in the sales material going to, the ad agencies that might buy within the show.
But that only goes so far before they have to charge stations more for his content as the years go by. Also assuming there may have been some sales bartering stuff going on behind the scenes. Much like a microwave which cost around $52,000 for the first ones that came out in mid to late 40s, as more were made [more stations jump on the bandwagon in his case] the price began to drop drastically where now you can get them for about $75-100 for the cheapo ones. By the way, it the price had never dropped and kept increasing because, you know, inflation you'd be paying about $912,000 for one today.
But there are two different kinds of “economies“ in play here.
First is the program syndicator, which pays the talent, the studio space, the board op, the call screeners and the back office staff as well as the fee for one or more satellite channels. They sell advertising to national accounts and the affiliate stations have to carry it as their way of paying for the show (in the case of Rush, we had one of very few such shows. That also charged a cash amount.)
At the local level, each station gave up the percentage of inventory as payment for rights to the show and, perhaps, small amount of cash. Then they sold spots to local advertisers at local rates to fill the spot break time that was not taken by the network.
Most stations that carried Rush also carried other satellite delivered shows, both talk shows, news and sporting events. In the 90s, it was comment to see smaller market stations that carried talk programming with two or three different satellite dishes on the roof or in the parking lot.
And as he became more popular, like flies to dog poo, more advertisers flocked to him.
Again, we have to differentiate between national advertisers that bought from the syndicator to be carried on the whole network, and whose money went only to that network and the local advertisers who bought local spot campaigns within those national shows, but only in each individual market. In effect, there were two separate kinds of clients, the all – station national accounts, and the single market local accounts.
