And for whatever it is worth, (may be nominal, I wouldn't know,) KIIS had its dedicated SXM channel adding to the L.A. radio/national TV exposure.
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Bertolucci Out at KFI
- Thread starter HerbNero
- Start date
EIB wasn't really a thing though, was it? I thought it was just Rush's window-dressing for Premiere.
Why would I continue to listen to programming that I've sampled on enough occasions to know I don't like it?
My comments earlier pertained specifically to his voicetracks used to "host" midday or afternoon shifts on various stations (examples: Kiss in Pittsburgh, Kiss in Cincinnati). He has lost some stations in recent years, and others such as Kiss in Cleveland have trimmed his weekday presence to just two hours. I suspect most listeners pay little attention to his comments and interview snippets and mostly tune in for the music.
His morning show on KIIS and American Top 40 are different ballgames. He does a decent job with American Top 40, although I prefer Carson Daly's countdown show personally. Seacrest sounds a little too "pukey" on mic at times.
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Yeah, there was no "Excellence in Broadcasting Network" in reality. That was Rush just putting a label on the group of affilates. They did their business with Ed McLaughlin's group or later, Premiere.
It was really clever, and it stuck, but it had exactly the same factual weight as Gary Owens calling KMPC's studios on Sunset Blvd. "The Gary Owens Building."
Actually EFM Media, named for Edward F. McLaughlin, former head of ABC Radio, who founded the company with Dr. Dean Edell and Rush Limbaugh. The company was sold to Premiere in 1997.
My point was he didn't have the muscle of a big company forcing him on radio stations the way things are done now. This was 1988, and local stations voluntarily fired local talent to carry this national show in the middle of the day.
Yeah, we "select" ways that can possibly make money.
The whole show is assembled from work parts made all through the day every day. Just the way Hollywood has made movies for about a century.
Which is part of the reason why he gets all the information and artist contacts that he has. But Clark nd Kasem did shorter form specialty shows, not a 4-hour a day morning (and sometimes mid-day) show, 20 hours a week.
Again, one of the reasons... beyond talent... that Limbaugh worked was the availability of low cost satellite (and, later, Internet) distribution that made the show accessible in small, often unrated, markets. Add in his talent and the change in the Fairness Doctrine and you had the opportunity for success that had not existed before.
Premiere did not get involved for nearly a decade.
When I added Rush to our stations in North Florida very early on, I called EFM and talked with Ed and "did the deal" for WDSR in Lake City during the first year of satellite distribution. A few days later, as we were getting a contractor to put in our "dish" I talked to Rush and he wanted to know the slogans and features of the station so he could do promos and liners.
It sounded like the whole thing back then was a small handful of people, and totally independent.
Later, Rush used his own "brand" on his Premiere package. But for nearly a decade, he ran on his own. My understanding is that he went with Premier mostly for the sales advantages of a big firm that had better access to the agencies and packages they could sell.
David, Ed sold EFM to Jacor in 1997, roughly at the same time that Premiere's founders sold to Jacor. Rush's show was an asset in the larger transaction.
By 1988, satellite distribution had been in use for 10 years. Mutual Broadcasting was the first satellite delivered network in 1978. They had the Larry King show from midnight to 6. ABC Radio started using satellite in 1982. In fact, EFM used ABC's satellite network to distribute Rush because Ed McLaughlin built it when he was at ABC. He knew the system. But ABC itself couldn't get hundreds of radio stations to fire their local talent and pick up Rush. Neither could Mutual or NBC Radio. Of course at the time NBC Radio was owned by RCA, the owner of Satcom, the satellite that NBC, CBS, and ABC used. Mutual chose Westar, owned by Western Union. NPR also used Westar, and they also began the transition from phone lines to satellite in 1978.
But my understanding was that, given a choice, Ed had preferred being part of that "team" consolidation as it gave him and the show access to the Jacor national sales organization. IIRC, it was Jacor that began buying national rep firms and consolidating them before Clear Channel pretty much completed that task (although think both, before the consolidation, were working on that).
Yeah. But my point was that Rush didn't "choose" Premiere. The show was part of the intellectual property included in the sale of EFM to Jacor. And Jacor, acquiring Premiere at roughly the same time, saw the opportunity for scale, and made exactly the right move.
And, again, the point was that there was consolidation in the buying field, particularly among rep firms which were being bought by radio companies. So, while being part of Premiere as a radio web was useful, the big advantage came from a better and more consolidated sales organization.
Here's Rush's version of the story, told in 2008. Rush referred to EFM as EIB:
Ed McLaughlin, Founder of EIB
RUSH: I want to tell you a little bit about Ed. It was a wing and a prayer, and it was started with very little money.
www.rushlimbaugh.com
Thanks for finding that story. I don't frequent the Rush website, and that is a gem... well told in the earlier Rush style, too.
What is a deciding factor here that has not been mentioned in the thread is Docket 80-90. No, not the change in the Fairness Doctrine but the changes in FCC licensing application, upgrade and allocation rules that fell into place in the later years of the 1980's.
By 1989 or 1990, we started seeing many, many new FM stations which were mostly in small and medium markets. These further devalued existing AMs in those markets and made them seek shows that could run fully automated and had no cash cost. Being AMs, that meant mostly talk shows since the ability of the satellite music networks to make AMs viable was already mostly gone.
Add in the upgrades to Class A FMs, giving them greater coverage or allowing them to move to a larger market (previously such an upgrade opened on up to a cross filing; see the Bonita Springs case that triggered Docket 80-90.). Again, a change in the needs for programming.
Satellite had made real time format delivery possible by the time the 80's were well along. Up till then, syndication of formats was done via tapes sent "in the mail" and assembled by sometimes clumsy automation. Now we could have real time formats, with jocks who could talk about new songs or artist news and talk shows that discussed today's news. And, other than the equipment costs, satellite could serve Rush's 600 stations for the same cost as for the first dozen or so. No incremental costs.
Advertisers liked the ability to run real-time spots in the "network" programming as they knew when and where the spots ran; taped syndicated formats had no "real time" guarantee and the delivery and fulfillment of copy/spot changes was unreliable and had great delays due to logistics.
So Rush walked into the post Docket 80-90 world where there was cost efficient satellite delivery, real time advertiser fulfillment and scheduling, freedom from the Fairness Doctrine, a whole bunch of new FM stations that forced dying AMs to look for talk programming to survive and a radio economy where half of all stations were losing money, making barter seem oh-so-attractive.
And Rush was a former Top 40 jock. He did not come into talk radio as a journalist but as an entertainer. So he understood that he had to do a fun show. He gave his sidekick a funny name. He did sometimes goofy Top 40 music radio things, and knew when to lower the "Seriousness" voltage so as not to be boring.
Perhaps Rush was not a creative genius, but he was clever and aware.
Los Angeles is a good example, where, Rush went up against the old line KABC talents: they were studied, serious and astute. But they were, by 1990's standards, boring. In part of the 90's, KFI had David Hall as PD and he was able to build the rest of the station and even the news department around Rush and Dr Laura; this was not KGO's Ronn Owens (some called him "the Bay Area's Voice of Reason") but more of a Jay Leno or Johnny Carson who talked about current events instead of movies and comedians.
Didn't Gary say something like: "Your're listening to the Zubermeister Radio Network?
“Zookmeister”.
Thanks for the clarification!
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.
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. 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.
And as he became more popular, like flies to dog poo, more advertisers flocked to him.
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. 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.
And as he became more popular, like flies to dog poo, more advertisers flocked to him.
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