Politico: Rush may leave Cumulus

[TheBigA]

Sales people really shouldn't neglect older demos, but they do. Or, I should say, LAZY sales people neglect those demos.

Huh? Sales people will take money from a dead man. The problem is most advertisers have decided that radio doesn't work for older people. They use TV or direct mail to reach that group.

 

[ProducerGuy]

A good salesperson will demonstrate that older folks buy stuff, too. I've seen it in action. It's not an easy sell, but it can be done. Like I've said, any station I've ever been at that ran Rush had no problem selling spots. But then again maybe it's because I worked for good stations.

 

[TheBigA]

A good salesperson will demonstrate that older folks buy stuff, too. I've seen it in action. It's not an easy sell, but it can be done. Like I've said, any station I've ever been at that ran Rush had no problem selling spots. But then again maybe it's because I worked for good stations.

Was that before February 2012? Because lots of stations, regardless of owners, have had trouble since then.

 

[del_griffith]

A good salesperson will demonstrate that older folks buy stuff, too. I've seen it in action. It's not an easy sell, but it can be done. Like I've said, any station I've ever been at that ran Rush had no problem selling spots. But then again maybe it's because I worked for good stations.

There are some people that I believe have hip pocket accounts. Accounts that will buy anythings from them. Doesn't matter whether it's crap or gold. Or crap sold as gold. That's not necessarily a good thing.

 

[FredLeonard]

A good salesperson will demonstrate that older folks buy stuff, too. I've seen it in action. It's not an easy sell, but it can be done. Like I've said, any station I've ever been at that ran Rush had no problem selling spots. But then again maybe it's because I worked for good stations.

Older folks do buy stuff but most advertisers have concluded radio is not the most cost-effective way to reach them or to sell them. Actually, advertisers increasingly are deciding radio is not a cost-effective way to sell stuff to anybody. Whole categories of consumer product advertisers bailed on radio years ago. Mostly for reasons that are the industry's own damn fault.

 

[Come on]

The questions are... will the show pull numbers and can it be sold? The answer to both questions for Rush are simple... no and no.

Again, I haven't seen that in my experiences with Rush stations. He's not the juggernaut he was years ago, but he's doing just fine compared to everyone else.

As for the talk of his demo dying off, there are more and more old people being made every day. There will always be a market for someone that old people want to listen to.

Rush's decline has nothing to do with age. People are tired of the political wind bags with loud mouths who tell them what to think. That's a fact. That covers the listener side of his problems.

From the money side... Another fact that has nothing to do with Rush's age is the fact that you have to remember who is advertising with him. MOST of his advertisers are going to lean GOP. So, you eliminate about 50% of potential advertisers. Then, over time, Rush has pissed off or alienated a certain percentage of potential advertisers. Then throw in other advertisers who are Republican, but wouldn't want to take on the controversy that surrounds Rush. Sure, there was a time when controversy and Rush was good for ratings, but not any more!

When you put all of that into the equation you can see why the advertising dollar has shrunk for Rush. I'm not pro or anti Rush, I'm just laying the facts out there.

 

[del_griffith]

Come on: Interesting thing happened in my market. The talk station shaved an hour of Beck and added an additional hour of the morning host taking calls. The locals went nuts.....at least on the Facebook page. And that is after chastising the station for cutting local talk over the years. They add a daily hour of local talk and the locals want the first hour of Beck instead. And Beck is back after just a couple of days.

I think there are two listener groups (that have several sub-groups). The first is the hard core Rush, Beck, Hannity, Levin and so on down the line conservo talker fans. They want to hear ONLY what supports their world view and packages it in a way that feeds their soul and breaks it into useable material to pass on.

The second group are the passive listeners. They listen for the news, weather and traffic elements. While they may like the talk they are hearing, it's not life or death to them However, this is where the first group wants their talkers to touch on topics and make sure the passives are told what's what and to a point how to think. The hard cores get very upset when the talkers don't go places the hard cores want them to go to because they want the information aired so the passives are exposed to it as well as to feel validated that their thoughts and theories are correct and validated by one of the big on air names. Rush, Beck, Hannity, Levin and so forth repeating a story or point gives them cred in their world view.

 

[MC]

I think the angle is that old people buy stuff, but they decided what they buy years ago. Younger people are making brand name decisions that will last years, maybe. A lot of the image ads went away as well. An ad for Lockheed for example. They wanted people to think, oh that is a good company, not that someone is going to buy defence systems. They just want a good public image, which may impact the favorability rating of the company or the industry. I still here ads for coal and natural gas, etc.

 

[TheBigA]

Rush, Beck, Hannity, Levin and so forth repeating a story or point gives them cred in their world view.

It's the 21st century version of church. Consider the church experience. You go to hear basically the same story every week. You do it together with other like-minded people. At the same time, in the same place. You hear the story told by the same person. Quite often, he's very emotional. He may even make you feel bad. And you like it. You give him money. And you come back to do it all again the next week. Amen. Imagine if every radio station had someone like that. They could.

 

[wadio]

Very interesting analogy! Glenn Beck actually preaches during his show. Beck is a cleaver guy who will say anything if he thinks it will get ratings. He probably discovered the church angle years ago.

 

[cefgw]

Rush, Beck, Hannity, Levin and so forth repeating a story or point gives them cred in their world view.

It's the 21st century version of church. Consider the church experience. You go to hear basically the same story every week. You do it together with other like-minded people. At the same time, in the same place. You hear the story told by the same person. Quite often, he's very emotional. He may even make you feel bad. And you like it. You give him money. And you come back to do it all again the next week. Amen. Imagine if every radio station had someone like that. They could.

Schultz, Malloy, Rhoades [sic], Sharpton et al.: Same format, different message, and also have their own adoring audience.

 

[del_griffith]

Rush, Beck, Hannity, Levin and so forth repeating a story or point gives them cred in their world view.

It's the 21st century version of church. Consider the church experience. You go to hear basically the same story every week. You do it together with other like-minded people. At the same time, in the same place. You hear the story told by the same person. Quite often, he's very emotional. He may even make you feel bad. And you like it. You give him money. And you come back to do it all again the next week. Amen. Imagine if every radio station had someone like that. They could.

That's a fairly good analogy.

BTW, when I said gives them cred, I was meaning the listener, not the host. It give the listener's worldview credit if one of the biggies speaks to their worldview. The old: If you heard it on the radio, it must be true.