Rush Limbaugh and the Cumulus Boycott

[disney fanatic]

I'm not a huge Rush Limbaugh fan, but I found this article today in the Daily News. Read about it!

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertai...s-company-ceo-article-1.1074608#ixzz1uKbEiPvH

 

[jhguthlac]

The bottom line is it had no long lasting effect. But Rush will be a bit more careful when it comes to insulting someone for several days in a row.

 

[DToTheJ]

Maybe it's too little, too late: remember, skipper Dickey's got Huckabee warming up in the bullpen...

 

[Shoot From Hip]

"The bottom line is it had no long lasting effect."

From a ratings standpoint, or a revenue standpoint? From a ratings standpoint, Rush's comments seemed to work in his favor. From a revenue standpoint, those companies running his show might not agree with your assertion. If my company saw revenue drop by millions, even for a short period of time, that would still have a long-lasting effect. That IS the bottom line.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

The bottom line is it had no long lasting effect.

I guess to have a meaningful conversation, we may have to come to an agreement on the definition of "long lasting".

In the little corner of the world and civilization where I live, "long lasting" has to be measured in 5, 10, 20 or 50 years. The Rush/Fluke incident happened just WEEKS ago. What we can observe all fits into "short term" results or impact. Maybe in radio programming, we might agree that SEVEN YEARS is a time frame for measuring "long lasting effects".

 

[WNTIRadio]

They took a 1% hit for a few months. Hard to determine if that is from the "boycott" or just bad economy. That's a pretty ineffective boycott if you ask me. Big flap over nothing, the media blew it up and then like most things of no substance, it blows over. The guy was hired to be controversial and he was. I'm sure he got a bump from all the press too. And Fluke got her wish of gaining notoriety. She wasn't some doe-eyed 19 year old college kid, she is a 30 year old career activist.

So in the end, everybody wins.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

So in the end, everybody wins.

No, in the end the entities we have mentioned in this thread win. Talk Radio as a whole gets a boost. (Gee, Everywhere I turn people are talking about what they heard on the air. Guess I need to think about adding/keeping/freshing-up my radio advertising. This proves people are listening.) At this point it appears maybe Rush wins. (All publicity is good publicity as long as they spell your name right.) If we have characterized Sandra Fluke correctly (She IS and activist and wants to GROW as an activity influence.) The loyal audience of Conservative Talk is sure they win. The loyal audience of LIberal Talk (what there is of it) are feeling high re-enforced and they are sure more people ever have now heard about their point of view.

So far, in the end, everybody wins.

How about radio stations who are doing a great job of local community service and news coverage. They DON'T win because this who episode makes it look like the only purpose of radio in to yell and scream about political controversy.

What about female college students who are, as they say in the automobile insurance commercial, "living on a Rahman Noodles every night budget"..... have they won any concession on how insurance does or does not handle the cost of drugs that are considered to be medically necessary.

What about level headed politicians who would like to reach across the aisle and come up with workable solutions to some of the issues that are part of the Rush/Fluke spectacle. They didn't win! (ask Richard Lugar of Indiana if all of the conversation on the Rush show helped him win the primary. Oh, that's right, he didn't win did he.

Tell me who the winners are in the Rush broadcasts that I haven't named.

 

[radiowizard101]

Hate to bust your bubble GRC, but 93% of the real population could give two goats for the entire universe of talk radio. The demos are OLD and getting OLDER. There's no turning back. MOST people don't care. And that's going to be the real challenge for ALL political crap talk radio in the near future.

For an experiment, you should ask anyone under the age of 50 if they ever listen to AM radio. Most don't even know the band exists. That's the reality.

Even when these yackers move to FM, it's very rare for an FM talker to break that 4.5 to 5.0 share.

The political debate is boring. It's time to change the record.

 

[KFodor]

Hate to bust your bubble GRC, but 93% of the real population could give two goats for the entire universe of talk radio. The demos are OLD and getting OLDER. There's no turning back. MOST people don't care. And that's going to be the real challenge for ALL political crap talk radio in the near future.

For an experiment, you should ask anyone under the age of 50 if they ever listen to AM radio. Most don't even know the band exists. That's the reality.

Even when these yackers move to FM, it's very rare for an FM talker to break that 4.5 to 5.0 share.

The political debate is boring. It's time to change the record.

Then..why is WHIO AM/FM in Dayton, Ohio #2 12 plus and breaking the top 5 25-54?

 

[TimeIsTight]

Then..why is WHIO AM/FM in Dayton, Ohio #2 12 plus and breaking the top 5 25-54?

There are always exceptions to trends, and WHIO is also an AM/FM simulcast. If it is breaking top-5 25-54, and #2 12-plus then it probably has a lot of senior citizens listening all day.

Dayton is only market-63, take a look at the ratings and cume numbers in the top-20 or top-50 markets.

Take the average weekly cume of Rush Limbaugh's affiliate stations, and divide that number by the total market population.

You'll find that only about 7-percent of the people in the New York Radio Market tune to that station even once a week. In Philadelphia that number is 8-percent, and in Boston it is less than 2-percent. San Francisco is somewhere in between.

Turn that number around, and you'll see that in the top markets Rush's affiliates are never heard by 93-percent of the population even once a week. In Boston it's 98-percent that never listen.

That said, political talk radio makes its money because it has such devoted fans who spend a lot of time listening. (TSL)

It's essentially the same older folks who listen to the same talk programs all day long. That contrasts in some markets with big Adult Contemporary music stations that have five times, or more, the number of younger adult listeners tune in each week. It's a different business model.