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Rush's ratings must be through the roof!

B

Bug on the rug

He's been blessed by the talk radio Gods by THREE White House scandals with a sitting Dem Pres.

And Cumulus wants to get rid of him for comments he made about college activist Sandra Fluke?

I also don't shed a tear for Geraldo on 790 KABC who's getting absolutely slaughtered!
 
ronald54321 said:
Rush reminds me of Paul Harvey.
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He reminds me much more of Bob Grant and Warren Frieburg than Paul Harvey.
 
RadioStarOne said:
On his worst days Rush is better than anyone else on radio and his paycheck proves it every week!
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His paycheck is based on his performance as of when he signed his current contract, in 2008. Five years later, talk-radio's performance is declining as the audiences age and begin to die off. Limbaugh is overpaid by today's standards and economics, but that's Clear Channel's problem, not his.
 
radio-darn said:
ercjncpr said:
ronald54321 said:
Rush reminds me of Paul Harvey.
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Reminds me of Joe Pyne
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Watch Joe Pyne - I cannot see an similarities:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLYYIh8uEo0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRStbnZ1-u4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzTEJWr27NY&feature=youtu.be
Click to expand...

I don't either. I used to listen to Rush more in the 90s, and though my politics are the polar opposite of his, I always found him entertaining. He's generally very courteous with his callers. Joe Pyne's entire schtick ws to be rude to everybody - guests and callers (or audience members). He even had stock insults and put-downs - I recall "go gargle with razor blades." He loved crackpots (the tin-foil hat crowed - the nuttier the better) because they were so easy to ridicule. To me, Pyne was the model for Wally George and Morton Downey Jr.

Joe Pyne was conservative - but that's about the only similarity I see. And like Rush, he was number 1 for awhile - his morning show on KLAC often beat Robert W. Morgan on KHJ.
 
Bug on the rug said:
He's been blessed by the talk radio Gods by THREE White House scandals with a sitting Dem Pres.

And Cumulus wants to get rid of him for comments he made about college activist Sandra Fluke?

I also don't shed a tear for Geraldo on 790 KABC who's getting absolutely slaughtered!
Click to expand...

Rush's listeners probably already hate the President and love Rush- and no matter whether Obama is embroiled in scandal or rescuing a kitten from a tree, it probably doesn't swing listenership too much one way or another.

Republicans think these are scandals and Democrats don't really seem to care- but they probably aren't listening to Rush anyway- so I'm guessing the difference is negligible. Does viewing of the Daily Show surge every time a Republican says something stupid?
 
One thing lost on many who comment on these boards are other moves these companies have made and are making that have an effect on ratings.

For example, select markets where the local news staff and/or local news programming has been cut back and staffers let go. That can and does negatively affect the ratings of news talk radio stations. Always has. Always will.

Also...is the station discussed solely AM? Or AM/FM? While it is true that AM/FM Newstalk simulcasts have been a mixed bunch in terms of success, it does succeed in some markets in lowering the demos so the station has a much better 25-54 lean (which is largely 35-54 - right where the stations want their numbers to be for this format). An AM only operation does face a graying audience, because that's about all who listen to AM radio these days...older Americans.

Some simulcasts have failed due to signal issues with the FM. A rimshot is a rimshot and many face significant signal challenges. (Bill Drake once said "never take a (bleep) signal".) Also...does the FM signal cover areas where conservative listeners live? That could also be a reason some FM's succeed while others fail.

I work for one in which Rush has, generally, been #1 since 1990 or so, and continues to be so in his daypart. And there's no sign of that changing.

Talk stations ratings tend to drop in the months following a national election. We had one of those and I think there was significant "election fatigue" immediately following November of last year that affected most talk stations for a number of months.

Smart programmers and managers know these things. I think Rush is often used by some owners as an excuse for bad ratings...when that owner is too egotistical to believe his financial decisions may also have played a part.
 
Jason Roberts said:
For example, select markets where the local news staff and/or local news programming has been cut back and staffers let go. That can and does negatively affect the ratings of news talk radio stations. Always has. Always will.
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It's a chicken and egg thing. You can't keep staff if the revenue is dropping. Usually the revenue drop comes first, then management has to react to the drop in revenues with cost cutting. They don't do it because it's fun. But when revenues fall , you can't spend as much as you used to. Either people take pay cuts, or you have to lay people off.

Jason Roberts said:
Smart programmers and managers know these things. I think Rush is often used by some owners as an excuse for bad ratings...when that owner is too egotistical to believe his financial decisions may also have played a part.
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The main problem with Rush and several other hosts is they've been targeted by some major advertisers like Geico and Home Depot, who demand that their spots not air in his show. These are some of radio's biggest advertisers. Rush has been able to replace those sponsors, but the local stations haven't. It's a big problem for his affiliates, and Premiere needs to come up with better answers. So far, they haven't. The show still gets the same ratings, but it's making less money.
 
Tom Wells said:
ronald54321 said:
Rush reminds me of Paul Harvey.
Click to expand...

He reminds me much more of Bob Grant and Warren Frieburg than Paul Harvey.
Click to expand...


I haven't heard anyone mention Warren Frieburg since I can't remember when. Figured most people never heard of him, due to being a "local" host, no?

I ran the controls and hosted hourly newscasts and other stuff for WLNR in the south Chicago suburbs overnights, until Warren and his board op came in to start his morning talk show around 6am. Actually, the station ran a couple of short features from Alan Stang ("think about it!"), the John Bitrch Society's precursor to today's snark fest, and from the preacher father in law of the station owner. I think Warren started his show with the national anthem.

Otherweise, WLNR featured black gospel programming at night, with Frieburg making fun of people in Gary, Indiana in the mornings, to apparently appeal to the white flight crowd in the Calumet region. Broadcast diversity at its most absurd. Last I heard, Frieburg fell from what little grace he had when he threw water on a Chicago TV talk host. The press skewered him as a small time suburban shock host trying to get attention in the larger market. . He also had a hypnosis business on the side, I think, but he was no Larry Glick when it came to being a lovable personality on the air.

Anyone know what became of him since the 1980s?
 
Why's blaming the signal an acceptable "out" for a failure or lackluster performance of conservative talk on FM but not acceptable when pointing to reasons why progressive talk didn't work on the poorest of AM signals?

Maybe poor AM signals that are barely maintained and hardly marketed don't reach where moderate to liberal listeners are? ;D
 
Goldilocks94941 said:
Tom Wells said:
ronald54321 said:
Rush reminds me of Paul Harvey.
Click to expand...

He reminds me much more of Bob Grant and Warren Frieburg than Paul Harvey.
Click to expand...


I haven't heard anyone mention Warren Frieburg since I can't remember when. Figured most people never heard of him, due to being a "local" host, no?

I ran the controls and hosted hourly newscasts and other stuff for WLNR in the south Chicago suburbs overnights, until Warren and his board op came in to start his morning talk show around 6am. Actually, the station ran a couple of short features from Alan Stang ("think about it!"), the John Bitrch Society's precursor to today's snark fest, and from the preacher father in law of the station owner. I think Warren started his show with the national anthem.

Otherweise, WLNR featured black gospel programming at night, with Frieburg making fun of people in Gary, Indiana in the mornings, to apparently appeal to the white flight crowd in the Calumet region. Broadcast diversity at its most absurd. Last I heard, Frieburg fell from what little grace he had when he threw water on a Chicago TV talk host. The press skewered him as a small time suburban shock host trying to get attention in the larger market. . He also had a hypnosis business on the side, I think, but he was no Larry Glick when it came to being a lovable personality on the air.

Anyone know what became of him since the 1980s?
Click to expand...
He was on WLTH in Gary for a year or 3 before he went to WLNR.

He and Libby separated, and she was doing a psychic thing....
The last time I heard Warren was in the late 1990s in Houston, he was a guest on a show where they were discussing
John Denver, and Warren stated that John diddn't "know" he was dead, and probably still thought he was flying his ultralight plane....

No idea where he is now.

He didn't just appeal to the "white flight" audience, he nurtured and sustained their sense of justification.
 
The last time I heard Warren was in the late 1990s in Houston, he was a guest on a show where they were discussing
John Denver, and Warren stated that John diddn't "know" he was dead, and probably still thought he was flying his ultralight plane....
Click to expand...

You mean, he never heard all the news reports of JD's plane crash? Or did he think JD was still "alive," just like Elvis? ???
 
Tom Wells said:
I haven't heard anyone mention Warren Frieburg since I can't remember when. Figured most people never heard of him, due to being a "local" host, no?

No idea where he is now.
Click to expand...

Freiberg died in 2000.
 
Lkeller said:
Joe Pyne was conservative - but that's about the only similarity I see. And like Rush, he was number 1 for awhile - his morning show on KLAC often beat Robert W. Morgan on KHJ.
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...in fact, Morgan was #2 among Top 40s during his first year in Los Angeles, with Emperor Bob Hudson on KRLA/1110 consistently besting him as well. Morgan often said that the best thing that ever happened to his career was KRLA firing Hudson in 1966 ;D ...
 
ronald54321 said:
Rush reminds me of Paul Harvey.
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...bullspit. Limbaugh has nowhere near the imagination or command of the English language that Paul Harvey had, and Harvey never demonised those who disagreed with his politics, which is the very basis of Limbaugh's act...
 
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