To paraphrase Bob Dylan, Rush Limbaugh is not my cup of meat, but I have to salute him for making the free enterprise system work for him, to the tune of a $400 million contract extension for the next eight years. That’s a pretty dang enormous deal for one guy, comparable only to Howard Stern’s deal for $500 million for five years at Sirius. (Plus, Stern has to pay his show’s labor and production costs out of his own pocket.)
Now, I know a lot of people are scratching their heads over this, since $400 million seems like quite a gamble for Clear Channel to spend at a time when its own revenues are declining, and on a guy with a well-known history of health problems (including deafness and drug addiction) and whose conservative shtick seems to be going against the prevailing political winds. But I think it makes business sense for a few reasons.
First, the coming election results won’t matter a whit to his ability to do what he does best: work up an outrage over politics. He’s dissed both Obama and McCain in the past, so whoever wins, he’ll still get to play the aggrieved victim. Second, the size of his listenership doesn’t really matter. (It’s been estimated at between 14 to 20 million listeners a week on 600 stations; in any case, no other radio personality comes close to his numbers.) For the last 20 years, he’s had a loyal core of "dittoheads" who’ll follow him whether his ideology is in the ascendancy or on the wane. A station that puts Limbaugh on the air figures it can build an entire slate of like-minded talk shows around him, figuring that if his listeners will come for him, they’ll stay for the rest.
What’s important, from an industry standpoint, is Limbaugh’s ability to deliver those listeners to advertisers. In the fascinating profile of Limbaugh that runs this weekend in the New York Times (but is already available online), Limbaugh says that he’s a businessman first, and his priority is to sell airtime. What’s more, the big-ticket sponsors who advertise on his show know it’s a friendly environment for a pro-corporate, consumerist message. "I consider myself a defender of corporate America," Limbaugh tells the Times. In other words, no sponsor ever need worry that its ad will appear alongside a rant about downsizing, pollution, price-gouging, or other corporate bad behavior. (This is also, conversely, one reason why liberal talk radio hasn’t prospered: sponsors are afraid to support what they fear will be a hostile environment for their ads.)
Finally, it’s probably worth it for Clear Channel to pay him an exorbitant sum of money (and to let its competitors know how eager it was to break the bank to satisfy him) than to risk losing him to another radio network when his current contract expires. In fact, maybe the big windfall is a signal to advertisers that Clear Channel (whose radio revenues dropped $30 million in the first quarter of this year) and radio itself are still strong and viable. After all, they can afford to pay this guy $400 million — and he’s just the help.
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I’d love to know who advertises on his show so I can boycott all of them!
If things are shifting to the left (as people have said) then I think that actually plays to Limbaugh. He’ll get to play the part of the lone voice of Conservatism with daily clips of the president to take shots at.
Yet another liberal writer (I won’t even say journalist) trashing someone with conservative views. Problem is IT’S AN ENTERTAINMENT WEBSITE!! When I read or watch something from an entertainment news source, I expect it to not promote a political bias. At least Rush is ranting in the appropriate forum. This is exactly why I don’t subscribe to this magazine anymore or buy it off the newsstand.
The fact that his freak is making so much money makes me sick. He’s disgusting. I understand that people have different beliefs, but some people take it too far.
So… 20,000,000 people listen to him daily. He gets $400 million for the next 8 years. Good thing there’s a voice on the other side, like Air Am… wait, what? Why did they go bankrupt? What? What do you mean no one listened to them? I thought surely the country was full of liberals who hated Dubya and conservatism! I mean, according to Keith Olbermann, we’re all a bunch of bigots, racists, homophobes and narrow minded Christians!
$400 Million?!?!?! Wow! That should buy old Limpballs a whole lot of OxyContin, Viagra and weekends with Dominican cabana boys.
I’ve always thought his loyal listeners were called “Dildoheads”. I still think that’s more fitting.
NOBODY deserves $400 million, especially with today’s economy. NOBODY is worth that. ESPECIALLY this moron.
And yet here you are.
I don’t subscribe to EW or buy it anymore as well (but I will go to their website for free). Their critics and writers are biased, and all they can really do these days is create and promote “lists” ala the “top 10 new video game classics”, etc. What’s next? “the top 10 shoes worn by movie villians?” It’s sad. As for Rush, I do not agree with everything he says, but the simple fact of the matter is that a great deal of America agrees with him on lots of issues, and other celebrities/personalities have been forgiven for far worse behavior than his. Somehow “prescription drug addiction” just seems so tame these days. It is not that corporations are afraid of advertising on liberal stations, it’s just that only a small percentage of the populace wants to listen to the left-wing lunacy, hate, and bile they spew daily, and hence, they are not being put in front of enough listeners. It’s the same reason that Fox News is #1. Deal with it.
WOW D$, I think we are the same person.
That was a good and funny post. The article is dead on. I listen to Rush, he is very entertaining and I do often agree with his views. The part about listeners sticking around when they are looking for Rush and don’t find him is also correct in my case. I now pretty much exclusively listen to AM, FM today is just terrible. Limbaugh’s show single handedly got me hooked on AM radio. He commands a huge audience, and often his listeners are very well-to-do themselves. This obviously makes advertising much more lucrative. I mean, would you advertise for Mercedes on the local Rap station, I think not. They gave Howard Stern $500 million and all he does is talk about the female anatomy. So what is so crazy about Rush getting $400 million when he actually has to produce logical and complex arguments.
Let the liberal media tear this guy apart for making $400 million, it’s just their jealousy of him. Like Olbermann trashing FOX NEWS every single night. Olbermann could never dream of seeing the ratings that FOX enjoys. Like I heard on CNN today, he is the closest thing to a national broadcaster. No one comes close to his audience size in any medium.
“realpatriot Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 03:04 PM EST
I’d love to know who advertises on his show so I can boycott all of them!”
Typical liberal. Has never listened to the show, but HATES Rush !
You just admitted your total stupidity.
If you listened to Rush’s show 2 things would happen. #1: you might learn something other than total bigotry. #2 you’d find out the advertisers are there because of the millions of intelligent, loyal listeners who make decisions based on information, not venomous hate speech that I heard on Air America-Please don’t call yourself a “realpatriot” you don’t believe in free speech!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! right on dude!
no, he ain’t worth it. i’m a repub but i can’t stand all those far right conservatives. i’m more middle of road which is where i think most people are or that’s the direction they’re heading. in any event, mostly rush likes to listen to himself talk & likes to hear his audience tell him how wonderful he is. BORING! hanity is boring too. i wouldn’t pay either of them. & again, i’m a repub. perhaps i’m a closet dem!
I think he’s getting paid from other sources besides his employer. Oil companies and defense contractors have an interest in keeping him on the air.
He’s still on the air? Wow! Well I suppose anything is possible in a country where 50% of the voters are idiots.
I’m neither a radio broadcast professional, nor a daily dittohead listener to Rush Limbaugh, but I’m smart enough to recognize talent. Rush displays a level of talent and analytical skills few (if any) current news personalities can match. Heck, most CEOs would give anything to have even a fraction of his intelligence, business sense, and people skills. That said, I’ve heard him on many occasions swiftly distill otherwise complex issues within the arena of politics. Anyhow, being in the line of business that I’m in, and listening to Rush for a few years, I dare say he’s underpaid for his contributions. But I still disagree with most of his Anti-Global warning banter (but love his assessment of AlGore.)
Just my $0.02
Clear Channel is getting huge amounts of money from oil companies and defense contractors to keep him on the air. They are footing the bill for this huge contract. My opinion.
MD, I’m glad I’m drinking different kool-aid than you. I feel all he does is cause dissension among people that probably have more in common than not. To me, he’s just a hate monger that profits from peoples basic instincts and has not evolved to the present century.
His message: Lefties and Liberals are unpatriotic, inhuman and should be eliminated.
So much for right to life.
He’s set the standard: hate radio!
Incredible! As our revenues build, I am pouring even more than this starter salary of $400m into Rush and others who articulate the correct and American position! Our country is great! Rush knows he’s valuable, others are learning that they can love themselves as well. Its only a matter of time until we’re all united in this country, then we have an even better America! 20 million listeners is just the start…
If Rush Limbaugh didn’t have such a huge audience, he wouldn’t get paid anything.
He has a huge audience because people enjoy his show.
Advertisers on his show get so much web traffic that even a mention shuts down their servers, on many occasions.
His ebay auction earned more money for charity than any other ebay event.
Every year he has a fund raising event for the children of fallen law enforcement officers, and every year it raises more money.
His audience is growing.
He has earned and deserves every penny.
rush limbaugh- no one has ever perfected the art of propaganda like this man since adolf hitler. This man is the most vile human in America. The fact that this man hides behind the flag and the notion that he is some kind of patriot sickens me to near nausea. No one has ever done so much to drive a wedge between Americans than rush limbaugh. This putrid excuse for a man has completely forgot or just doesn’t belive in the words, “together we stand, divided we fall”, as he postures himself to look like some type of every man hero to the working man when in all reality he is a vital player in the game of fooling the working class for the benifit of the super rich and powerful. His is the rhetoric of hatred and fear, good for nothing other than decieving the purposely undereducated, average working class american, because after all the easiest people to govern are the ignorant and the fearful. I for one see this “man” as nothing more than the deceitful and ruthless traitor that he is.
He’s a patriot to money, not the country!
I don’t know why anyone would pay the most vile man on the airwaves that much money. I think that they need their heads examined. If you took a poll of like or dislike Rush the dislikes would win by a land slide. What gossip does he have on someone to get that much money? I wonder
Way to go Rush! Now we know how much it cost to get someone to tell the truth. This man has more origional thoughts in 5 minutes than Tom Brokaw Peter Jennings had in their entire Careers. I hope everyone of you liberal whiners thinks about his success everyday the rest of your lives.
The number of “listeners” to Limbaugh is greatly exaggerated. They are calculated by taking the number of stations that air his show and multiplying it by a fraction of that local population with no real scientific basis for the number. The fact is that Premiere Radio which is owned by Clear Channel is a bastian of Republicans. If you check the FEC website, you’ll find that the exec’s over at Clear Channel are among the biggest contributors to the Republican party each year. Limbaugh is a Republican party info-mercial that should be regulated by the FTC and FCC.
So anyone who demands to boycott the advertisers without listening to the show is a liberal? What about all those conservative family groups that boycott advertisers of television programs deemed racy without having seen an episode? Sorry but it goes both ways.
2 words — FLUSH RUSH
He should have to pay to use the airwaves since he’s not worth a penny. He’s a vile dispicable human being.