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Limbaugh's Audience Size? It's Largely Up in the Air (when every other attack fails..)
WaPo ^ | Mar 07, 2009 | Paul Farhi

Posted on 03/07/2009 2:35:05 PM PST by libh8er

How many people actually listen to Rush Limbaugh, the radio talk titan White House officials have spent the past week characterizing as "the head of the Republican Party"?

According to what Limbaugh delights in calling "the drive-by media," the number varies wildly. Is it 30 million (Pat Buchanan on MSNBC), 20 million (Time magazine, ABC News), 19 million (Fox News), 14 million (CNN), or "14.2 million to about 25 million" (The Washington Post)?

Answer: Maybe.

Limbaugh is widely acknowledged to be the most popular talk-radio host, as evidenced by the record $400 million, eight-year contract he signed with his syndicator last July. But estimates of Limbaugh's nationwide (and overseas) audience are exercises in guesswork, slippery methodology and suspect data. Limbaugh himself has muddied the water with the claim that he reaches 20 million people a week, although there's no independent support for that figure.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Politics
KEYWORDS: limabugh; wapo
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To: outofstyle
“estimates as to the readership of the Washington Post are exercises in nano statististics”

You give them too much credit.

21 posted on 03/07/2009 2:48:35 PM PST by JSteff (It was ALL about SCOTUS. Most forget about that and HAVE DOOMED us for a generation or more.)
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To: ZirconEncrustedTweezers

Sit around the dinner table and you have a bigger audience than MSNBC.


22 posted on 03/07/2009 2:48:37 PM PST by steve8714 (Drill for oil, drill for gas, drill to heat water in the Earth.)
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To: libh8er

Yeah, he earns $50,000,000 dollars a year because nobody can figure out how many people listen to him. Except for his advertisers.


23 posted on 03/07/2009 2:49:00 PM PST by DouglasKC
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To: InterceptPoint

20 million individuals tuning into the show at some point during the week. It also includes folks like me who absorb every syllable coming out of his mouth and into the Golden EIB mic and finally out of my iPod..


24 posted on 03/07/2009 2:49:02 PM PST by libh8er
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To: libh8er

20 Million here in Texas alone!


25 posted on 03/07/2009 2:50:04 PM PST by Redbob (W.W.J.B.D.: "What Would Jack Bauer Do?")
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To: Star Traveler
If you want to listen to Rush (I can't really tell if you don't like him or not) be a 24/7 member. The podcasts run about 38 minutes per segment (3 per show).

Or, you can listen by the hour with no interruptions at his site.

26 posted on 03/07/2009 2:50:41 PM PST by synbad600
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To: synbad600

Rush is on now here. http://radiotime.com/station/s_28771/WFLA_970.aspx


27 posted on 03/07/2009 2:51:45 PM PST by anglian
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To: libh8er

Anything is bigger than audience numbers over at MSNBC.


28 posted on 03/07/2009 2:53:10 PM PST by OpusatFR (We can give up any pretense of having a government for and by the people after Coronation Day.)
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To: Star Traveler

One good thing about radio is that it gives you the freedom to do other things as you listen.


29 posted on 03/07/2009 2:53:12 PM PST by LucyJo
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To: libh8er
Paul Farhi


30 posted on 03/07/2009 2:53:43 PM PST by libh8er
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To: libh8er

Add to this all of the other conservative talk radio hosts that exist before, during, and after Rush’s show, including overnight hosts and weekend hosts, and this is a huge chunk of people that listen to conservative talk radio. Really getting rid of “everything non-leftist” will be seriously overreaching, and it will severely backfire for the left, even if it’s not so obvious so quickly after it’s officially done by the left.


31 posted on 03/07/2009 2:54:56 PM PST by johnthebaptistmoore (Conservatives obey the rules. Leftists cheat. Who probably has the political advantage?)
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To: libh8er

And MSNBC reaches 237 per night. Rush beats them without getting out of bed.


32 posted on 03/07/2009 2:55:13 PM PST by RetiredArmy (Destruction of the US Economy: Obama's Global War on Prosperity!!!)
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To: anglian

Thank you!
Now listening while Freeping!


33 posted on 03/07/2009 2:55:17 PM PST by Redbob (W.W.J.B.D.: "What Would Jack Bauer Do?")
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To: synbad600

Well, the basic message that he gets across is okay; it’s just that it takes too long to get it across (for me, anyway). It’s way too time-consuming, so that’s my personal major complaint.

And, if I were going to listen to him, then it would be by some method like podcasts, because I would have to pick the time for me to listen. And I would rarely ever listen to a program every day. It’s more likely for me to listen in a group, all at once, maybe once every two or three weeks and skip through it, for what I don’t want to hear. That’s the way I like to listen — so a lot of the stuff would be “lost” to me, because it might be “time-limited” and listening to it two or three weeks later wouldn’t be the same.

I do listen to radio shows, but they’re more along the lines of Christian ministry programs and/or preachers. And, for them, I will listen just exactly the way I was mentioning above.

Furthermore, I do prefer “written material” for getting information across to people, because you can scan the pages very quickly and skip the stuff you don’t want to go over, and stop and look more carefully at other stuff.

And you can speed read it, in any case. That makes a transcript of the show much more desirable than the actual show itself (per Rush...). I just want certain “information” and not a lot of time spent getting it.

I know what the show is accomplishing (in that they paid him so much money) is that they need an audience for a specified period of time, so they can sell advertising. Well, I’m not personally interested in the advertising (although that’s what they’ve gotta do..., but I don’t have to cooperate... LOL...). I just want to get down to the facts in a hurry, and a transcript can do that.


34 posted on 03/07/2009 2:57:18 PM PST by Star Traveler
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To: anglian

Thanks! :o)


35 posted on 03/07/2009 2:59:06 PM PST by Ladysmith (The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money, -. M. Thatcher)
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To: worst-case scenario
What IS his audience size? Does it matter?

WaPo's own figures say 25 muillion, but no-- in the end it doesn't matter --he's the 800 pound gorilla regardless, and all the urine-soaked liberal underwear in the capital won't change that.

36 posted on 03/07/2009 2:59:36 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: libh8er

Here’s how radio audiences are measured, like how TV audiences are measured.

TV has Nielson....

Radio has Arbitron....

If this dumb*ss WaPo reporter was fact checking for $h*t, he wouldn’t even get a smell....


37 posted on 03/07/2009 3:00:31 PM PST by dirtbiker (Obama is America's first Affirmative Action president....)
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To: libh8er

Let’s count the number of people who have heard of journalist Paul Fahrsi.


38 posted on 03/07/2009 3:01:33 PM PST by popdonnelly (It's fair to ask: did the voters elect a nut?)
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To: synbad600

Okay, I just checked over there and see that they want $50 for a year of the 24/7 membership. Ummm..., sorry..., I’ll try the podcasts and maybe look at his transcripts — but not pay $50.... :-)

I won’t “keep a schedule” with any radio program or TV show. I record shows and watch them whenever I want. I could record the program live (on my computer) and then go back and listen to it later, but if the program won’t provide that for me, for free (like a lot of program I listen to, do...) then I don’t want to work at that myself.

So, it looks like I’ll just listen to what others are saying about Rush’s programs...


39 posted on 03/07/2009 3:02:31 PM PST by Star Traveler
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To: popdonnelly

He so obscure, I didn’t get his name right.


40 posted on 03/07/2009 3:02:59 PM PST by popdonnelly (It's fair to ask: did the voters elect a nut?)
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