She wanted to be famous but got infamy. Rush was right...again
Posted on 05/28/2015 6:08:43 AM PDT by raccoonradio
After news broke about the Rush Limbaugh Show getting kicked to the curb by WRKO-AM in Boston, Nielsen radio market #10, I received about a dozen emails asking when I was going to comment. So, here goes.
First, understand the “business of business is business” and the “business of money is money.” And it’s money not a station’s Nielsen ratings that will ultimately determine your success or failure as a personality. For most of us, revenue and ratings are connected. But, that’s not true for everyone.
After Rush Limbaugh stepped over the line with his Sandra Fluke comments a few years ago, his mistake being an old man verbally abusing a young woman, which in our society is never acceptable, liberal bloggers and media sites made note of the dozens and dozens of advertisers who canceled advertising in his show. Somewhat true, in an indirect way. But the real story, almost always left out by liberal bloggers, is most of the advertisers who supposedly canceled never advertised in his show. His show has always been filled with non-traditional, non-mainstream advertisers, advertisers who buy into the Rush Limbaugh brand to focus on his niche ditto head audience. And there’s nothing wrong with this because many ditto heads are affluent. Many have the bucks to buy gold coins in event the economy goes to crap because of Obama and besides they want to “take our country back.” No one is really sure who took the country or where it’s gone, but they want it back! I saw the hand-painted bed sheet hanging from a bridge in Northern Kentucky a few weeks ago. I know they’re serious.
Limbaugh’s Sandra Fluke comments were the cause, indirectly, of the Wall Street Journal Radio Network being shuttered. Because of no placement demands from advertisers, commercials from other radio networks could not be broadcast locally during Limbaugh’s show and some of those other radio networks, like the Wall Street Journal Radio Network, lost – in the weeks immediately after his Fluke comments – almost 40% of its revenue. I am told Fox News Radio lost about the same.
Today, talk radio stations are considered “toxic” or “non-toxic.” If a station broadcasts Limbaugh or other shows like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck they are deemed “toxic.” If a station does not broadcast those conservative talk shows they are considered “non-toxic.” National advertisers buy, via radio networks and agencies, mostly “non-toxic” stations. When I first heard about this “toxic” and “non-toxic” nonsense I thought it was a joke. But, it wasn’t. And since most news/talk stations broadcast Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck and other programs like Michael Savage’s The Savage Nation, there are few “non-toxic” news/talk stations for advertisers to buy and that’s not good for the format.
Following so far?
But, Limbaugh’s business model, in comparison to most other syndicated talk shows, is somewhat unique and this is where those beating the drum about advertisers canceling commercials on liberal blogs are missing the point.
The Rush Limbaugh Show is fee based, meaning stations pay the show’s syndicator, Premiere Networks, a rights fee based on market size, plus provide barter commercial time to broadcast the program. Limbaugh’s show reserves at least 5 minutes of barter commercial time each hour with stations agreeing to broadcast those network commercials sold by the syndicator.
Mr. Limbaugh, sir. I regret to inform you Indianapolis and Boston no longer desire your services. Maybe if we deflate some footballs people will listen?
Boston’s WRKO-AM is paying around $500,000 each year in rights fees. They also provide approximately 3900 barter commercial minutes annually, which if valued at just $150 per :60 seconds is another $585,000 in cash they’re giving up. And there’s the Rush Limbaugh Morning Update, which tacks on another 780 minutes annually for another $117,000 in commercial time. All in Limbaugh’s show is costing WRKO-AM around $1.2 million dollars annually. Now consider all those advertisers, nationally and locally in the Boston market, that have no placement demands because his show is considered “toxic” and you quickly discover the financial reason WRKO-AM is declaring, “No Mas! No Mas!”
There was a time when Limbaugh’s show could make or break a news/talk station. There were short-sighted stations that foolishly called themselves “Rush Radio.” There was a time when paying Limbaugh’s huge rights fee was the cost of doing business in the news/talk format. But, no more. Not with terrestrial AM radio, its declining revenue environment and his declining ratings.
Minneapolis pays around $300,000. Tampa pays approximately $250,000 in rights fees. WIBC-FM, which also announced they were canceling his program is paying around $150,000 in cash to broadcast his show. He’s got around 600 radio stations. Do the math. Much of the business of the Rush Limbaugh Show is not in advertising revenue from commercials, but in rights fees.
WRKO-AM is owned by Entercom and WIBC-FM is owned by Emmis.
Clear Channel Media + Entertainment iHeart Media produces the Rush Limbaugh Show through its radio network, Premiere Networks. It requires most of its company owned news/talk stations to broadcast the show, pay the rights fee and give up barter commercials. See how the show is less dependent on commercials for survival and more dependent on guaranteed rights fees? There’s little chance Rush’s poor ratings today or tomorrow will change anything, because the money flows from its stations to the network to Limbaugh through a process called (corporate speak) “vertical integration.” Production and distribution is in one tidy package and distribution is all but assured.
Two more markets have canceled Rush and while we’re told “exciting news” on new radio homes is forthcoming, nothing is being said and weeks have gone by for an Indianapolis station to volunteer.
I was quoted in the New York Daily News this week. The article from David Hinckley talks about Limbaugh’s $400 million contract being up in 2016. Hinckley opines in his article, “Given Limbaugh’s prominence, his next deal could say a lot about both his status and the state of conservative talk radio.”
While his paycheck may be smaller in the coming years, as long as co-owned stations are forced to pay his rights fee, ditto heads will be happy to know he’ll be around for a while…unless he too yells, “No Mas. No Mas.”
I bet he has special, long-stemmed fart snifter wine glasses.
I have often wondered why Rush doesn’t stream his own radio program for free and sell advertising directly on that stream. It sounds like the advertisers aren’t as plentiful as we thought?
Thanks for the background information and 'inside baseball' financial details on the talk radio biz (and not excerpting!). Our culture has dramatically changed for the worse, and as you point out, advertisers are heavily influenced by our very liberal culture, even if we wish it were not so. Rush has a huge following of listeners but the advertisers may be shrinking due to their own weak knees.
Darryl, I always enjoyed listening to you while driving on various Saturday mornings over the years. Is Sensible Don still with us?
Where in northern New Hampshire do we tune in for Rush Limbaugh—preferably FM, as AM can be "crackly" during the summer?
Not only podcasts but how about this: Boston’s Howie Carr does offer podcasts for a fee but also there’s a phone number people can call anytime to hear a stream of the show. Those whose smart phones have unlimited minutes can thus hear the show and not worry about data costs for streaming.
There have been worse. I remember a certain personality who said something “knappy headed......”
This Fluke thing is old news. There’s always somebody somewhere offended by what the right thinks. It is their nature.
Despite his devolution into the things he loves to talk about most (i.e, football, golf and deflate gate) he still is crying all the way to the bank.
If there is any loss of listeners it is because he is deviating away from the core reason most people listen. Advertisers? They come and go. And when a station somewhere drops him because they can’t fit his fee structure into a profit model that is comprised of multiple aspects, there is always another hungrier station ready to sign on.
“Not with terrestrial AM radio, its declining revenue environment...”
Just hinted at here, not taken far enough. Not just terrestrial AM radio, ALL terrestrial radio in decline. By 2016 how much potential audience is left, regardless of the host or format? Will he go satellite, streaming, create something new, or just be tired of it and hang it up?
Well according to Rush’s own site:
Laconia WEMJ-AM 1490 M-F 12p3p
New London WNTK-FM 99.7 M-F 12p3p
If you’re up toward N Conway etc you might be able to get him on these Maine stations
Augusta WVQM-FM 101.3 M-F 12p-3p
Howland WVOM-FM 103.9 M-F 12p3p
I know once I was up around there and got Howie Carr fairly well on the Augusta station.
Personally I also blame the fact that most marketing departments are overrun with Millenial females with degrees from Liberal universities, who are heavily influenced by social media, and hence always raising the alarm to their bosses that Rush could kill their business.
And I bet that Darryl could tell us quite a few stories that completely affirms this!
“his mistake being an old man verbally abusing a young woman, which in our society is never acceptable,”
Bill Clinton, please pick up the courtesy phone.
I don’t get a chance to listen to Rush much anymore, but when I do, he doesn’t seem to have the passion he once had. Free Republic is now on the cutting edge of societal evolution, not Rush.
Economics 101: Rush is starting to price himself out of the market.
H.L. Mencken might have been as famous in his day as Limbaugh is now. Father Charles Coughlin had a radio audience of millions for his political views. Generations change, and so does the mass media they prefer, as well as the way they think of that mass media. The leftist cultural juggernaut goes on.
She wanted to be famous but got infamy. Rush was right...again
From radioinsight.com:
>>When Emmis’ 93.1 WIBC Indianapolis announced its plans to drop Limbaugh this coming July 3, Premiere Radio Networks issued a statement stating “We look forward to announcing a new home for ‘The Rush Limbaugh Show’ in Indianapolis soon.” Over six weeks have passed and there has been no word on where Limbaugh will land in Indianapolis.
Read More At: http://radioinsight.com/blog/headlines/93120/wmex-passes-on-rush-limbaugh-in-boston-will-anybody-take-him/
“Libtard fantasies. Delusions.”
And obsessed about sex.
W-o-w. It couldn’t just be that no listens to WRKO anymore and they are cutting everything off. They offed Howie Carr earlier this year. Sandra Fluke my ass.
She was an activist with money wanting folks to pay for her $1 condoms. She was not a proper lady by any stretch of the imagination.
Rush has tens of people doing what is described here in the article using computers to seem like tens of thousands.
Rush is handling it well, but the question is when do we take our millions and go use software to look even bigger and BREAK OUR DESERVED TARGETS?
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