He was the only reason I bothered to turn on the radio.
I happened to come across an unusual radio broadcast on a Saturday night about 20 years ago. The normal local program was pre-empted by a live broadcast of the annual awards ceremony for the National Association of Broadcasters. Rush Limbaugh wasn't receiving an award that year but he was one of the special guests at the event.
I was really surprised at the speeches that were given by the individual award recipients that evening. Every one of them -- including some that I remember as notable crazy leftists -- publicly thanked Rush for basically saving AM radio by bringing syndicated talk radio to prominence across the nation to replace the music format that had mostly migrated to the FM dial by the late 1970s.
This man was truly one of those "bigger than life" figures whose impact was felt far beyond even his own enormous audience.