Limbaugh inks another long-term deal with iHeartMedia.
Under the circumstances – the NARN hasn’t quite put me in a position to make a run for Limbaugh’s gig – the timing actually works out well.
26 thoughts on “As It Happens, Ideal”
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How funny!! I just linked the same in the post below and DG’s well researched comment to it.
Once you take over for Limbaugh, I call dibs on the Mr. Snerdley bit.
Undoubtedly the deal is for MUCH less than the one he did in 2008. I don’t “blame” Limbaugh, he’s the same, but the landscape and profitability of his kind of programming has changed. IHeart in fact is struggling to turn sufficient profits (as DG advised you Scott), and so affording $1B or whatever it was the Bloated One wanted was likely not in the budget. Now, Scott, I understand that you may disagree with DG, but there is NO dispute that Clear Channel’s stock has plummeted since Bain Capital took it over.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/04/12/rush-limbaugh-facing-big-pay-cut/209876
So, while MediaMatters is wrong about whether Limbaugh would be re-signed, but pretty clearly the company has struggles and the Limbaugh deal from 2008 seems to have not panned out so well (to whit the stock price), so, we’ll see if re-signing Limbaugh works out this time. His ratings have been dead for 4 years (only ticking up now that the election cycle started again and after all, Limbaugh HATES Hilary Clinton. He talks like he’d shoot her if he got the chance, and certainly wouldn’t be disappointed if it happened – so yes, hate speech works for ratings when the audience is prone to hate and boy do they and he, hate her).
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/is-rush-limbaugh-in-trouble-talk-radio-213914
So Scott, what exactly was DG wrong about? Was it that ClearChannel is flailing around? Was it wrong that their stock prices have tanked? Was it wrong that Limbaugh’s ratings have SUCKED and the 2008 deal was a bust? No, those were all right. If she said that ClearChannel wouldn’t resign Limbaugh, ok, I’ll give you that but that’s hardly the story. The real story is that Limbaugh is a falling star with a failing message.
Pffffft. 1. Doesn’t change that he’s continually going to smaller stations. 2. doesn’t state he’s making anything like the big bucks he made before. That’s a steady decline if not outright failure. The man lacks sponsors, and as you well know, THAT is what drives radio.
YOU were the one writing about Limbaugh retiring, not me.
Wanted to let you know however that I contacted Cory Zurowski to inquire about the number of people of color and women (including interns) at City Pages. He might respond to you directly, or he will hopefully give me an answer.
You’re no Limbaugh, but it would be nice to see you have a paying gig on the air. Whatever differences over politics, I think you are talented in having a good voice, and being quick witted, and having an amazing gift of charm. Love you every bit as much as I disagree with you darlin’!
iHeart is a mess; they overleveraged themselves in the mid-2000s to buy a huge number of stations, back before the bottom fell out of advertising. They bought a lot of music stations, especially in major and mid-sized markets, that are huge financial drags.
And the fact is, there’s less ad revenue for everyone. I’m sure he’s not making $50M a year anymore. But I’m also pretty sure he’s still making a pretty spectacular living.
And…:
His ratings have been dead for 4 years (only ticking up now that the election cycle started again and after all,
His ratings have plateaued – but are still generally excellent. Look – after thirty years, there’s going to be a plateau. Nobody grows their numbers forever.
And they tick up every election cycle. All talk radio (or at least all conservative talk radio) does.
Every broadcaster in the country would love Limbaugh’s numbers – ratings OR revenue – even if they’ve plateaued.
Limbaugh HATES Hilary Clinton. He talks like he’d shoot her if he got the chance,
Please provide an audio cite supporting this.
I don’t think it exists. Limbaugh doesn’t “hate” Hillary – she’s an endless fount of material. He doesn’t think she’s fit to govern this country, and any objective review of the evidence shows he’s right.
Was it wrong that Limbaugh’s ratings have SUCKED
Yes. Absolutely.
Was it wrong that their stock prices have tanked?
No, but it has nothing to do with Limbaugh. Sports and conservative talk – Rush, Hannity, Beck and the like – are what’s keeping iHM afloat.
and certainly wouldn’t be disappointed if it happened
1. Except he’s really not. There’s always churn in the business. And in an online era, raw wattage isn’t nearly as important as it used to be. Quite a few station groups (collections of stations in a market) flip their biggest stations to the sports format, which is both a money-maker AND benefits more from bigger broadcast areas than conservative talk does. So a lot of Limbaugh’s old 50kW stations are now sports, while he’s on 5kW stations – which still cover the metro area (where the actual people are) perfectly adequately. And since Rush is on so many stations, being on a bunch of 50kW blowtorches really doesn’t matter like it used to.
Wattage is less important than “ears reached”. Limbaugh reaches no fewer ears than he did twenty years ago.
2. Of course he’s not. NOBODY is.
3. His sponsor list is contracting. So is nearly everyone else’s. Again – every broadcaster in the country would LOVE his numbers and his revenue.
I’ll await hearing from Zurowski. I suspect I’ll be a-waiting a long time.
Thanks!
MediaMatters??
Really? Did you really just link to Media Matters, peevee?
I’m reaching my digital palm through your computer screen and back handing you, you ignorant, Nazi collaborator supporting git.
The real story is that Limbaugh is a falling star with a failing message.
Is that what Ed Shultz is saying?
Doh…
Looks like…
Guess not.
As the ball dropped in As “As the ball dropped in Times Square, the city’s last progressive talk radio station went silent WWRL bade farewell to veteran hosts Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann, Randi Rhodes, and Alan Colmes, extending a coast-to-coast wave of progressive stations sinking in a sea of listener apathy— especially in big liberal cities.”
“The same day, Clear Channel’s KTLK, the last liberal-dominated talk station in Los Angeles, the nation’s No 2 market, flipped Rhodes, Stephanie Miller, Bill Press, and David Cruz for conservative talkers Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity.”
“The company’s KNEW in San Francisco did the same, booting liberal voices for more conservative ones. And talk stations in Portland, Ore., and Seattle, Wash., said goodbye to their liberal formats and picked up sports programming.”
Smacking ignorant leftists to the floor is a labor of love for me.
The conversation has me thinking of a possible comparison of Clear Channel’s (iHeart) situation as compared to that of……….Air America. Does anyone think that CC will be facing Chapter 11 or 7 any time in the near future. My guess is that Rush’s annual earnings are far greater than those of Senator Franken, or any of the others that made up the AA “talent” pool.
Al Franken found out there was a limit to how much you could defraud Boys’s and Girls’ clubs for, so he went to where the real bucks can be found.
And talk stations in Portland, Ore., and Seattle, Wash., said goodbye to their liberal formats and picked up sports programming.”
Ten years ago, KFI in Portland was the most successful Air America affiliate; it actually showed up in the numbers.
Just to amplify Swiftee’s point:
Leave out spin-machines like Media Matters for a moment; they’re out to slam conservatives first, bother with accuracy later, maybe.
Even regular journos have a very hard time covering radio, especially ratings and revenues; they’ve gotten a lot more complicated even since I started doing the NARN, to say nothing of when I started in the bigs in ’85 or in the business in ’79. Few journos ever really know how it works; David Brauer and James Lileks are among the very very few who actually can convey the complexity capably.
Fact is, radio is a much tougher business than it used to be. But sports, ethnic (especially Spanish) formats and conservative talk are decaying much less rapidly, and adapting to the new world much more capably, than music radio; most music stations are glorified iPods connected to transmitters 18-24 hours a day.
(Citing MediaMatters? You are actively disinforming yourself and everyone around you).
Thom Hartmann was the #1 spokes twit for the left….HE is being shuttled to shitty little stations like “Minnesota’s progressive radio”, and hanging on by his podcasts.
Not that dogs poorly spelled, syntax free, idiot babbling is any measure, but the tumbleweeds blowing through her dank little corner of the interwebs are the perfect metaphor for liberal talk shows. Liberal opinions are crap, no one wants to listen to them and no one wants to read them.
Those are the cold, hard FACTS.
Interesting factoid: the two most “successful” liberal radio shrieking heads, Fast Eddie Schultz and Thom Harthmon, are both working for RT – Vladimir Putin’s western PR operation.
In this concrete walled building I can’t pickup the AM side of KTLK over the air. But my iHeart media connection through the internet works just fine. So the wattage of the station doesn’t effect my listening to Limbaugh at all.
They’ll fit right in.
I personally prefer Prager to Limbaugh, more reason based.
POD: You’re right about Prager being more measured and philosophical in his comments – but Limbaught moves the needle against liberalism. THAT is why he is the top of the heap. Mitch’s observation is right. You cannot grow exponentially ad infinitum. You plateau. Still – there isn’t a radio host out there who wouldn’t take Limbaugh’s numbers.
there isn’t a radio host out there who wouldn’t take Limbaugh’s numbers.
Not even from his dead cold hands.
Oh I agree. I listened to him for years before finding Prager. First found him back in 2003 when I was a Michael Savage disciple. I’ve… moderated a bit over the last decade,
Bless their hearts, when Rushbo retires in 4 years or 8 years or whenever, DG & Penny (lil’ darlin’s) can finally say they got their man. We have a candidate that is trumpeting the idea of curtailing if not eliminating the 1st amendment based on whether or not she approves of your corporation. Oh yes, you’ll have to have a corporation to speak.
With the long sordid history of the Democrats and their elimination of Civil Rights from their Jim Crow South to their inventing Gun Control laws to restrict blacks from having guns (to defend themselves from the KKK – the Democrats first door knockers) to their more recent RICO’ing of persons who aren’t true believers in their global warmening cult; it’s not a stretch to believe that Hillary “Nixon in a Pantsuit” Clinton is that far from gulaging the opposition.
Maybe I can throw Penny’s name around the concentration camp. It’s likely the Commandant will be a neighbor of his.
Seflores on August 2, 2016 at 3:52 pm said:
Bless their hearts, when Rushbo retires in 4 years or 8 years or whenever, DG & Penny (lil’ darlin’s) can finally say they got their man.
You don’t understand the modern left. They don’t want Limbaugh to retire, they want him to die.
“They don’t want Limbaugh to retire, they want him to die.”
BG – I have no doubt about that. They only praise Republicans like Reagan, Eisenhower and Lincoln. Common theme here? All dead.
The Democrat Party / Left is a death cult. Remember their reaction to the death of Tony Snow?
I can’t do Limbaugh. Drives me nuts trying to listen to him. Not that I disagree, but he brings relatively little to the table that I don’t already know, so it’s boring. And the style just isn’t there. Too many “dittoheads” that add too little to the conversation.
I like Prager for his commentary and delivery, and he actually does bring new things to the table.
I like Hugh’s style, energy, and interviews, but he’s a pure GOP voice much more than a conservative one. If you want to know what the GOP’s thinking, he’s your man.
Not that I have much time for any of them, you understand. But I will make the effort to check out Prager and Hewitt if I happen to be in the car and under coverage and don’t have something better to listen to.
Every now and then I enjoy the Mark Levin radio show.