Synthaholic
Diamond Member
- Jul 21, 2010
- 76,100
- 73,598
- 3,605
I know, I know - we've heard it before, but there's no denying the plain truth and the evidence. Sane people, I mean.
I predict he will quit his show in the next year when his contract expires. He will never get big money again, and his ego won't allow him to take any less.
Rush Limbaugh is cooked: The stunning fall of the right’s angriest bloviator
Indianapolis' WIBC is just the latest station to drop him like a bad habit. His days of relevance are numbered
The bad news just keeps coming for conservative talker Rush Limbaugh.
Which bulletin was worse, though? The news in April that he was being dropped by WIBC in Indianapolis, a booming talk powerhouse that played home to Limbaugh’s radio show for more than two decades, or the news this week that the talker’s new address on the Indianapolis dial is going to be WNDE, a ratings doormat AM sports station that has so few listeners it trails the commercial-free classical music outlet in town?
The humbling, red-state tumble is just the latest setback for the conservative talker who has seen his once-golden career suffer a steady series of losses recently.
Divorced from successful, longtime affiliates in places like New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Indianapolis, Limbaugh’s professional trajectory is heading downward. That’s confirmed by the second and third-tier stations he now calls home in those important media markets, and the fact that when his show became available, general managers up and down the dial passed on it. Apparently turned off by the show’s hefty price tag, sagging ratings, and disappearing advertisers, Limbaugh continues to be a very hard sell.
It’s a precipitous fall from the glory days when the host posted huge ratings numbers, had affiliates clamoring to join his network, and dictated Republican politics. All of that seems increasingly distant now. With his comically inflated, $50 million-a-year syndication deal set to expire next year, Limbaugh’s future seems uncertain. “Who would even want someone whose audience is aging and is considered toxic to many advertisers,” askedRadioInsight last month.
For Limbaugh, the troubles were marked by key events from 2012 and 2013. The first came in the form of Limbaugh’s Sandra Fluke implosion, where he castigated and insulted for days the graduate student who testified before Congress about health care and access to contraception, calling her a “slut” and suggesting she post videos of herself having sex on the Internet. The astonishing monologues sparked an unprecedented advertiser exodus.
The following year, as the host struggled to hang on to fleeing sponsors, radio industry giant Cumulus Media decided to negotiate its Limbaugh contract in public, making it clear through the press that the company was willing to cut ties with the pricey host in major cities where Cumulus owned talk radio stations. In the end, Limbaugh stayed with Cumulus stations, but the company sent a clear signal to the industry: Limbaugh was no longer an untouchable and general managers weren’t clamoring to hire him. Since then, the talker’s fortunes have only faded.
Another looming problem? Conservative talk radio is a “format fewer advertisers are interested in buying because of its aging audience,” noted radio consultant and self-identified Republican Darryl Parks. Limbaugh himself recently conceded a generational disconnect: “Now that I’ve outgrown the 25-54 demographic, I’m no longer confident that the way I see the world is the way everybody else does.”
That disconnect may be fueling Limbaugh’s waning political influence. Once a mighty player whose ring was constantly kissed by Republicans, this campaign season seems to be unfolding with Limbaugh on the sidelines, his clout and his ability to drive the conversation seemingly surpassed by other conservative media players.
I predict he will quit his show in the next year when his contract expires. He will never get big money again, and his ego won't allow him to take any less.
Rush Limbaugh is cooked: The stunning fall of the right’s angriest bloviator
Indianapolis' WIBC is just the latest station to drop him like a bad habit. His days of relevance are numbered
The bad news just keeps coming for conservative talker Rush Limbaugh.
Which bulletin was worse, though? The news in April that he was being dropped by WIBC in Indianapolis, a booming talk powerhouse that played home to Limbaugh’s radio show for more than two decades, or the news this week that the talker’s new address on the Indianapolis dial is going to be WNDE, a ratings doormat AM sports station that has so few listeners it trails the commercial-free classical music outlet in town?
The humbling, red-state tumble is just the latest setback for the conservative talker who has seen his once-golden career suffer a steady series of losses recently.
Divorced from successful, longtime affiliates in places like New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Indianapolis, Limbaugh’s professional trajectory is heading downward. That’s confirmed by the second and third-tier stations he now calls home in those important media markets, and the fact that when his show became available, general managers up and down the dial passed on it. Apparently turned off by the show’s hefty price tag, sagging ratings, and disappearing advertisers, Limbaugh continues to be a very hard sell.
It’s a precipitous fall from the glory days when the host posted huge ratings numbers, had affiliates clamoring to join his network, and dictated Republican politics. All of that seems increasingly distant now. With his comically inflated, $50 million-a-year syndication deal set to expire next year, Limbaugh’s future seems uncertain. “Who would even want someone whose audience is aging and is considered toxic to many advertisers,” askedRadioInsight last month.
For Limbaugh, the troubles were marked by key events from 2012 and 2013. The first came in the form of Limbaugh’s Sandra Fluke implosion, where he castigated and insulted for days the graduate student who testified before Congress about health care and access to contraception, calling her a “slut” and suggesting she post videos of herself having sex on the Internet. The astonishing monologues sparked an unprecedented advertiser exodus.
The following year, as the host struggled to hang on to fleeing sponsors, radio industry giant Cumulus Media decided to negotiate its Limbaugh contract in public, making it clear through the press that the company was willing to cut ties with the pricey host in major cities where Cumulus owned talk radio stations. In the end, Limbaugh stayed with Cumulus stations, but the company sent a clear signal to the industry: Limbaugh was no longer an untouchable and general managers weren’t clamoring to hire him. Since then, the talker’s fortunes have only faded.
Another looming problem? Conservative talk radio is a “format fewer advertisers are interested in buying because of its aging audience,” noted radio consultant and self-identified Republican Darryl Parks. Limbaugh himself recently conceded a generational disconnect: “Now that I’ve outgrown the 25-54 demographic, I’m no longer confident that the way I see the world is the way everybody else does.”
That disconnect may be fueling Limbaugh’s waning political influence. Once a mighty player whose ring was constantly kissed by Republicans, this campaign season seems to be unfolding with Limbaugh on the sidelines, his clout and his ability to drive the conversation seemingly surpassed by other conservative media players.
