Best, most accurate article about this yet:
Rush Limbaughs Long, Slow March to Irrelevance
Dont listen to the headlinesRush Limbaughs talk-radio supremacy aint over just yet. But its long been clear that his glory days are behind him. John Avlon on the final days of toxic right-wing talk.
Fox News presented an hourlong Rush Limbaugh infomercial on Greta Van Susterens show Tuesday night, allowing the embattled talk-radio giant to offer up
uncontested howlers like this: I get more grief than the al Qaeda gets. And this: I dont see any pushback [by the GOP] against anything Obama wants to do. And finally this: "I can't remember a time when its been more partisan, more divisive and getting worseand being done on purpose.
While Greta also found time to ask Rushs opinion about the Zimmerman verdict (he pronounced it uplifting), no questions were asked about the big story that has Limbaugh in limbo: a Sunday-night report by
Dylan Byers at Politico that suggested Rush and his right-wing talk colleague Sean Hannity are on the verge of being dropped by Cumulus radio.
The report follows months of complaints by Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey about the impact of an advertiser boycott of Rush enacted after he called birth-control advocate Sandra Fluke a slut back in early 2012a drought that has resulted in some $2.4 million in associated losses over the first quarter of 2013 alone as
The Daily Beast reported in May. Combine those losses with the high cost of running Rushhis last contract, an eight-year deal inked in 2008, had a $400 million price tagand an aging fan base of white men and at best youve got a recipe for renegotiations. At worst: ejection.
But while Rushs toxic formula of right-wing talk radio is surely dying, that doesnt mean rigor mortis has set in. Headlines blaring the demise of Limbaugh and Hannity are jumping the gun, according to interviews with multiple radio analysts.
My personal prediction, based upon what I know of the industry, is that its going to happen, says Michael Harrison, publisher of
Talkers magazine. But I would never call you or call Politico or write in
Talkers that its a fait accompli, because its not. Harrison points out that Limbaugh and Hannity technically work for the radio conglomerate Clear Channel; their shows are syndicated to Cumulus stations. Cumulus is basically sayingif in fact its true that theyre going to do thisthat they dont want to be in the business of selling that type of controversial political talk, he says.
Meanwhile, Limbaugh is sending his own public signals, and he has still some bargaining chips left. What you have here is public negotiation, says Jerry Del Colliano, publisher of the radio-industry tip sheet
Inside Music Media. Limbaugh is telling everybody, I'm not going anywhere, and I love that comment because he's right. He isn't going anywhere. [Dickey] is playing a real dangerous game. If you take the replacement characters for Cumuluswho they have left without Sean and Rushyou've got Geraldo, you've got Huckabee, and Michael I Hope You Die of AIDS Savage. And do you know that those three replacements do not do anywhere near $4 million a year in revenue nationally, on all their stations? If [Dickey] doesn't do a deal, Del Colliano says, he could just exit the talk game altogether, and then flip to sports.
*snip*
