One of the common refrains in the media world is that Rush Limbaugh has the largest audience in talk radio. He is eager to capitalize on this, multiple times per episode in fact. But how true is this claim?
Limbaugh is one of several radio hosts syndicated through Premiere Radio Networks, including right-wing darlings such as Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck as well as known liberal voices such as Randi Rhodes and the Reverend Jesse Jackson. One of the features for Premiere syndicated shows is a service Premiere On Call, a phone banking service for voice talent. What this means is, they hire people to call in. If you ever listened to one of the shows distributed by Premiere, you may find yourself impressed at how a caller would bring up a subject which then the host would have a perfect response to, like a perfect pitch in a baseball game to allow the home run hit. Premiere On Call’s hiring standards appear to be focused on hiring people able to generate accents, vocal inflections, or other ways to enable re-use of the same voice actor multiple times without being identified as such.
Limbaugh obtained the largest audience during an era when audience count was made by manually filled out diaries, a practice which has been slowly phased out over the past few years, as detailed electronic tracking became available. Once the detailed tracking was available, Rush’s ratings dropped significantly, by over a third. With an estimated weekly audience of 15 million users now, that comes to an average of less than 3,000 listeners per station, not very good ratings at all. For comparison, left-wing giant Ed Schultz on Jones Radio Network sports an estimated 8,000 listeners per station. To get these numbers, we took the totals given from Talkers Magazine and cross-referenced with the number of stations that carry each show. Rush is carried on over 10x as many stations as Big Eddie. Even though Rush’s overall listenership is high, the number per station is low.
Rush’s claims for greatness comes from his large audience, but the large audience is diluted over the sheer number of stations which carry him resulting in actually very little per-station participation. This means lower revenue for the stations themselves, and is very possibly the reason for the mass exodus of advertisers on his show. He gained these stations originally due to an arrangement system whereby these stations were given his show, for free, in exchange for 15 minutes of advertising space. It was a win-win for these small stations, effectively adding filler to the stations airwaves in a non-prime spot.
With the more accurate ratings coming out showing that Limbaugh is only getting 15 million listeners per week, and not the millions more he once proclaimed were his, and the realization that his show is only carried on stations due to the fact that it is free, one has to wonder how big his ratings really are. The Young Turks Cenk Uygur even made a $10,000 bet with Rush to prove his ratings, which has not yet been taken up. $10,000 sure could buy a lot of Oxycontin or even cover the alimony for his four ex-wives.
A slight correction is needed here. El Rushbo hasn’t been free to stations in a couple of decades. Stations pay a large fee to carry the show. The fee is based on market size.
If you go to: http://premiereradio.com/shows/view/premiere_on_call.html , you will find the sub-site (from the “Radio Premiere Network)”Premiere On Call.” It appears that the most damaging link (“click here to request an audition”) has been taken down/redirected. Not much there to investigate. I urge people to bookmark that site, look for it…and follow up…to see just what-the-hell is with this odious service…
I guess SOMEbody flunked grade-school math. There are nowhere near 5000 talk-radio stations in all of America – 1700 is a more accurate number, and Limbaugh is on 600 of them. 15 million divided by 600 is 25,000 – not 3,000. So he’s three times bigger than Big Ed even on a per-station basis, but the per-station number is not how ad prices are calculated, so it’s irrelevant except but for pointing out your stupidity and how much you suck at math.
If you want to be taken seriously, not being a blithering idiot certainly helps.
You might want to research before you open your mouth and insert foot so that you do not make an idiot of yourself like Rush Limbaugh does daily. There are
AM stations – 4790
FM commercial stations – 6479
you can find this information here.
http://www.radiosurvivor.com/2010/03/11/14420-radio-stations-in-the-us/
You might want to research before you open your mouth and insert foot so that you do not make an idiot of yourself like Rush Limbaugh does daily. First he never gives an exact number but claims to be on over 60 stations not just 600. Second you have the total number of stations in the U.S. wrong there are
AM stations – 4790
FM commercial stations – 6479
you can find this information here.
http://www.radiosurvivor.com/2010/03/11/14420-radio-stations-in-the-us/
so please do not quote what you do not know claiming to be the smart one when even your math is wrong.
THE RANT
by
TOM DEGAN
FRIENDS?
DON’T LET FRIENDS VOTE REPUBLICAN!
They’re actually beginning to say it! The amazing thing to me is, they’re
saying it with a face straighter than a two by four!
“We, (the GOP) will take the House of Representatives back from the evil
Democrat party next year!” Note to Michael Steele… it’s the evil Democratic
party, You simmering twit.
They’re hope to regain control of the legislative branch is beyond wishful
thinking. It is delusional! So far removed from the main stream of political
discourse has that party moved since 1964, it is in serious danger of falling
off the face of the earth. As some remarked not long ago, “that’s not a party,
it’s a cult!
In a recent letter written by Michael Moore, He presented an action plan…
“Fifteen Things Americans Can Do Right Now!” When it was published on
AlterNet, I offered a sixteenth thing we can do:
STOP VOTING REPUBLICAN!
I then posted something I wrote on this site over three years ago…
1. They have cut the throats of the poor and the middle class.
2. They have looted our National Treasure.
3. They have abandoned their constituency in favor of a multi-
national corporate behemoth and an out of control military
industrial complex.
4. They have created a global geo-political catastrophe in the
Middle East that will take at least a century to remedy.
5. They have shoveled a generation of American children into
an untenable slaughterhouse in Iraq.
6. They have engendered an economic nightmare so immense
that generations yet unborn will still be bearing it’s burden.